Home again
Sep. 9th, 2007 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jcfialaAh, another relaxing Sunday.
My trip to Fortuna, Califonia went really well. We did have a bonfire on the beach, and it was really cool - it wasn't much of a bathing beach, and there weren't any waves - we were in some sort of river as it dumps and mixes with the ocean, so there wasn't really any wave activity where we were. Very quiet - sitting back, watching the sun go down, surrounded by the sun-bleached fossils of redwoods which used to be floated down that river after they were cut to be collected and harvested. Mostly big, intertwined roots that had been bleached white and wind-carved into smooth shapes - they really looked more like gigantic fossil skulls of unknown beasts. Very pretty, and then the stars came out - there's not a lot of light pollution around there, lots of farms and salt marshes - so the stars were as clear as they used to be back home, when where I lived was miles away from any store or streetlights.
The next day we went up the coast, stopping in Trinidad and admiring the beach, the boats, and the surf. It's also where we stopped for lunch at this seafood place - some very nice clam chowder, too, although I think I should have gotten the bowl and not the cup. We also got to watch boats being hauled out of the bay and onto trailers, as folks got busy putting them away before the storms. It was interesting watching the boats being pulled up on a cradle attached to a rail car, and then lifted up into the air in slings before being deposited onto their trailers to rest for the winter. After that it was further north, to a neat redwood park where apparently they filmed the speeder chases in Return of the Jedi. They've got this huge stone called Wedding rock that you can walk down to and over, and on the other side you can sit on the rocks and just stare out to sea, with only a few small rocks that the seagulls don't even land on between you and the horizon. It was really very beautiful, and I wish I'd been in better shape to wander around more of it.
The last day there I went off with JM - the previous two days we'd gone with his wife Luna and his daughter, but the older had to work and the younger had school, so the two of us struck off to just hang out and shop a little. We wandered around downtown Eureka, or at least the touristy shop section of it. We visited two lovely little used bookstores - one was very homey and friendly and we enjoyed wandering back and forth through it - I found a copy of 'Accellerando' that I'm still reading and a copy of 'Finity', which I'd read before but forgotten how it went. We visited the other shop later, and although it wasn't quite as friendly, it seemed more of a research store - lots of older and distinguished volumes, in a large, two-story store which felt more like a library than the other had. I picked up a volume of Harlan Ellison short stories I hadn't seen before, and I think if it was nearby it would be very useful for coming up with roleplaying ideas or just fun to browse and find what's there. We also bought a fan, and stopped by the local rpg/comics store (North Coast Roleplaying) to browse and buy a little there too. (We actually tried to stop there three times, I think - it didn't open until after noon.
We also stopped at a cool little sushi restaurant downtown - it's in an old fantasticly art-deco bar, with a fantastic stained glass mirror that stretched three panes. Happily, they'd put the sushi-bar on top of the old wooden one, so you could still appreciate how lovely it all was. Nice food, too.
That evening we played a few games - I broke out my copy of Gloom, that I'd brought, as well as Settlers of Catan, and then later on we played a game of Heroquest. I could see the strong resemblance to Descent, but I felt that I had a lot less choices as I played the game - given I was the dwarf, almost all I could do was search rooms and hit monsters... and not as well as the barbarian could, at that. Oh, well...
It was fun to be out there, and fun to come back home into my life again, although it took me a day or so to get back the rhythm of it. Now I'm having a quiet weekend, and next weekend is Nan Desu Kan, the local anime convention. I'm looking forward to it!
My trip to Fortuna, Califonia went really well. We did have a bonfire on the beach, and it was really cool - it wasn't much of a bathing beach, and there weren't any waves - we were in some sort of river as it dumps and mixes with the ocean, so there wasn't really any wave activity where we were. Very quiet - sitting back, watching the sun go down, surrounded by the sun-bleached fossils of redwoods which used to be floated down that river after they were cut to be collected and harvested. Mostly big, intertwined roots that had been bleached white and wind-carved into smooth shapes - they really looked more like gigantic fossil skulls of unknown beasts. Very pretty, and then the stars came out - there's not a lot of light pollution around there, lots of farms and salt marshes - so the stars were as clear as they used to be back home, when where I lived was miles away from any store or streetlights.
The next day we went up the coast, stopping in Trinidad and admiring the beach, the boats, and the surf. It's also where we stopped for lunch at this seafood place - some very nice clam chowder, too, although I think I should have gotten the bowl and not the cup. We also got to watch boats being hauled out of the bay and onto trailers, as folks got busy putting them away before the storms. It was interesting watching the boats being pulled up on a cradle attached to a rail car, and then lifted up into the air in slings before being deposited onto their trailers to rest for the winter. After that it was further north, to a neat redwood park where apparently they filmed the speeder chases in Return of the Jedi. They've got this huge stone called Wedding rock that you can walk down to and over, and on the other side you can sit on the rocks and just stare out to sea, with only a few small rocks that the seagulls don't even land on between you and the horizon. It was really very beautiful, and I wish I'd been in better shape to wander around more of it.
The last day there I went off with JM - the previous two days we'd gone with his wife Luna and his daughter, but the older had to work and the younger had school, so the two of us struck off to just hang out and shop a little. We wandered around downtown Eureka, or at least the touristy shop section of it. We visited two lovely little used bookstores - one was very homey and friendly and we enjoyed wandering back and forth through it - I found a copy of 'Accellerando' that I'm still reading and a copy of 'Finity', which I'd read before but forgotten how it went. We visited the other shop later, and although it wasn't quite as friendly, it seemed more of a research store - lots of older and distinguished volumes, in a large, two-story store which felt more like a library than the other had. I picked up a volume of Harlan Ellison short stories I hadn't seen before, and I think if it was nearby it would be very useful for coming up with roleplaying ideas or just fun to browse and find what's there. We also bought a fan, and stopped by the local rpg/comics store (North Coast Roleplaying) to browse and buy a little there too. (We actually tried to stop there three times, I think - it didn't open until after noon.
We also stopped at a cool little sushi restaurant downtown - it's in an old fantasticly art-deco bar, with a fantastic stained glass mirror that stretched three panes. Happily, they'd put the sushi-bar on top of the old wooden one, so you could still appreciate how lovely it all was. Nice food, too.
That evening we played a few games - I broke out my copy of Gloom, that I'd brought, as well as Settlers of Catan, and then later on we played a game of Heroquest. I could see the strong resemblance to Descent, but I felt that I had a lot less choices as I played the game - given I was the dwarf, almost all I could do was search rooms and hit monsters... and not as well as the barbarian could, at that. Oh, well...
It was fun to be out there, and fun to come back home into my life again, although it took me a day or so to get back the rhythm of it. Now I'm having a quiet weekend, and next weekend is Nan Desu Kan, the local anime convention. I'm looking forward to it!
