Brian: The rain pounded on the roof of the car relentlessly through the night and into the morning. We woke up with headaches and backaches and I doubt any of us slept longer than an hour at a time for the entire night. But road tripping is about making do, grinning and bearing it, sucking it up and making it work. We waited for a break in the downpour, rolled up our jeans, ran to collapse the soaked through tent and stuffed it in the cooler. That was an especially wise decision retrospectively because the cooler is a perfectly tent sized waterproof container. Casualties of the storm include my pillow, the tarp, and maybe a pair of shoes?
Nick: All in all, no great loss. To my delight the road back out, which had seemed perilous even before the rain, was relatively clear.
Tyler: We hung out in Arcata, specifically a play ground and patch of grass in Arcata that passed as a park. As a side note: setting up a tent, pulling out a plethora of wet towels, shoes and camping gear right next to play ground seems a little sketchy. But the old man who walked by rather slowly and just stood and stared at the playground as if wishing for the laughter of children, a large van and a bag candy seemed a little more creepy.
Nick: I've not much to say about Arcata. So I won't.
Tyler: This was my second time through Arcata and I still can't decide if I like the town or not. For those of you who don't know it's a college town in Humboldt county about 20 minutes from Eureka. The town has a lot of street kids (young people intentionally homeless) but not as many as other towns, there are no breweries actually in the town but many exist in the surrounding area but it does have a fairly laid back vibe that one would expect from a coastal California town. All in all a pretty average place with a little character and few to no big box stores, great for the aspiring college hippie or middle age enviroconscious yuppie.
Brian: Yeah there were a lot of those there. We spent the first half of our day in a busy little cafe in the central square. I can never keep the names of these places straight but I think it was a woman's name. There were some guys slack-lining between some light posts in the square, and Tyler is a slacklining genius but I couldn't talk him into jumping on it. On Tyler's recommendation we headed over to a bar with a ton of local brews on tap.
Tyler: Slacklining = walking on a piece of climbing webbing strung up between two objects, kind of like tight-rope walking but it's more slack and dynamic hence the name...slacklining.
Nick: We blogged for a while in the bar, then headed out. Still cloudy, still rainy. Not my favorite. We pulled over at some point and, after finally convincing my comrades that box wine was the way to go in terms of the most efficient alcohol-cost ratio, we picked up a box of Franzia and continued on our way. I'm sad to say that we were once again out of couch surfing prospects and with the sky dark and heavy, our leaky tent seemed like a poor sleeping choice. So, once again, we pulled off the side of the road, checked for bears, then fell asleep in the car. I found that the fetal position is the way to go.
Tyler: What were your specific instructions for your special sleep-in-car-mega-sweet-position?
Brian: Something about tuck and fold right?
Nick: Assume the fetal curl, then fold over in a diagonal direction. If you fold first, your spine snaps in a dozen places. So don't do that
Brian: And with that image I think we will sign off. BNT Out.
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