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Living in Arcata

First, the Place

The land hereabout is gorgeous.

Humbolt County is this large area of tree-covered hills and mountains, with a long beautiful shore line. Several impoverished communities live within it.

It is at the south of the rain belt that makes rain forests in Oregon and Washington.

It is the land of redwoods.

Arcata, early impressions

Arcata is a small community that would be entirely impoverished except that Humboldt State is here and so the town is actually is a fairly sophisticated. There used to be thriving fishing and lumber industries, but both collapsed decades ago, and so it has that impoverished backward country feel. There are few big box stores, few housing developments, etc. Otherwise it's pretty small, rural and pleasantly backward here.

How small: Strangers smile and say hello on the streets. Clerks at stores chat with every customer. “If you’re in a hurry, and you’re in Arcata, you’re in the wrong place.”

How rural is it? Well, the "big city" nearby is Eureka (population 36,000). See the Official City of Eureka site, or the more informative. Wikipedia article

How rural? Well, when the wind shifts I can smell the cows a few blocks away.

How quaint? One day Szn and I went into Eureka for dinner. You know it's big, because it has parking meters. We were distressed at first because I only had a dime for the meter. We put it in. We got two hours on the meter (In SF, 10¢ gets 2 minutes.).

Pleasantly quaint? There is a gas station nearby where the attendant comes to your window and pumps the gas, then asks, “Check your oil for you?” This alone was major !!! shock for me. Haven’t seen that since the 60’s.

But backward? Nope. Thanks to the uni, Arcata has a couple of REALLY nice book shops, a fine Japanese restaurant (though no Thai or Indian, and inferior Chinese). The best Mexican is from a taco wagon run by a rasta Chicano, and every other one I’ve tried is just awful.

So it is a particular kind of backwater and modern. There is a weekly open air market each Saturday down in the town square. But the goods sold are all organic (only).

It strikes me as being a redneck town, but instead of rednecks we have old hippys and skate punks.

When I read the papers in Oakland there was a daily story of someone being murdered. Here the regular tragedy is of the weekly fatal auto crash of drunk teen agers.

Finally, there is a decent game store here! We have started a new Pendragon Campaign, and you can read the blog here.

Jason Is Here

Jason has decided to move up here. Suzanne and I, Brian and Alisha are all pleased as punch. He's staying in our living room for a while, but has a new job already, is considering the local JC and has scoped out the local bowling alley. He painted the bodega, which you can see here.

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