We leave San Fran, and due to our really enjoying of the Non interstate drive the previous few days, we decide again to take the longer drive and head towards the coastline. The I5 above San Fran is actually quite decent…but yeah, still going the 101 is more stunning. Particularly when you get to drive through the Redwood Forest. We were staying tonight in Arcata, with some people I’d met on myspace. I had been trying to book a house party at a place in Arcata called “Das Gast House”, they couldn’t book us for a show, but I asked if we could stay there anyway and they were sweet as.
We take our time driving through the forests, marvelling at the massive trees, and choose of the two tacky “Mystery” tourist traps on the way “Tree’s of Mystery” and “Confusion Hill”, that we’d spend out hard earned cash on Confusion Hill. Its $5 a person, and we deliberated for quite sometime before deciding we had to do it. We discovered we needn’t of bothered when as soon as we entered the place the counter staff guessed we were a band and they told us how they let bands in for free if you give them a signed CD. How could we say no, especially when we saw a signed Bonnie Prince Billy CD on the pile.
It’s kinda like “Puzzling World” in Wanaka, you know, tilted rooms, chairs you can’t get out of, where you walk into a tilted room and your brain goes crazy trying to recompensate and does crazy stuff. You know its all just mind tricks, but haha, its still heaps of fun http://www.confusionhill.com/ and its always fun hearing the owners try to confuse you with their talk of unexplained phenomena.
Shortly after Confusion Hill you pass the location of the famous photo of Big Foot!
We get pulled over by a cop today, I coulda sworn the road we were travelling on was a 65mph speed limit, but I was snapped doing 68mph on a 55mph road. The cop informed us that even though 65 was the limit in California, 55 was the max limit in Oregon…I guess he’s had a few tourists make the same mistake, so he let us off. For some reason, the speed limits in Oregon are heaps less then anywhere else. I have no idea why, but that state is much more anal about speed the the rest of the US. 75 seems to be the limit in the mid west! However, they are also one of only two states to not charge tax on retail items…so we’ll let em off. (more bitching about taxes/tips soon)
Arcata is probably the only cool town between San Fran and Portland, it’s a college town and there are heaps of cool kids around. Our awesome hosts threw a little low-key party for us with a few friends and some banjo. We got shown the main street and taken to a choice little donut shop that’s open late. On the way back home after the donut shop, we see a whol bunch of kids watching a movie in an alleyway projected onto a wall, maybe 40-50 kids hanging out drinking and watching some political movie, we join them for a short while…but hear that a whole bunch of people have arrived back at the house we are staying at, so hurry back.
Das Gast House (myspace it) is a sweet spot and throw some mean parties, hopefully we can line up a show here next-time. They have an awesomely sweet red detonator 8-track player with like Led Zeppelin and Journey among their 8 track tapes..so, that was lots of fun. Haha, check out the “Slightly ahead of our time” on the bottom right of the poster.
