I don’t claim to know what the Humboldt lifestyle is, but I may be living it anyway.

Now I know I write this and instantly you think a few things.  Like, for instance, I’m shopping here every day:

I’m not!  This is actually crucial.  In my head it’s an important litmus test:  this store will probably either make you laugh or cry.  Stuff n’ Things–A Unique Shop–offering Toking Exotica, Free Karmic Readjustment, and Headie Glass, though I have no idea what the last thing is.

I think that in the past, like in college, this store would have made me laugh.  But now it more makes me want to cry.  Because in college I would have just been passing through town, but now I live here.

(Actually, the real reason is more complex, and has to do with the death of irony.)

But it’s not all bad.  Today I went for a bike ride into the Eel River Valley, a huge river wash.  There are straight, narrow roads through cattle pasture that go for five miles and only end because they hit the ocean.  There are farm dogs that chase your bike, hoping to bite your wheels, or I’m not sure.  I haven’t completely figured out the farm dogs yet.  I will say that they scare me, but I’m not sure if my fright is totally justified.  I remember dogs used to chase me on my bike all the time when I was mini, but in the time that passed since then, I guess I thought that dogs had grown more civilized, because I hadn’t been chased in so long.  It turns out I was wrong.

This picture nicely captures the vibe of the Eel River farming valley, riding on Cannibal Island Road, driving through foot deep lake puddles, threading between the potholes and getting passed by huge trucks.

When I reached beach at the end of the road, some rednecks were standing around their trucks drinking cans of beer and reminiscing about their first guns while I sat quietly on a driftwood log eating a Banana Bread Clif Bar hoping they weren’t going to kill me.  One guy was wearing a sleeveless shirt that said BITE ME on the back.  Perhaps he found it at Stuff n’ Things.

On the way back I took a long loop through the Table Bluff Indian Reservation, up to the cliffs where people were parasailing.  Then back through the marshlands, where birds were migrating, and alpacas roam.