Park path
Mad River
Lupines
Thistles
Katherine and Richard had requested that Terry and I and my parents take Slate for the day, and give them some time to themselves. So that's what we did. While we waited for Mom and Dad, Richard and I went to a nearby park for a walk.
Park path
Mad River
Lupines
Thistles
I also saw a rather large banana slug lying on the path. I took a picture of it, but alas, the picture didn't come out (some of you may be just as glad).
By the time we got back to the house, Mom and Dad had shown up, so we all piled in the car and took off for Ferndale.
At this point, let's take a look at the area we're talking about, courtesy of Google Maps:
Mckinleyville (w) , where Katherine and Richard live, is a small town just north of Arcata (w) , which itself is a small town just north of Eureka (w) , in Humboldt County (w) , in northern California. Ferndale (w) is another small town a little southwest of Eureka, known for being the home of the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race (w) . Katherine and Richard and Slate went to see the most recent race, and on Monday evening, Slate had been enthusiastically showing me pictures and telling me stories about the event. Ferndale has a small museum dedicated to the Kinetic Sculpture Race, and that's what we went there to see.
But first, we stopped for lunch at...
Ferndale was apparently once a major dairy center, hence the restaurant name. The town also has a lot of Victorian architecture, and the whole place has an "olde worlde" feel. Here are pictures of the main street and the post office:
After lunch we walked up the street for a while. We stopped in at a store called "Golden Gate Mercantile," which kept up the "olde worlde" feel of the town by replicating a turn-of-the-century general store. We also stopped in at a candy store (those "old town" style main streets always have at least one candy store - this one had two).
And then we went to the Kinetic Sculpture Museum. This is a very small museum, with no onsite staff. It consists mostly of a room full of entries from previous years' races:
The museum also features a number of kinetic sculptures made from wires, with marbles running around on tracks:
And we met Stan Bennett, the man who does the wire sculptures:
This place also featured a door, or I guess it was more of a gate, made out of old bicycles:
Altogether, a most curious place.
I saw one other thing that amused me - this sign on the front of this building that was being remodeled:
Here's a close-up of the sign, so you can read what it says:
Ferndale Attitude
We then went back to the house, where Katherine was busy making a cake for Slate's birthday the next day. And again, there's not much to say about the rest of the afternoon - we visited, read, talked, napped...
After dinner, we headed out to a local hangout called Cafe Mokka...
Terry and Richard
Terry, Mom, Slate, Katherine
...where we drank coffee (well, I drank hot chocolate), played dominoes, and listened to a four-piece band (bass, fiddle, accordion, percussion) play European folk music. The place had an interesting front door handle...
...an electric train running on a track around the ceiling...
...and a house cat named Clover.
Cafe Mokka also has an interesting sideline - hot tubs. Not that they sell hot tubs (as Terry thought when we first mentioned it), but they have hot tubs on the premises, that you can rent by the hour. We didn't.