More Coastal Adventures

We did more than just walk the beach this last weekend. Of course we went to William's football game. There were a lot of touchdowns made. Very exciting. For the other team. Which made all the touchdowns except one. Sigh. Very pretty field though, surrounded by tall firs and redwoods. And it was their homecoming game, so it was fun to watch all the hoopla associated with that.

In Trinidad we walked about looking at the beautiful overgrown flowers that thrive in the moist coastal air.

Check out these giant orange dahlias.

For some reason Kyla and I decided to get in the photo. I don't have the photo of her in front of the flowers, I took those pictures on her camera. She took pictures of me on my camera. Ommmmmmmmmmm.....

The local hummingbirds loved the bountiful flower gardens too.

Inside the Orange Dahlia Building is a favorite shop of mine called Trinidad Trading Company. They kindly gave me permission to take a photograph of this fantastic wall full of crosses and icons, many of them one-of-a-kind art. I wish I could have taken close ups of all of them. Be sure to double click on this photo to get a better look.

Later we left Trinidad and headed to Eureka to drop William off at the high school to get ready for the game. We had several hours to wander around the old harbor district. The boys ran a few errands and shot a couple games of pool while Kyla and I wandered around popping in and out of shops and snapping photos of the great old buildings.


We stopped in a tiny chocolate shop and bought some handmade, organic chocolates. I went with a dark chocolate with cherry bits and a dark chocolate walnuts and caramel. Kyla selected several peanut butter and milk chocolate combinations. I had to take this photo for Laura, the Chocolate Queen - bet in all her travels she's never seen a chocolate banana slug before!

Sam took us to the Lost Coast Brewery Cafe for a fantastic lunch. I had halibut that was just hours off the boat, deep fried in their signature beer. I'm not a beer lover, but I did sample an apricot wheat flavored beer (or some sort of orange colored fruit, can't remember now) and I enjoyed it. If you're curious, Sam assures me that you can buy the company's microbrews elsewhere. The food was great and the the walls were covered with the most amazing art and ..... stuff. I couldn't really take many photos of it because the windows made it hard to photograph without a flash and, well, I didn't want to be rude to the other diners.


I didn't think this photo would come out because of the back lighting but was happily surprised when it did. I loved this.... monster (?) that rose up out of a box. Just in front of him was a spider as big as a pig (or sheep, or German Shepherd, or...) attached to a pulley so that every time someone came in through the front door he dropped down atop the unsuspecting customer's head. Of course any kid who came or went had to come up with an excuse to go in and out at least three or four times.


On another wall was this interesting "Carmen Miranda meets a pirate under the curse of the Black Pearl". How can you not like a place with such classy, sophisticated decor!

If you want to see some Halloween goodies I bought at the local pumpkin patch, check out the photos I put on on Laume's Studio today.