Humboldt County
Posted by Ryan | Filed under California, People
The night we were leaving Eureka, CA Dustin made a joke about cycling through a town named Garberville. He said something to the effect – don’t go into the woods to pee, just go from the bike. He was referencing the Garberville’s reputation as the marijuana capital of Humboldt County. Along our way we’d heard numerous other references to marijuana plantations deep in the woods off of HWY 1 and the private security forces that roamed the fields. That all sounded a bit like another country we might soon encounter, but interesting nonetheless.
the next night we landed at Standish Hickey State Recreation Area after cycling 157 km (~98 miles). We arrived just as the sun was setting down. It was pitch black by the time we had showered, put up the tent and made dinner. Just as we were finishing up our meal Tony and Carrie – a couple from the LA area – emerged from the blackness to chat with us.
The first thing Tony said was, “Hey do you guys want the rest of this chicken? I just bought it at Safeway two hours ago”. We looked at each other a little surprised by the offer. He took our pause as a chance to reassure us that it was okay to eat. We were still hungry and they seemed like trustworthy people – so after a minute or so of chatting we took it. Tony then began to ask us about our journey – and was totally flabbergasted by what we told him. “Do you guys like beer?” he said. “You should come over to our site and tell us more about your trip.”
We couldn’t pass that offer up. So after cleaning our dishes and prepping our tent we wandered over to their campsite. We soon learned that Tony and Carrie, both employees at UPS, were on a rather unique trip of their own. They had just traveled down to AZ where they found an incredible deal on a four wheel drive Suzuki. They purchased specifically to have a vehicle that was expendable but still able to explore old remote mining towns and abandoned logging roads. On this particular stretch of their journey they were looking for an area of northern California called the “Lost Coast”. We had barely noticed that HWY 1 had navigated us inland for the first time since we hopped on it in Oregon. But when Tony mentioned it we quickly realized that we had been so enthralled with the giant redwoods that we neglected to realize that the ocean was nowhere to be seen. Tony told us that the land west of our location was only accessible by old logging roads that sometimes brought them to the most remote beaches in California. This is where it gets interesting.
The day before Carrie and Tony had taken a series of logging roads to arrive at a remote beach west of Garberville. As they were driving along the beach they suddenly saw a blue flame at the edge of the woods a short distance away. It was obviously not a camp fire flame and that fact alone peaked their interest. They aimed the Suzuki at the flame and worked their vehicle closer when just as suddenly the fire disappeared.
From the excitement in Tony’s voice we could plainly see that this is the sort of adventure he had been seeking out. His body language reflected his pure joy as he spilled the details to us. Carrie stood next to him with a proud grin on her face as she listened in and added a detail here and there. Clearly, a little strange behavior like a mystery flame did very little to deter them from digging deeper into the situation.
As they got closer to the trees they made out a clearing in the brush. Tony pulled the car into that clearing and then brought it to a stop. Carrie could hear voices in the distance. They turned the car off to listen more closely and realize that several people were nearby. Then they noticed that there were no signs of a camp or even humans nearby except for the voices. They saw no vehicles, no tents, no car tracks, nothing. The situation was strange and that put them on edge.
Then Tony emulated for us the demonic demonic voice that called out to them from the underbrush. “What the **** are you doing here? Get the **** out there…”.
It was the tone and sound of the voice that helped the puzzle pieces immediately fall into place for Tony and Carrie. They had stumbled into the middle of a drug harvesting operation. They threw the Suzuki into reverse and screamed out of there, bumping along the roads as fast possible.
Adventure! That’s was Alex and I have been seeking and finding daily. But hearing this story was a totally different slice of the adventure pie. And It gave some truth to what Dustin and Josiah and seemingly joked about back in Eureka. Whoa.