Day Three

Main Street, Ferndale
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We woke up to the noise of chopper engines revving outside. Yesterday I saw six or seven Harleys in the parking lot. Looks like the bikers are getting ready for their road trip.

By 10:00 A.M., we checked out of the hotel and were on the road. Today is the Labour Day. Eureka doesn't seem to be any crowded on a weekend than on a business day. May be all Eurekeans left town for the long weekend.

I felt deja-vu

Ferndale, the Victorian Village

Victorian Building
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Our car badly needed a wash after all the dust it collected yesterday at Fern Canyon. So we stopped at the nearby Chevron station, filled its stomach and gave it a bath. We also filled our stomachs in the adjacent cafe. In the cafe, I read a news item in the local daily that somebody from LA is making a (sort of docu-drama) movie on Humboldt County. They are scouting for crew members and actors among the locals.

Our next stop is the Loleta Cheese Factory. Loleta is a tiny village roughly 14 miles south of Eureka, with a population of less than 1000. At the cheese factory, one of the workers explained us how they make different varieties of cheese. Some of the varieties are fermented for upto three years before they are sold. I never thought cheese could take that long to make!

Hats for sale
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We then drove off to Ferndale - our next major stop and perhaps the final in this trip. Ferndale is 8 miles from Loleta. It is considered California's best preserved Victorian village. We drove on 101-S for four miles and took CA-211 exit (no. 692), then drove another four miles through green fields. This road took us straight into Ferndale's Main Street. This street is roughly half-a-mile long. At the other end of Main Street, there is a church on the left. We parked there and got out of the car. It's half past noon.

Vintage Motor Cycle
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The church is located at the end of the village. It must have been one of the first buildings of Ferndale, clearly of the Victorian style. There's a hill behind it. The setting looked very much like that of a typical English hamlet from the 18th century. I also felt deja-vu. This is my first visit to Ferndale, but I saw it earlier though I don't know when.

We tried to enter the church through the only entrance it has, but soon realized it's an entrance into the adjacent house. Meanwhile a couple came by, perhaps returning from their walk.

"It's a private residence, not a church. The chapel was closed down a long time ago and somebody bought it', they said. " There is another church two blocks away. That one is undergoing repairs but may still be open if you want to go".

We thanked them and turned back. There is a board at the corner of Main Street showing directions to the beach. It's behind the hill and is only three miles away. We haven't been to a beach in this trip so far so that's where we're going now.

It is a quiet beach. Cloudy weather stopped people from coming there, or may be it's always like that. There were a few people though, some of them relaxing and the others BBQ'ing. We spent some time picking pebbles.

When we returned to Ferndale, it was 2 P.M. - past lunch hour, and there's no food place for our liking. So we postponed lunch and explored the Main Street by foot for an hour. Main Street is the most unchanged section of the town since the 1850s. There's no traffic in the streets, other than the occassional tourist's car. "In a town this small, people don't need cars for domestic travel", I thought. As we were walking on the street, looking through the windows, it flashed to me and I got my deja-vu cleared. Ferndale is where Jim Carrey's 2001 hit The Majestic was filmed. That's one of my all time favorite movies. Ferndale appears in the movie as the fictitious 1920 era town Lawson.

After visiting some of the shops and galleries, our return journey had begun.  We ordered some sandwitches to-go at the next SubWay we came across and drove until 5:00 P.M. searching for a good place to stop and eat. Finally we spotted a sign board reading The Grandfather Tree. So we stopped there and had our very late lunch.

The Grandfather Tree is a 1900 year old giant redwood, with a trunk as wide as 7 to 8 people standing side by side. There also is a One Log House near the tree, which is a house carved inside a mammoth redwood log in 1946. The inside is like the insdie of an RV - with a bed room, a mini kitchen and a small living room.

It was 6:00 P.M. by then, and we had a long drive back to home. So we officially ended our trip there. It was a smooth drive from there, with no traffic delays. We were home by 10:00 P.M. That was a wonderful trip, which will be remembered for a long time.