Darcy had a day off school today and we took advantage of the only free weekday she has left on the North Coast. After a few about-town errands, we headed south for one more visit to HSU's Marine Lab in Trinidad. This is where Darcy did her week of ocean day camp this summer. The weather wasn't wonderful, but we had a good time seeing all her old friends, including Elvira the wolf eel, and walking out to see Trinidad beach.
Then we headed to Arcata. Darcy started acting very strangely at lunch and I eventually realized that she must have a loose tooth, based on the fact that she was trying to take bites out of a bagel with her molars. She wouldn't let me see her face and there were tears, so our trip to Arcata ended up being very basic. Lunch at Los Bagels; ice cream at Arcata Scoop (where Darcy had my normal favorite, lemon poppyseed, and I had an utterly delicious, new-to-me flavor, vanilla almond rose); and a trip to a kitchen store for a few cake-making supplies. On the way home, Darcy fell asleep. Her sleep-breathing always makes ME sleepy, so I stopped in the Big Tree parking lot and snoozed for 20 minutes myself. Very nice.
We stopped at Michael's office to bring him to his truck. While visiting with Nate, Darcy put her hand up to her mouth, spit something out, and handed me a tooth. Second lost tooth -- there's a real gap in that lower jaw.
After a few more in-town errands, we headed to Ocean World, our local aquarium. A few weeks ago, Darcy started making a mental list of things we need to do before we leave. The first two things that made the list: eat at Good Harvest and go to Ocean World. We took care of the first one earlier in the week and Ocean World was on the afternoon agenda thanks to an inside tip from our friend Kyle, who gets mad props for his role in this story.
Ocean World is a lovely, but small, aquarium and we've been many (MANY) times. Darcy has probably been at least a dozen times, probably closer to 20. It doesn't totally lose its thrill because Cora, their young sea lion, almost always knows new tricks and it's been fun seeing her grow up. She's four now and we saw her for the first time very shortly after we moved here three years ago. But I thought it might be nice if there was something more to this visit and Kyle had mentioned that he works there in the summer. I asked him if they ever offer a behind the scenes tour. The answer was no, but he said that a few days a week, they feed the critters after the last tour and will let people stay for that.
And so we found ourselves joining the 4:30ish tour at Ocean World. We stopped by the tide pool petting area; saw the sharks, fish, and rays; pet the sharks; and went outside to see the seals and sea lion perform:
And when Cora was done showing off her tricks, we stayed behind. Back downstairs we went, waiting to see the fish poured into the tanks and the feeding frenzy begin:
It was a perfect last visit to Ocean World. Many thanks to Kyle for the inside tip and the staff at Ocean World who made it all possible. On tap for tomorrow: last soccer game, end-of-season soccer party, and an early birthday party for Darcy. And maybe a trip to Brookings for some live music at a bar. And cake making. And other cooking.
Tonight, as a belated anniversary celebration, Michael and I went to the Historic Requa Inn for dinner. We enjoyed a four course meal of mostly-local delights that included a little wild rice dumpling to start and an almond/brown butter cake with blackberry juice to finish. In between there were some beautiful beets with flash-fried fennel tops, potatoes mashed with olive oil, roasted mushrooms, and other deliciousness. Thanks to chefs Paul and Thomas for a wonderful meal!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Darcy was with a once-in-a-blue moon babysitter, Beth. We're just two days away from an early birthday party for Darcy and she is starting to fixate on it. Before we went to dinner, Darcy insisted that we put together the goodie bags. Then she made a guest list complete with symbolic codes for how likely she thought it was that each of those people would come to the party. When we got home from dinner, Beth said that Darcy had expressed some serious concerns about how her cake would get made. Perhaps I am running out of time, she worried. She also made an excellent list of how she views the party events:
Be warned, children, there are apparently two outdoor lectures as part of this party!
Apropos of nothing, I'll end with a picture of Darcy at the Chocolate Exhibit we caught at Turtle Bay Museum in Redding a few weeks ago:
Bad blogger! Without the pressure of the actual NaBloPoMo behind me, I managed to skip yesterday's post. It was a long day and the move is so fast approaching at this point, that the stress is building a bit. But I'm trying to make up for it today with a few highlights of our beautiful murals.
Crescent City is very lucky to have an active mural society that creates at least one new mural in town every year. (You can see more murals at that link, by the way.) Some of them are painted and others are made of tiles in a stained-glass style. It's pretty awesome, in such a small town, to have such a wealth of gorgeous murals in public spaces all over town.
Our municipal pool has several murals. Two beautiful tile murals outside:
I love the detail in these pictures, especially the reflections of the boats in the water. Just to give you a sense of the size of these murals, here's a picture of the enormous building they grace:
Inside, the pool is also decorated with two more tile murals in the lobby and one enormous painted mural alongside the pool:
That's our beautiful lighthouse in detail. It's getting too late at night to try to stitch pictures together to give you a single view of the massive pool mural, so here it is in a few pieces:
I took all these while Darcy was taking her swimming lesson. She really loves them and is so close to passing her first level. Luckily, our pool is close to downtown, so even with only a half-hour lesson to work with, I also walked over to one of my favorite painted murals in town. The mural society occasionally does a mural-in-a-day project (which blows my mind). The artist creates the piece and (I think) sketches it on the wall before bringing in volunteers to paint under supervision to get it done in a day. This amazes me, especially when they create something like this:
This commemorates the 1964 tsunami that destroyed most of downtown Crescent City. Just above the small plaque on the right lower corner is a line that marks the high water line on this building. Just below the plaque are the painted names of the volunteers who helped create the mural.
You may have read about California's sky-high gas prices in recent days. Crescent City always has higher-than-state-average prices, but over the weekend at least one gas station in town posted a $4.89 price tag for regular unleaded. It was just a little bit crazy and I actually had to pay for a few gallons in Arcata at $4.79/gallon. Not fun.
So today, being that the truck and both gas cans were empty, I did what sensible people living on the border do: I drove half an hour to Brookings, OR, where I paid $3.96 for each of my 23 gallons. And like my days growing up on the New York/New Jersey border, in Oregon, it's illegal to pump your own gas. Double bonus: I saved almost 20 dollars (and, yes, I did use gas getting there, but there are three other staples that I buy for much less in Oregon than California; I've done the math and it is worth the drive) and I didn't have to pump the gas.
And that's how I avoided becoming part of the CA gas price woes today. Thrilling blog post, right? If you were in Crescent City, you could get your thrills from the non-stop thunder we're having. Most of you aren't, however, so you'll have to find your thrills elsewhere tonight.
So Michael likes beer. I don't think this will shock anyone. Certainly, anyone who listened to his Death to Classical show this week knows that he loves the beer. Our friend Connor joined him to pair beers and music. They had to taste every beer, of course, and so cabbed it home that night. (Drink responsibly!) There should be a recording of it archived at some point, so you can share in the joy.
Darcy notices everything. Nothing escapes that girl's eye. So it shouldn't have surprised me when, several months ago as I was trying to choose a beer from the co-op to bring home, Darcy's piped up, "Dad loves IPAs. You should choose an IPA." Ok, sure. Yes, he does love IPAs, but why do YOU know that?? One day last year, I opened Darcy's school folder to find this:
Really? My child is 16 years away from her first legal drink and yet she already knows what kind of beer Michael likes to drink? And she makes beer-themed art IN SCHOOL? A smart child is a double-edged sword.
Yikes! Here I was, about to turn off the light and go to sleep when I realized I hadn't blogged yet today. Can I blame not enough sleep last night? Or Michael being off hiking in the Trinity Alps? Or the fact that we have a dog visiting for a few days?
All of those things are happening. Darcy and I went to the Arcata Saturday market this morning and hit a few highlights of Humboldt for one of the last times. She got a hair cut in preparation for class picture day this coming week. Michael headed out this morning for three days of hiking, while Lola moved into our house for four nights. It's all good.
Here's a picture of Darcy from late spring/early summer in Ashland, OR. She had just figured out how to hang by her knees a little before this trip, so she wanted to show it off a lot. Her hair seemed so long then, but now she has enough for pig-tails and other "fancy" hair styles. Once again, today, I had to struggle to answer questions about how I wanted her hair cut. One of the benefits of being back in the Northeast will be not having to answer them any more. Duane will just decide. Right, Duane? I'm counting on you, not just for Darcy, but for me. I don't want to decide any more.
I might be cheating slightly today. It's not much of a cheat because I have written a long, complicated, well-illustrated blog post. Just not here.
Some very few of you know that I used to have an active food blog. It's been about two years since I wrote anything at all on my food blog, but yesterday, I was inspired to do so. A friend of mine here in Crescent City is participating (and helped plan) Ferment Del Norte's Local Food Challenge. For most of October, he is trying to eat only foods that are grown in our region. This is a challenge that requires a lot of forbidden foods, since there are so many foods that simply do not grow here.
The one ingredient that is not produced and sold here that I could not give up is salt.
We were discussing this yesterday morning and I asked why you couldn't just make your own. We do live right next to a rather large bath tub filled with salt water, after all. So I promised him I would make him some salt. If you want to read the story of how three random gallons of the Pacific Ocean became beautiful bowls of salt, you can check out part one and part two on my food blog, Isolated Foodie. I have never cross-posted from one blog to the other before, and even my own mother claims that she didn't know I had a food blog, because I did it for me, not for an audience. Although I did start using my first name on the blog, I use pseudonyms for the places we've lived and the two blogs are on different accounts. In other words, if you'd like to comment over there, please don't say, "Hey, Angela GLORE, I didn't know you could make salt in CRESCENT CITY. Glad I read about it on GLORES AROUND THE PARKS." Otherwise, enjoy!
