Everything is coming together for a celebration as unique as you are, but that big, tiered, white frosted cake that is oh-so-traditional just doesn’t excite you. Consider some fun alternatives. First question: Do you really love cake but just don’t like the size and shape of the traditional tiered one? Cupcakes might fill the bill. […]
Susan Penn
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Water Boys
We launched from the beach in Trinidad in a motley assortment of watercrafts. Twelve-year-old Nate Ferguson was paddling his sit-on-top fishing kayak and 14-year-old Cory Soll was in a touring kayak. Leading the group was Jason Self, the boys’ coach and surrogate uncle, who owns Kayak Trinidad. He paddled a white-water kayak and my friend […]
Posted inStories
The Pink Lady
Perched daintily on the corner across from the Carson Mansion is the Pink Lady, a classic Queen Anne Victorian built as a wedding gift from William Carson to his eldest son Milton. (202 M St, Eureka) The Lady feels like the dark green, iron-gated mansion’s flirtatious kid sister, surrounded by a white wooden fence with […]
Posted inShopping
Bookstores to Curl Up With
A bookstore! In the age of Amazon and ebooks, independently owned bookstores are alive and well in Humboldt County. Each of our local shops is as unique as their owners. Here’s a trio of favorites in which to get lost among the shelves on a winter’s day. Booklegger The Booklegger’s window displays wrap all the […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Miles Away
A short hike in Ferndale’s Russ Park with a walking group aroused my curiosity about the paths we didn’t take, so I returned to explore. At the parking area along Bluff Street, less than a mile from town, an unseen congregation of birds sings in the trees and the trail immediately welcomes the hiker into […]
Posted inEat + Drink
A Sustainable Fish Fry
It was still dark at 6 am, but the street light shining into the custom aluminum bed of the pickup parked on the Englund Marine dock revealed a mass of finger-length, silvery night smelt. You may not think of smelt as dinner fare — they certainly weren’t on my shopping list until someone suggested I […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Over the Ridge
Twenty short years ago, a friend and I chanced upon the trail that leads from Dry Lagoon to Stone Lagoon but our exploration was quickly thwarted by an expanse of thick, black mud. That trail continued calling to me, and a few months ago, after our recent long drought, I had a notion the trail […]