Driving down the California coast is lovely.
Have I mentioned how beautiful this county of ours is yet?
I have?
Like a hundred times?
Ok, ok, ok… but it’s true.
As we approached Eureka, in the heart of Humboldt County, we saw hippies everywhere. Not the calm-eco-friendly-peace-love-and-hope hippies, more like the I-haven’t-showered-in-a-year-and-I-will-slit-your-throat-to-get-my-next-fix, kind of hippies.
(In case you don’t know, Humboldt County is known for it’s lax rules regarding marijuana. Maybe that’s why there are hippies in Eureka.)
The sun had set and twilight was upon us. It was pretty late, about 9:30pm, because we were so much farther north. We needed a place to park our RV for the night, so our destination was a Wal-Mart parking lot… obviously. We grabbed a late dinner at a local pizza joint. And I’m pretty sure the whole staff was high.
When we arrived at the Wal-Mart parking lot we realized this store wasn’t a typical store because it was in a mall. We parked anyway, and got ready for bed. It was about 11pm, and we were exhausted from all the driving and adventures of the day. Both Brad and I felt uncomfortable because there were still dirty hippies walking around and from our squatter encounter earlier in the morning.
We finally nodded off to sleep and then around 1am there was a pounding on our RV door.
And a deep male voice yelled, “You have to leave!!!!!”
I cannot lie, it was a total relief to see a mall cop and not a hippie when we opened the door. He was very nice and directed us to another spot to park for the night. We drove to the other location, which was on a dark side street surrounded by truckers sleeping though the night and a few other RVs.
I was nervous that hippies were going to break in and steal our children and raise them.
I’m serious.
I’m insane.
But it was late, and I was tired, but I double checked all the window locks anyway!
Every sound woke me up and when I woke up I would wake to see Brad’s eyes already open and ready to defend the family against angry hippies.
True story.
Then at about 3 am there was pounding across the whole side of the RV! And a groggy scratchy voice screaming, “Wake the f—- up!!!!!!”
I cannot lie, I thought the hippies were turning on us, and was ready to throw Barry at the first one to make it through the door… or window!
Why didn’t I bring the pepper spray?!?!!?
Brad looked out the window to size up our foes and it was just a high dirty hippie walking down the street and banging on all the turcks and RVs.
We will survive another day, after all.
We woke up alive and gave Barry a big hug. I’d like to think having a fierce bear guarding the door helped a bit too.
Things to know if you go…
- You can not park your RV in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Eureka. Ha.
- I’m sure Eureka is a great place during the day. I mean one of my favorite shows is set there. (Warning: Show reveals my geeky-ness.) And I did see tons of beautiful old Victorian homes everywhere.
- There is a good pizza joint… where every worker also smokes joints.
- Watch out for hippies.
Day 12 – Traveled 45 miles
(Last part, of 6, in the Rest Stop Adventures)
View our whole trip here:
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[…] We saw a giant fly and gained a member of the family, Barry, at O’Brien Market in Oregon. We had a park play date in Crescent City Park. We were almost killed by squatter hippies in the Redwoods. We took advantage of a photo op with giant statues of Paul Bunyan and his ox, Blue. We got up close with wildlife in Elk Meadow. We closed out the day with hippies in Eureka! […]