Loleta, Ferndale, and Arcata

Today's excursion was off to Loleta first, to visit the Cheese Factory. But to whet our appetites, George and Mary decided to check out legends of a now abandoned train tunnel  nearby.

 The distance was more than we expected, about 1 mile from the trailhead to the tunnel, but the past was well marked by the railroad tracks, and only required one small detour where a gully had undercut the tracks

 At last we reached it.

 And found some pretty neat graffiti.

We decided it wasn't worth going through the tunnel (you can barely see the light at the other end in this shot), and trudged back to buy some cheese and eat gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches in the garden at the cheese factory. A very impressive garden, too.

After that, we were over Fernbridge, and off to Ferndale, home of many Victorian era gingerbread structures, and today, thanks to a car club, full of old classic Fords.

It is also the site of a very old, very steep graveyard.

 An old victim of the Humboldt Bay bar.

A flesh colored Edsal!

 Ferndale is loaded with kitschy art shops, but we settled for some chocolates

On the way back to Mary's we drove down 2nd Street in Eureka, to see how the old part of town was doing (OK, not yet into another cycle of decay), and to see the Carson Mansion. Then we caught the bridge to Samoa (ala, not that Samoa), and stopped by the Arcata Wildlife Sanctuary and waste treatment center, where we saw this group of Godwits

And this Snowy Egret