A long, beautiful drive down the coast ended in Eureka, a town that felt a bit faded and prideful. Arcata was nearby, where we would be leaving Emily for her first semester of college at Humboldt.

We ate Thai and Chinese food, amazed at the greenery everywhere, and I fell in love with the patterns in the slightly run-down hotel we stayed in. My hair grew to huge proportions as a result of the omnipresent humidity, and we picked raspberries out of bushes by the ocean.

I miss it, even though we were there for only 3 or 4 days. Northern California was beautiful, if daunting. I loved the rolling landscape, the peeks one got at the ocean while driving on the windy roads. The somewhat collaged feel of the place, like it was all piled upon itself with no relevance to order.