Annemarie and I headed up to Arcata today for a few days of catching up with friends (her) and hiking (me). We had our usual stop at BurtoNZ in Windsor to pick up bread and New Zealand food – I got a sausage roll. I can’t wait to actually have one in New Zealand soon! I love the drive up to Arcata, once you get past Santa Rosa it is so beautiful especially this time of the year with all of the leaves changing color. We listened to Annemarie‘s Spotify playlist of her favorite songs which varied from techno swing to the Beatles to songs from the original Footloose movie (I have trained her well) to Lizzo & more, it was a great combination of musical styles.
Once we got to Arcata we were both starving so got slices from Arcata Pizza, still as yummy as I remembered and the slices were huge. We had a short stroll downtown (the ID sign outside a cannabis shop cracked me up) then headed to our Airbnb. We are staying at an adorable cottage which is especially cozy as it’s been a rainy day. Two of the owners cats, Poncho and Theodore, spent the afternoon hanging out by the front door keeping watch over the cottage.
There are lots of small adorable houses in the area and a few folks have large undeveloped plots of land. When I went out for a walk in the neighborhood later I saw a buck casually walking across the street! There is a redwood forest at the end of the road that I’m going to explore tomorrow. Yippee!
While Annemarie went out with friends, I chilled out catching up on Magpie Murders (oooo, the twists and turns!) and doing some reading. I’ve just finished the introduction to The Neuroscience of You by Chantal Prat, I think it’s going to be a fascinating book. She is an entertaining writer, anyone with footnotes that reference both the Gilmore Girls and the popularity of Taco Bell when talking about statistics and nature vs nurture has my vote. 😝