Well, the time finally came to leave California. Day one saw us leaving Arcata, CA at about 6:30 in the morning. As usual, we wanted to leave earlier, but the packing went on until about 11 pm, so we needed to sleep later to make it through the day.


I planned the trip so that day one would be the worst in terms of distance and duration. I figured it would be best to get the worst part over with first, and as of now I think that was a good idea. It took about 17 hours, all told, because all of our time in Northern California was spent climbing mountains on windy roads, which is slow-going with a loaded trailer. Chris did a great job loading the trailer, though, and it's been very stable all this time.


Chris always drives on the windiest parts, because they'v freaked me out since I got into a car accident when I was 17. I can drive them, but he's more comfortable at it than I am. The drive was, as always, beautiful, winding through the redwoods going through Shasta. I'm going to miss the redwoods something awful, they're one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.


Here I am looking oh-so-stylish. Note the ingenius way I've artfully arranged my hair to make it appear as if I just rolled out of bed. Totally on purpose. Seriously. Also, Chris likes to make buzzing noises at me when I wear these glasses, but they do a good job of blocking he sun out of my eyes.


And here is Whiskeytown. Methinks this one may have been named by minors in the goldrush days?


And here is Lassen National Park, another gorgeous area in California... this is making me sad, all these beautiful places I'm leaving behind! Oh, the things we do for love.
And then, you cross the border into Nevada, and Bam! Instant ugly. I think the Nevadans got swindled on this one. And I don't mean to insult the intelligence of any modern Nevadans, but in my head, the exchange goes something like this:

"Well, why don't we draw the border over here. Then you don't have to worry about any of these pesky trees."

"Gee, thanks! It'll be a lot easier to build stuff without all them trees in the way."

"And look, it's all such a lovely neutral shade of brown... That'll go with anything!"

So yeah.... lots and lots of dirt. Hours and hours of it. *sigh*


Oh geez, hours of traversing the desert, and I'm still in Humboldt?


Okay, this is really getting silly.... Eureka?


And one last thing... not sure if you can see it without enlarging the photo, but this is a sign for "Deeth Starr Valley". Star wars nerds rejoice!!! And no, that's not rain, thats the insect graveyard on our windshield. Eeeeeeeeewwwwww.


Finally we made it into Wells, NV, which is a dinky little hole in the middle of a giant sea of nothingness. Fortunately we were only there to sleep.....