After every foolish day we sleep off the fumes & furies of it's hours, and though we are always engaged with particulars, and often enslaved to them, we bring with us to every experiment the innate universal laws. These, while they exist in the mind as ideas, stand around us in nature forever embodied a present sanity to expose & cure the insanity of men. Our servitude to particulars betrays us into a hundred foolish expectations. -- Emerson, Nature

It's amazing how small you feel in comparison. But then again, these guys have been around for hundreds of years.

It's my last day in Eureka, California. Tomorrow I'll catch a ride down the coast to San Jose for the next portion of my travels. It's been a refreshing and rejuvenating experience up in this small town of the western north country. Crisp cold air & breathtaking natural surroundings have me in an exaggerated state of awe. It's a complete turn around from Austin's grueling summer. As I marvel at the overcast skies and cool breezes, my host has laughed at how insane I sound.

Aspects of the environment feel similar to my childhood in the northeast, but the coast and mountains offer this amazing blend of elements. Evergreens, redwoods & eucalyptus trees tower & fill vast stretches of land that drop off into the ocean. It's no surprise that the two main industries for this area were once lumber and fishing.


We hiked through the trails at Trinidad Bay through thick, overgrown forests. The giant trees block the sun and create dark clearings in their brush. We walked into the eerie darkness feeling as though we'd entered another land, exited, and laid on the massive rocks of the Trinidad Bay poking our heads over the cliff to watch the waves crash in a beautiful, violent display. The ocean is such a massive beast.