The Appropriate Response

About 5 hours north of Santa Rosa, past Mendocino County, you come across some of the most majestic trees that you can't even fathom its existence until you actually stand next to it. It wasn't the age of the tree that's surprising, which for many of them are well into the hundreds and some past the thousand mark, it's actually the height itself and the diameter of its trunk. Humboldt County had many charms- the vintage, yarn store- Shipwrecked was a great place to score some amazing Makalu 100% bamboo yarn and a great summer bag for the low price of $8(!!!!), the Sea Grill which had the best non gamey duck in a bing cherry port reduction sauce (and I don't even like duck!), the sheer ubiquity of chainsaw carvings and of course, the redwood tree.

I often make stops at various tourist sites to look at the available brochures. Some of them can be great diversions and others can lead to the great Hot Air Balloon crash landing at New Mexico in 2007, or Loleta Cheese Factory- a simple viewing window into the process of making cheese along with a ton of free samples and the Eureka Zoo. The zoo had free admission and that wasn't too surprising as there were very few exhibits. Irony at its best with flamingos flocking around an evergreen.

The highlight of the zoo was the black bear, indigenous to Northern California (as I later found out). As it walked forlornly away from its visitors, I whistled and clicked my teeth, causing the bear to turn around and walk toward me. After a few nods, it turned around and seemingly tried to get me to follow him (her?) to behind the tree. As it turns out, it doesn't like flash cameras, then again if I was penned up, I'm sure I wouldn't be happy with a dozen people clicking away at me either. A few more follow me attempts by the bear brought the following quandry. What exactly is the best response? I'm pretty sure that anyone following that bear would soon be its dinner or at least mildly bloody from "play fighting."

The zoo? A bit of a miss. Turns out, you can't always listen to those brochures.