Lost City

Headed south to . . .

Ferndale. The forgotton Victorian Village.

And in case you didn't pick up on that from the hundreds of brochures located at every tourist stop/B&B north of Mendocino, the long drive from the 101 westward to the coast serves as a reminder.

Hills start becoming flat into fields. Forests turn into pastures of grass, small herds of cows appear regularly and then a series of houses, letting you know that you've arrived if you missed the huge Welcome Sign for the county fair. So I did was every good tourist does, park the car and walk around Ferndale. Yes there were Victorian Houses. Candy colored and small. However, the shops were quite interesting considering they had quite an artistic flair. The drama going around town at the moment was the possibility of it becoming (or a city near it) a port for cruise ships to Alaska. This brought the age old debate, "we'll have a bunch of tourists coming in, revive the town vs. we'll have a bunch of tourists that will kill the small town charm."

I had no say, I bought some jewelry and then discovered the amazing Blackberry Pie at Wild Blackberry Cafe. It was so amazing, that it did not even need the whip cream and I feel that I would cheat the experience if I ever tried a slice anywhere else again. So drop by if you ever are in the area and don't know what to do. I also discovered then that Humboldt County is the Pot capital of the world which would explain that when I went to Foggy Bottoms Yarn, a bunch of knitting tourists were disgruntled that the store was scheduled to open at noon and well it was a quarter to 1.

After a failed attempt to the county fair- when people start to stare at you driving up to the gate, it's best just to turn around and pretend you didn't want to go inside in the first place, I returned to the Yarn store. Much to my surprise, she was there, about an hour and a half later after she had promised to open. Also as it turns out, people in this small town are really honest. We entered the store and I assumed the proprietor was in the back. No. She was across the street at the Post Office returning to the store. Talk about trust. And lack of willpower as I left with some amazing Plymouth Llama Silk Yarn and some varigated green gift yarn for a friend.