What's that smell?

A few days immersed in this nature, I was done. My allergies weren't subsiding and the only thing that kept me from finishing the medication was that I had to drive south on really bendy roads. Proof that the GPS still needs a few technology tweaks? I was coasting down 101 and after the initial instruction to drive 40 miles to your destination, was glad that I'd start to see civilization.

Right. Who was I kidding? Like I hadn't learned that my entire vacation was going to be full of mini-adventures? 20 minutes later, down a very windy path through the forest, the GPS instructed me to "turn right." Yes. Thank you Ms. GPS for leading me off a cliff into a ravine, maybe even the Pacific and most likely my death, sealing my eternal future life to be at one with my car rental, which by the way, was labeled as "tan." It's not. It's Olive-Puce-Green. Named (affectionately) as Olivia throughout the trip so she wouldn't feel neglect and cause problems.

At Garberville, we checked into Benbow Inn and were given our room. There was a strange smell in the foyer of the room and we couldn't figure out what it was. This is one of the few failings of the internet. No Scratch n Sniff. No scent in a bottle. It was just offensive, but the fact that we weren't in a room decorated with stuffed bears and scenes of the north pole, just kept us from assessing the situation. Rather than sticking around, we placed the lavender we couldn't stop buying from Matanzas Creek Winery around the room and decided to take a drive to a nearby winery. On our way out, we ran into the porter who was entering our room to give us a bottle of chilled rose champagne. I know I didn't order it. But as we couldn't stand the smell of the room, we just rushed out of the inn in hopes that it would get better later.

I've never tasted wine from a box or bottle, and I'm not sure if I ever will. But I do know one thing's for certain, this weird concoction of Firehouse Red comes as close to wine in a box as I can imagine. Thanks for letting us keep the glass, but we walked away with no wine. The largest stores in this tiny town included one that sold chain saw bear carvings and another that sold tie-dye tshirts. I don't know who actually buys them, but I do know that the townsfolk wear them proudly, enough to cause holes in places where you do not want to see holes. Want to know where your summer camp tie-dye tshirts went to die? Right here in Myers Flat.

At the inn, the smell persisted. And I noticed it even while suffering severe allergies and my "collapsed lung." It's moments like these when I realize that there are some places that I cannot spend the rest of my life at. Northern California, is quickly becoming one of them.