…but not around here
CritterCon #19
The Wedding Edition
Trip Day One
(Note: Various commentary by those other than me are in italics.)
In which we find a new house made of goofy shit, see big trees, help out a bunch of folks, deal with pirates, play games, and eat seafood.
We were about 30 minutes east of Fernley, Nevada, when the The Wheel Of Times and Routes spun itself and we were transported to Crescent City, California, in 1958. Now, for those of you not from California, Crescent City is on the coast not too far south of the Oregon border. It’s a nice town and we were smack in the middle of it, parked on a side street. Our route was to drive south on Highway 1 to San Francisco, so we started off.
The High Points
Weird House #1
We were not even out of Crescent City when we came to a future roadside attraction under construction. It was the future Driftwood House which we had never seen before because it will burn down 7 years from now in 1965. We stopped to watch workmen cutting driftwood to fit, filling in holes with concrete, and generally doing construction stuff. We spent about 15 minutes there. (Harry: Humans build houses out of goofy stuff.) (Blue: Oh, son, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.)
Redwoods
Mara: About an hour later, we were into the redwoods and realized that our kids and a few of the adults had never been there. Don’t ask me how Himself and I never brought the fam here, but we didn’t. So we pulled over and the lot of us started walking through these magnificent trees.
Ruzio: WOW! I had heard about the redwoods, but they are more incredible than I imagined. I took lots of pix and vids to send to my huge family back home.
Cupcake: Could we just have a normal family stroll through the woods? Not with the Trash Panda and the Crazy Grandfather around! They looked up at a particularly tall tree and Grandpa said “I wonder how the view is from the top?” Next thing you know, they both summoned Ottopus arms and were racing full tilt up the tree. When they came down 10 minutes later, Grandma hit them with a Petrifico spell, then had Sweetie beam them back onboard. SIGH. You can dress ’em up, but you can’t take ’em out.
We Help Those In Need
We were passing through the tiny town of Benbow when we saw a brand new 1958 Chevy Bel Air station wagon at the side of the road with 10 people and two dogs standing by it and 60 feet of camping gear and other stuff spread out on the road behind it.
We stopped and a few of us got out to see if we could help. Sure enough, a rope they had tied things down with had come loose. We all got busy picking things up, but a bunch of their stuff was ruined. Ice chests (the old metal kind) and a couple of folding chairs (the old wooden kind) were totally trashed, plus they had lost a bunch of food and sodas.
Once we got things cleaned up, I sent Blue (who was in a human body) to get them “one of our extra ice chests full of food.” While we waited, we got to meet the Brown family from Coos Bay, Oregon. This was their first trip down the coast to their final destination, Disneyland, and besides George and Helen, they had their 5 kids, two nieces, and a grandma with them. They were nice folks and George offered to pay me for the ice chest and food, but I told him we were only going a few more miles, plus it was my calling from God to help good folks with no expectation of recompense. The whole family thanked me and then drove off once things were tied down extra tight.
Avis: I’ve known Doc a long time and I’m always amazed how a committed atheist can switch over to sounding so sincerely like a Christian clergyman.
Blue: You ought to hear him do his Reagan Era Republican impersonation. It makes you want to punch him in the face.
Pirates Ahoy!
In Fort Bragg, we stopped to stretch our legs and have a look around at a town I first visited as a kid in 1961. To our joy, they were having some sort of Pirate Days Festival, so we got to interact with many locals in costumes. We sang pirate songs, drank fake grog, watched a guy walk the plank, and at one point saw Mara, who is a world class fencer, defeat three pirates in under a minute. All of them were armed with plastic swords, but still, go Mara!
Tia: Mommy always beats Daddy when we all play pirates.
After about 90 minutes of piratical goofing around, we left with pirate hates and eye patches and plastic swords.
We Play Games
Between Fort Bragg and Sausilito, we stopped to sightsee a few times, and while we traveled between stops, we played games. Some of the games, and the winners (where there was a winner) were…
Kingdomino, which Mary won.
Round Up The Chickens, which 6 of us lost because it’s a timed game and when the 15 minutes were up, three chickens were still loose.
Spotsy: We lost because we got the Attack Goose card and Popsy got the Tripped And Fell card.
Gabe: That goose was brutal!
Bean Trader, won in a tie by Grace and Spike.
Potion Explosion, won by Vicky.
Pitch Car, won in a very close lead by Peter, closely followed by Honey and Annie.
Dinosaur Race, won by Harry riding a Stegasaur.
Charlie: Brother only beat me buy a little bit! Next time, I’ll ride a T. Rex!
Sea Food, Eat Food
By the time we rolled into San Francisco, it was about 8:00 pm, the sun was setting, and the little kids were fed and ready for bed. We adults were ready for some food in an adult setting, so we all got dressed up and had dinner at Tadich Grill, which first opened in 1849 and has, even in 2026, absolutely excellent seafood. We all chowed down and then did an after dinner stroll. I love San Francisco and it was great in the late 50s.
After our stroll, we returned to The Bus and spent a couple of hours just hanging out and talking. Then it was off to bed and seeing where we would start our drive from in the morning.
More trip reporting tomorrow.
Destination Sign When We Started: Oz
Destination Sign When We Stopped: Blues Alley
QM Radio Station: KOLD Oldies from the 50s/60s/70s
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