Arcata Farmers Market, Cal Poly Humbolt, Bigfoot Museum, Historic Shasta, Redding

I spent the morning at the Saturday Farmers Market in Arcata. Arcata is a few miles north of Eureka. Arcata is also the home of California State Polytechnic University's Humboldt campus (Cal Poly, Humboldt, for short).

The farmers market is held on Saturday mornings in a big square in the middle of town. There are lots of vendors and it is very well attended. Besides fresh produce, several vendors sell prepared food. I bought a plate of pierogies and a blueberry pastry from a couple of the food vendors. Both were really good!

Besides the food, people socialize and children play on the grass. The event has a really fun atmosphere. It is a nice social and community event.

I don't remember ever seeing purple baby cauliflower before today. I also learned about Micro Greens today from one of the vendors. Micro Greens are like sprouts but are grown in soil. They are packed with nutrients. Varieties included sunflower, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, and peas, among others. Micro Greens seem to be trending, as there were at least a couple of booths today dedicated to selling them.

I checked out a few brick and mortar stores around the square. I saw these stuffed animals shaped like banana slugs and a "Hello" badge I like in one of the stores. I also took a photo of a display of hats in the downtown Cal Poly store, before taking a walk on the nearby University campus.

After visiting Arcata, my plan for the day was to leave the coast and drive inland to Redding. My route passed through Willow Springs, which is the location of many alleged bigfoot sightings and encounters. I hoped to visit the Bigfoot Museum, but found that it is closed for the season. It is closed from Nov 1 until May 1, so I missed it by two days!

I stopped by the museum anyway, and compared my feet to a cast of an alleged bigfoot footprint. It's no surprise that Bigfoot has me outsized.

The Fall colors are on full display today in Willow Springs. 

Highway 299 parallels the Trinity River much of the way to Redding, until the road climbs up and over the mountains near Whiskeytown Lake.

One of the tiny towns the highway passes is named "Burnt Ranch". Below is a photo of its post office. How do you like "Burnt Ranch" for the name of a town? I wonder what year the ranch burned down! According to the 2020 census, Burnt Ranch's population is about 250.

I also stopped to see the historical buildings on the side of the higway in the Shasta State Historical Park. Shasta was a goldmining boom town. Gold was discovered in nearby Clear Creek in 1848. The town was originally called "Reading Springs", named  after Pierson Reading, the man who disovered the gold. The name was later changed to Shasta. When the local gold ran out, Shasta became a supply outpost for some of the more distant northern gold mines.

Shasta's first buildings were made of wood, and later ones were made of brick. Many of the original wood buildings burned in fires.

The brick Masonic Lodge building pictured below, the Western Star Lodge, has been in use since 1854. It is the longest continuously operating Masonic Lodge in California. It makes me want to learn more about whatever role Masons played in western U.S. history.

The  historic town of Shasta is just a few miles west of Redding. I ate dinner at one of the In-N-Out Burger restaurants in Redding, and will find a place to park and sleep for the night.

I am surprised how many people are out wandering the streets late at night, or hanging out in parking lots. I decided the Winco parking lot might not be a bad place to spend the night, since the store is open 24 hours and the parking lot is well lit. I had no issues sleeping there.