The Phoenix One Journals Stories from the dawn of RoadTrip America
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We've never spent a Memorial Day Weekend quite like this one! Thanks to Ellen Crawford of Redwood City, CA, we arrived in Humboldt County just in time for the 27th annual World Championship Great Arcata to Ferndale Cross-Country Kinetic Sculpture Race. You might think sculptures and their creators would be satisfied with a little parade, nothing too challenging. Wrong! The "greatest race on the planet" covered fifty miles this year, and included sand dunes, two water crossings, and mud traps, which all the contestants eagerly tackled "for the glory!" There were prizes, too, including the "Mediocre Award," a 1960 Studebaker that went to the entrant closest to being completely average.
After the race, we ate at the Samoa Cookhouse, a lumberjack eatery where Paul Bunyan might have felt at home. It's the oldest cookhouse in the West, but it has the freshest homemade bread anywhere!
Hal Faulkner, whom we met at the Kinetic Sculpture Race, is a sculptor and toy designer in McKinleyville, north of Eureka. We visited him at his studio, and learned how "action figures" come into being.
For the next few days, we'll be enjoying the north coast, visiting the largest redwood lumber mill in the world, the historic fishing village of Trinidad, and more friends we met at the Race. We hope you'll join us as we mosey through the redwoods toward Oregon!
Mark Sedenquist, Megan
Edwards, & Marvin the Road Dog
6/96
