wilderness gateway ranch, etna, ca

Getting there

I spent another night in Arcata, at the guys house that offered me a ride to Weaverville (about halfway to Etna). Sometime in the afternoon we finally took off - we stopped in Willow Creek, where I met the Czech guys again, but just for a little.

When we finally made it to Weaverville it was already getting dark and I knew i had to spend the night there. Fortunately Rod was very nice and showed me some good spots to camp - I found a nice place in a park behind a museum. It was actually pretty comfortable, and not too cold, I just had to get up early because I didn't wanna get in trouble with the police or any park rangers or whatever. When I got up, I noticed that 5 deers accompained me in the park :)

In the morning I found a nice little local restaurant where I had some hot tea and asked around about the possibilities of hitchhiking up hwy3. People told me very different things. an old couple gave me some money, I guess they felt bad for me.

I found a pretty good spot right at the "hwy entrance" (it's not even really a hwy), but all the people that stopped were only following the road for like 10 to 20 miles - what i needed was at least 35 (to Trinity Center) or 75 (to Etna) and I didn't really wanna get stuck in the middle of nowhere.
After a while someone stopped (an experienced hitchhiker) and told me that there's a gas station a little further up the road and that my chances there are better, since I can directly talk to people. He gave me a joint and said i should smile, because people here don't like backpackers.

When I finally found someone that was going up to Trinity Center, it seemed like they didn't have any room in their truck. So I just kept talking to them (a nice cuple, going camping) until they made some room and gave me a ride. They even offered me to go camping with them, but by that time I already told Becky, my host, that I was on the way to Trinity Center, where she would pick me up and I didn't have phone service (I still don't).

So everything worked out, and it was actually a lot of fun and a little adventure :)

At the ranch

So the ranch is awesome! The landlady is Becky, Raquel's mom (my host in Truckee) and she manages it all pretty much by herself. It's a big house, a smaller one with a renter, and a lot of property with lamas, horses, and different kinds of organic beef cows. There's also two big Great Pyrenees dogs and a little puppy and some cats.

The ranch is located in a valley, and around it are mountains :) It's very beautiful and I'm really enjoying it here. I'm helping with a little bit of farm work, and also with creating a flyer and a website for the ranch. Becky's trying to sell some of her beef, but she also wants to do some projects or workshops here and maybe host people more often - I'm trying to support her here, because I feel that this place has a lot of potential.

Other than that I eat a lot of good, fresh food, and try to organize all the things that are on my mind (which are a lot!). We went for a walk, cleaned out the barn for a new load of hay, fed the cows....and today we're gonna make vegan cheese :D

It really makes me feel good being out here. I might even extend my stay for a couple more days, i feel like I need more time to think :) Also I don't have a host for my next stop yet.