Eureka and Huckleberry Pie

Then there were the trips we took on which I checked out various rural properties — I don’t know just when we made these trips but I suspect it was before we acquired the old Joe Johnson farm or the half of dad’s farm after the settlement of his estate when mother died. After this I think my urge to own some farm property was satisfied.

I recall the trip, with the girls along to the 10–15 acre ranch near Turlock; it is remembered as the watermelon ranch as that was the only crop still in evidence. It much have been in the fall of the year when everything else (it appeared to be a small truck farm operation) had been harvested.

A more reasonable investment would have been the alfalfa farm in the vicinity of Chico. This was considerably larger and would have been a more profitable and more easily managed property. But in the end nothing developed — though I was interested enough to take some color slides. These are probably still tucked away in the boxes of slides we have, which we haven’t looked at in years.

When we married Jean had a 35mm camera which she had purchased second hand from Henry Kingsley at work. We used this for several years and we have some slides from the trip we took to Yosemite when Muriel was small. Some of these have deteriorated over the years but are still mementos of various trips. Later we bought and used a Japanese 35mm camera, a Ricoh, which we lost when the ’69 Plymouth was stolen in Golden Gate Park in 1978. This was replaced by another camera, which I think can take either slides or negatives for prints, but which hasn’t received much use.

The leads on possible rural land investments resulted from perusal of such catalogs as those put out by United Farm Agency. I think I continued to received these even after we were here in Oregon but they have now stopped coming. Even those I received while we were living in El Cerrito contained listings of Oregon property, much of it in the northwest corner of the state. Associated in my mind with such property was always the possibility of these places as being places for retirement.

One time Jean and I took a driving trip to Eureka to check it out for retirement potential. On that trip we did not take the girls along. We made the trip at a time when the Cold War and the threat of a nuclear attack on the U.S. was more prominent in the public thinking, and I had decided that the least vulnerable area in the U.S. would be northern California or southern Oregon. There would be virtually no military or population targets worthy of notice and in addition the prevailing wind pattern would be generally west to east and would move radioactive clouds away to the east. And of course the area had no upstream targets so it was safe from the standpoint.

At the same time we did not want an area that was too isolated and with no potential for survival as to shelter and food. So we made the trip to Eureka to check it out as a potential place to move to (even before retirement). I rather liked Eureka and the area around it, having had ever since my days in San Pedro and my first experience with the sea cost (out at Point Fermin) an attraction to the seashore. It does have considerable rain and cloudy weather which did not appeal to Jean but such a climate has a certain attractiveness to me.

The Eureka area economy is of course largely based on logging though there is some agriculture — dairy farms and the like, I suppose mostly for local consumption. The economy has in recent years been depressed and will be more that way in the future, but that does not affect the livability of the area, assuming that there would be income from other sources.

Near Eureka is Arcata with Humboldt State College which I suppose like SOSC in Ashland brings events of cultural interest to the area. Eureka is an old town so there are interesting old buildings in it, such as the Carson mansion. The waterfront with its fishing boats, piers etc. is an area that fascinates me, as it provides many opportunities for sketching and the like.

All in all, I think I could be happy and content in Eureka.

On this “scouting” trip we turned inland from Eureka and took the road to Redding. It was on this leg of our journey that we stopped for an afternoon snack and I had my introduction to huckleberry pie which as ever after been a favorite of mine. The place we stopped was a small town beginning in W (Willow Creek?).

After we moved to Ashland Jean and I made a short trip over to the coast and our route took us past this town, whatever it was. We tried to find the place where we had had the huckleberry pie previously and couldn’t so we stopped at another restaurant for lunch. On inquiry of the waitress who served us I found out that the place we had stopped at before had burned down, probably shortly after we had been there originally.

The first piece of huckleberry pie I had was definitely of a reddish hue and Jean says the huckleberries she had as a child were like this and that she understood the local Indian tribes gathered them for sale. Later on, here in Ashland, we’ve had further contact with huckleberries, but these seem to be a different variety as they are both larger and more purple or blue than red. These huckleberries grow in the forest at the higher elevations (I used to think they only gre in the wild but I’ve seen the plants advertised for sale in local nurseries so I think they can be grown under cultivation also).

We have picked huckleberries a couple of times up in the Cascades, but never successfully as to amount. Mostly what we picked was enough for a pie or two. At least once we went with a couple from the local Methodist church, the husband had leads on places to go to find them. We found some, but not in the abundance that I had expected.

Another time Jean and I went for a hike along a forest trail starting at Four-Mile Lake up off Dead Indian Road and we chanced upon a small stand of huckleberries. We weren’t prepared for picking but I think we had a paper bag with us in which we had carried our lunch and we picked enough berries for a pie I guess.

The trail to Four-Mile Lake is a nice hike and once we had Palma along with us for the walk; I think it was on that occasion that I made a couple of sketches of a well-known local mountain (I can’t recall the name right now) with Four-Mile Like in the foreground. I have since used the sketches for ink drawings of the scenes.

On the way to Crater Lake from Medford there is a Becky’s Cafe where the road leaves Highway 62. We’ve stopped there several times and the cafe has a specialty of huckleberry pie in season; we’ve often treated ourselves there. On one occasion (I think we had Palma and Dave along while they were visiting us) we stopped at the cafe both on the way to the lake and on the way back and I, at least, had a piece of huckleberry pie both times. It seems to me that Palma may have also indulged herself in this regard.