September 25, 2025 - Eureka

 

Title: September 25, 2025 - Eureka

Hike Info : Description : Extra Photo's : Animals : Flowers and Plants

Hike Info:

Type: Hiking

Trail: Trails within Humboldt Botanical Gardens

Description:

Coneflowers

It is Sherri’s and mine anniversary. As I put out on Facebook, it is our 111x111 binary anniversary. Or for those of you who are not programmer types, our 7 squared years. Or for those who do not like math, it is 49 years together today.

I slept 10 hours, I am not sure when I have slept that long. We had our breakfast and then played what do you want to do today. I suggested Humboldt Botanical Gardens. David has not been yet. When we were in Atlanta, we had gotten a membership to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens-it was not that much more than the entrance fee. This membership allows us to us a reciprocal agreement with any American Horticultural Society gardens which the Humboldt one is. So free entrance it will be. As it turns out, the entrance cost is only $7 to get into the Humboldt Gardens for seniors.

 

David among the flowers

About noon we leave for the gardens. I think we mostly doddled before that. The Gardens are located on the College of the Redwoods campus. Kevin, David’s close friend used to teach here and lives just over the ridge from it. When you go someplace for the first time, you have a set of expectations. I was thinking it was going to be a small, underdeveloped area with a few mangy beds.

Instead the initial area is well laid out on a slope where there are colorful beds and well maintained. We came at the end of the season, so some of the plants, such as the Coneflowers are at the end of their bloom. Still there is enough color for the eyes to enjoy. We wander the beds, enjoying the sites, looking for identifications for plants which look interesting and wondering how many of these we could introduce to the heat in Fresno.

A little bit of the gardens

While this developed area may be the star of the Gardens, it takes up only a small part of the land which the Gardens resides on. There are three miles of trails. Where there is a trail,our feet try to find their way along it. We take a series of paths towards the end of the Gardens which the volunteer at the entry station noted.

It is called Santino's “All Happy Now” Earth Sculpture. This is a hill which is a hemisphere. They have overlaid a Fermat Spiral over this. So there are two paths to the top, each starting at opposite sides of the hill. The spiral is made so each path runs side by side until they meet at the top. Each will go an equal distance. And that is what Sherri and I do, start at each starting place and meet at the top. The idea is to do this more as a place of calming and meditation rather than as a hike or a competition. I will admit, I did it more as a walk than a meditation. Maybe if I was to do it again, I would look more as a meditation.

Sherri on the Happy Hill

 

 

We then start back along the service road. Maybe the only real fault which I have to the Gardens is the lack of a restroom. The only place where there is an outhouse is at the start-and I needed to go, so I went back to the start, leaving David and Sherri to meander down a few other paths. When I emerged, they had made it back to the terrace area.

We go back to David’s house. David cooks us a meal worthy of our anniversary dinner. He cooks us top sirloin with bread, veggies and a salad. Pretty good. Then more talking and into bed around 9.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Extra Photo's

View from the Happy Hill

 

Heather

 Animals

Banana Slug

Banana Slug

 
Flowers and Plants