Day Five - Cheesy and Humble

Waking up in Eureka wasn't that difficult since we have a baby that likes to wake us up.  We had a lot of glorious plans to venture into the close by areas in order to find locales that had been mentioned to us as points of interest.

A colleague at work told me about the Loleta Cheese Factory, and since both Joanna and I love to eat cheese, we just had to go.  The very small town of Loleta lies about twenty minutes south of Eureka, but it was worth the trip.  It was raining as we drove, but by the time we got there it was merely a sprinkle. 

The Loleta Cheese Factory is no more than a small building that actually does house a cheese making factory that you can watch through a few windows.  You can ask questions of the sales people regarding the cheese and there are about fifty samples of their cheese. 

Let me tell you, I love cheese, but there were some really interesting combinations.  Such as cheese and salmon (which I did not try), cheese and salami (which I did try, but was not impressed), chipoltle jack cheese (which I did not try) and even Havarti Dill (which Joanna loved). 

It's a quaint store and you can even buy their products online.  We managed to buy small packages of cheese because we already had crackers.  It became a wonderful snack on our next day's journey up the California and Oregon coasts.

After the shot time in the cheese factory (like I said, it was small), we headed back up the 101 to our next destination - Humboldt State University.  The school sits about twenty minutes north of Eureka.  After exiting, we discovered the school is immediately off of the freeway.  The portion that we could see was phenomenal.  It turns out that they are in the process of adding new dormitories and they look very nice.  As we drove around the campus, we started to realize why they needed more dorms - there were very few that we could see and most of those were at the complete north end of the campus, a good distance (and several hills) away from classrooms.

The campus offers a quick tour and with no students left to gawk at, we were able to zoom around the corners and not worry about hitting anyone or anything.  Kidding. 

Our tour over, we headed to our next stop - The Samoa Cookhouse.  However, by the time we got there, having heard some fun things about the place, it looked like a dump.  No offense to those people that have been there and enjoyed it, but for us, it didn't look like it would be a fun place to eat lunch.  Therefore, we decided to move on to yet another destination on our morning adventure.

Joanna wanted to see Historic Downtown Eureka.  Unfortunately, it seemed that Historic Eureka wasn't all that special after all.  There were a few neat looking Victorian Houses, and a few old book stores, but that was about it.  Granted, it was nice to walk around Historic Eureka because it just looked neat, but there wasn't really a whole lot to look at.  But we were still hungry.  And when we're hungry, we want to eat, naturally.

Our first attempt at food was a cafe that sold bagels.  However, when we entered, we realized it was not going to be our cup of tea.  This was in fact a bagel shop that fused the flavors of Mexican and Jewish foods.  Not that I'm against either, but the options were not something that sounded anywhere close to tasty.

We needed another option, so we used an app on my phone to look for nearby restaurants.  Not much luck, though, but we did see one that was labeled, Lost City Brewery.  I'm a guy that likes to drink beer on occasion and local beers are that much better to try.  Walking into the brewery, it seemed like a distinct difference from what downtown Eureka was just outside the door.  It was a party atmosphere and it seemed like it was the only place for people to actually go.

We ordered food and, obviously, I ordered a beer.  Looking over their menu, I decided on a Raspberry Brown Ale.  Don't think that I don't like "real" beer, but there was something about the concept of fruit and beer mixed together, so I decided to try it.  It was really good and I was pleased with my choice.  Lunch was also well done and the atmosphere made the rest of our time at the brewery worthwhile.
With lunch over and Abby deciding to wake up, we headed back to our car and then the hotel.  Of course, it was still early in the day and we had nothing else planned.  So what does one do when that happens?  Rest and relax, which is something that we don't get to do too often at home, so it was definitely worth it.