Sunday 31st May - EUREKA!

Today we began our long drive south to Huntington Beach, just south of LA. Dorothy and Val collected us and we set off around 10am. We headed due west to Eureka. Over yet more beautiful mountain ranges and through lovely river valleys. Val has a big comfortable 'people carrier' and it is nice to be driven along this interesting route where there is so much to look at. The journey took most of the day including some stops on the way.

Eureka is a town I have long wanted to visit - just because of it’s name. I can imagine an old gold-miner shouting ‘eureka’ when he first finds his nugget of gold or the folk travelling west in their wagon trains shouting ‘eureka’ when they reach the coast after travelling thousands of miles over mountains and through deserts fighting off the Indians on the way!!

It was a nice town and lots of beautiful old Victorian houses still remain, all painted different colours. But there seemed to be quite a large element of ‘down and outs’ gathering in groups all carrying bottles, and one area of the town, near the docks, seemed particularly unsavoury.

My two American friends have been teasing me for days about wanting to go to Eureka - to them it is just a town and they did not know about the true meaning of the word. When I read them the 'Wikipedia' entry as to the history of the word, including the fact that ’Eureka’ is the Californian State Motto they said ‘Huh, it takes a Brit to tell us this’!

"I've found it"

We spent a comfortable night in a Best Western just outside the town.