Hello, Arcata.

After an entire day of traveling, we finally arrived in Arcata late last night. Let the vacationing begin! I suppose technically it began when we touched down in San Francisco, or when we stopped in Napa and St. Helena for a quick tasting and some grub, but it wasn't until nine hours after touching down in SF that we entered the cool stillness of Humboldt County and truly felt we'd arrived.

Wine tasting at Turnbull Winery.

Shrimp tacos and other yummies at Taylor's Refresher, aka Gott's Roadhouse.

We celebrated our arrival by passing out immediately. An eighteen-hour day of traveling can have that effect.

Cozy toesies.

We got up early and walked to town for breakfast at Los Bagels, where the kind folks of Arcata offered gluten-free bagels for me and my people (the gluten-intolerant). Not used to making bagel decisions, I hastily blurted out that I wanted cream cheese and lox, with onion. Some of the best decisions in life are hastily made; that bagel was definitely one of them.

Then we went to the farmer's market, where a girl was selling poems, written on the spot on a typewriter in a box. In my heart, I felt the unmistakable twinge of someone in Williamsburg, dying of happiness (and maybe jealousy).

We bought beautiful heirloom tomatoes, poblano chiles, jalapeño peppers, an onion, cilantro and some arugula. Oh, and a loaf of gluten-free bread that was described as containing carob and molasses, but pretty much tasted like a really good rye bread.

I read all afternoon in a sunny nook, with a slice of the bread and two big glasses of milk. I read the entire first book of the Hunger Games series. That book was intended to last me for the entire vacation, and instead I read the whole thing on day one. Whoops.

We made chiles rellenos with the poblanos, stuffed with sweet corn and cheese.

Overall, a pretty excellent start to the vacation.