HSU

Below is a letter I wrote to the instructor of my Saturday Geography course. Thankyou very much for allowing me to miss your geography course to attend student orientation at Humboldt State University. Guess what - I was in geography class the whole weekend. I think that anytime one goes someplace new, they are in a geography class. Until this weekend, the furthest north I had ever gone in Coastal California was Pt. Reyes, (until last weekend, it was Mt. Tam.) This was a unique opportunity not only to learn about what HSU had to offer but what the North end of my adopted state had to offer. First off, my cousin, who unlike me is a native Californian, once told me that Highway 1 is the most beautiful drive in the world. If that's the case, it's got to be incredible, because 101, aptly dubbed the "Redwood highway," is pretty awesome. It winds through the mountains (is that the coast range up there?) and where the redwoods are close in to the highway, it can get quite dark. On the way home, I took a detour off of 101 and drove down the "Avenue of the Giants," a frontage road that parallels 101 but winds through the Giant Redwood. It is managed by the CA State Parks and has places to stop and learn about them (which I didn't do). Coming down, I had to avoid the temptation to drive down the highway looking straight up out of my sunroof at the redwoods. Humboldt state itself has a very interesting campus. It's VERY hilly, and students must build up strong legs to be able to go from one part of the campus to another. Like the rest of the area, there are many redwoods on campus. Right behind the campus there is the "Arcata Community Forest" Arcata is the town that HSU is located in. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to go into the Forest but I am an avid jogger and fully expect to turn the Community Forest into my personal fitness gym as I have done with the East Bay Regional Parks. Humboldt State looks like a fascinating place to go to school. Now I just have to pass my damn stats class.