As we neared the end of the year, we were faced with an interesting quandary: last year, as she worked toward moving her mother out here from Nebraska, Julie accumulated enough flights and miles on United to reach the Premier Silver status level. This wasn’t a huge accomplishment—it’s the lowest level of access you can reach within United’s frequent flyer program—but it did include a few nice benefits, such as earlier boarding and complementary checked bags; these came in handy this year, as we arranged college visits for Joe.

Unfortunately, it looked like she was going to come up a couple flights short this year. Not wanting to lose those benefits, as we have some travel planned for 2024, she hunted around for cheap fares and was able to snag a pair of round-trip tickets to Eureka, California, which is about 80 minutes north of San Francisco by air. Of course, school is in session, so we couldn’t disappear for a week; instead, we took a short, overnight trip, leaving Julia and Joe in charge of making sure that William was fed and the house didn’t burn down. We left Saturday morning and were back by mid-afternoon on Sunday.

Unsurprisingly, the plane we took was a bit different from the big jets we take on cross-country flights to Chicago. The experience reminded me of the short hop I used to make from Champaign to Chicago on my way to job interviews on the west coast. We boarded via stairs on the tarmac and were on our way.

We arrived in Humboldt County right around lunchtime, and we set out to find a place to eat. The first place we tried was deemed insufficiently scenic, so we set out for another establishment that was, well, marginally more picturesque. We had some perfectly competent bar food and headed to our first destination: the Sequoia Park Zoo.

The zoo itself, which is the oldest in the state of California, wasn’t the main focus of our visit. Instead, we had our eyes on the Redwood Sky Walk, which is a short walking trail on a series of rope bridges suspended from the redwoods within the zoo. The walk itself was brief—it took us around 20 minutes to cover the entire course—but the views were breathtaking. The rest of the zoo was fun, as well: we were able to capture a few pictures of a red panda that we sent to Julia, much to her delight.

After the zoo, we made a quick trip past the Carson Mansion, which is heralded as “the most grand Victorian home in America” according to Wikipedia. The house itself is not open to the public, so a drive-by was about all we could do. From there, we checked in to our room at the delightful Carter House Inns and rested for a few minutes, as we had barely stopped moving all day.

Having recovered a bit, we went for a walk on the waterfront, eventually making our way to the Dick Taylor chocolate factory, where we indulged in a hot chocolate (it was quite chilly out by that point) and tried a number of different chocolate varieties and formulations. We picked out a few gifts for the kids’ stockings—thereby justifying the entire trip—before we headed back.

That evening, being completely unfamiliar with the area, we were left to our own devices to figure out where to eat for dinner. Almost by chance, we settled on the Brick and Fire Bistro, most likely because it came up early in a Yelp search. It was a somewhat surprising choice for us, considering Julie’s general exhaustion with pizza in all forms, but it turned out to be inspired. It was late enough in the evening that our lack of a reservation didn’t cause any issues, and the food was amazing. I had a Margherita pizza, which was good enough to force me to re-evaluate my own success making pizza at home, and Julie had the Fire-Roasted Brick Bird, which was equally delicious. We finished up with creme brulee, which I don’t think I’d had before.

It would be more interesting to say that we spent the rest of the evening exploring the nightlife in Eureka, but in reality, we headed back to our hotel room after dinner and got ready for bed. We read and relaxed for a bit and went to sleep.

We slept in the next morning, completely skipping breakfast at the inn. Once we were packed up and checked out, we drove down to the Avenue of the Giants, which is purported to be the most scenic driving tour among the redwoods in northern California. We didn’t have time to make the full drive—we had a plane to catch, after all—but we saw enough to wish that we had another day to explore further and visit some of the hiking trails and picnic areas in the forest.

And then our trip was over: we hopped on our little plane back to San Francisco and made it home in time for our appointment in San José. Despite the trip’s abbreviated duration, I was very happy we went and grateful to Julie for having and promoting the idea in the first place. Hopefully, we’ll make it back to Eureka someday, possibly with the kids; and it would be good for all of us to find more opportunities like this one to break out of the weekly routine and try new things.

Gallery: Eureka