The Kinetic Sculpture Race

Memorial Day weekend brought my mom and dad up to the county. We lucked out and actually had pretty good weather. It was sunny but windy. We watched the Kinetic Grand Championship Race. Check out their website This is a 3 day race where contestants create a kinetic sculpture which must be man powered and has to be able to go on pavement, sand, and water.

Day 1: The race started on the Arcata Plaza at the noon whistle. All the sculptures went around the plaza for a couple of laps. I think the plaza was as far as some of the sculptures were going to make it. After the plaza portion, the racers had to navigate the dunes. We were able to stream some of the coverage off of their website.


Danielle and I @ the Kinetic Sculpture Race







After watching the race, Dad rode his bike to Trinidad.

Oh boy was that an adventure. We had him on a route to catch the Hammond Trail which starts just around the bridge @ Mad River Beach. He got a little lost and took a couple of detours. Then, the Hammond Trail ends @ Clam Beach and so he had to ride for an exit on the freeway to get to Westhaven Exit (Moonstone Beach) so he could take Scenic Dr. into Trinidad. He rode home from Clam Beach. 40 round trip. MOm and I tried to exit @ Westhaven and find a road to backtrack to Clam Beach. What we found was a dirt (well, muddy) road which had a gate it was open so we drove through...more mud, more mud windy up and down little hills. narrow, vegetation with just enough room for the Maxima to fit through. Then mom had to back up the whole way out because we started seeing no trespassing signs and the mud started getting a lot muckier.

Mom at a pretty spot along Scenic Dr.


Day 2: This was the water portion and started at the boat launch just under the bridge if you drove along hwy 255 aka Samoa Rd. It was sooooo windy! We brought my friend Becca along for the hilariousity! Seriously, it was pretty funny watching them fling their sculptures off the boat ramp! Many sculptures suffered crippling breaks and had to be repaired.







After watching Day 2, we decided to go for a hike @ Headwaters Forest Reserve. This was a trek! We made sandwiches and planned to hike a couple of miles of the 11 mile roundtrip. Well, we hiked 3 miles and ate and then we still had energy and figured we were pretty close to the old growth. Just a mere 2 and a half miles. Well, from mile 3-4 was a HUGE uphill and took an hour. At this point, dad was tired and hungry since he rode 40 miles the day before. He turned back. Mom, Becca and I were determined to get to the old growth. We hiked all the way there and the trees were very big. It's hard to capture their size in pictures. We walked about an eigth of a mile around the loop and then started back. Oh man...we made it back to the car intact. It ended being an 8 mile for dad and a 10 and a quarter mile for Mom and myself and Becca. We were soooooo tired!!! Then we went to a nice dinner at the Six Rivers Brewery in McKinleyville.











Monday morning we were recovering so we had a lazy morning with bacon and eggs and then mom and dad headed for home. All in all, it was a great trip and I think we all had a really good time.