Historian adventure team report.

Recently I decided to become a historian. I was calling myself an archaeologist, but when Gary pointed out that I don't actually dig anything up, I just poke around in the mountains, I downgraded to historian. That makes the dogs historical.

So I'm like, Hey you guys! Hey you guys! Let's go on a history walk!


Let's go groove at some history! Walk where people used to walk! I am pretty loosely unorganized with my history. I think a walk is always better if you can combine the social history of logging, ghosts, vintage cars and a good adventure. Oh, and maybe a sea cave. And derelict cabins. Luckily, all of this can be found right in my very own neighborhood, give or take a mile or two.


The dogs are all, yeah, right. History is code for a walk with leashes that potentially lasts all day and a lot of being stayed in a line. Probably in front of buildings. Stacked up rocks. Talk about logs. Yay.


I just think it's interesting to walk the back ways around my neighborhood, and figure out who walked there before. Who lived in the houses, who dynamited out the limestone, and who walked up these hills. I actually may be a historical detective.

Hey, that's WAY better than an archaeologist.


Detectives can deduce when somebody's hiding in the bushes. There's a guy in the cactus bushes just by here. It isn't nice manners to take photos of junkies. When in doubt, what would Martha do? Probably offer him a handi-wipe. We let him be.


This walk involved a secret staircase and a couple of secret paths. The dogs collectively sigh. Is there going to be trespassing?


I decided today's theme would be Let's Visit the Old Cemetery. My sensibility has been very goth lately, and I'm also currently obsessed with mountain logging operations. Some of those old logger barons are buried in here. That is not a logger baron sleeping bag.


You'd think Gustavo would like this. He always liked communing with the ghosties.


The dogs don't totally love this cemetery. It's currently used as a homeless camp and shooting gallery. Most of the gravestones, dating back to the 1850's, have been pulled out. Graves dug up. Stones ripped out. Sleeping quarters set up on old hillside crypts.


The little girl's grave gave Gustavo the heebie jeebies. His lips are quivering. Look! No teeth! Probably her dog offering that is totally his twin freaked him out.


Poor little girl. People leave stuff here for her ghost.


Walking to the old cemetery is sort of a forest walk, just with more heebie jeebies. We go by way of my neighborhood, then a jaunt down the side of Highway 1. Some of this land was originally owned through the 1800's by the family that owned the logging operation in Nisene, one of my best forests. Chinese rail workers, old settlers, cobblers, farmers, Civil War vets, ladies of ill repute, you name it. The remnants of all kinds of forgotten people's bones lay inside here. It's sad to be long forgotten.


The adventure part of our history walk was trying to find a good secret shortcut path back up the hill so we didn't have to take the freeway path again. The cemetery paths join up with Heroin Hill and if you're not into heroin or meth, you might like walking around the long way a little better. Every track we tried had enough camps and campers set up on it that I abandoned that mission. Usually I'm a pretty brave adventurer, but the visible drug culture in this part of the forest made me think twice about trekking deeper into the woods on unmarked tracks.

Meth people are just not that impressed that I'm a historical detective. Not a profession with a lot of street cred.


Good history dogs. They had to walk far on leashes and mostly on city streets. No complaining, even when busses drove past. Tomorrow, we go back up to the regular forest to find some history they like better.