One of the people at work, Julie,  lives at a place called the "Salmon House", which is a hippie/punk cooperative farm that makes it's money by doing a 'pick your own' vegetable thing in the summer.


On Friday night, we were supposed to go see Iron Man (which I wasn't that excited about), and go to Toni's afterward for some greasy food.  The Salmon house was having a "festival"  (not a party.  Festival) for some hippie organization that I didn't really ever get the name or mission of.   It turns out that the movie's last run was at 9, and we all didn't get off until 10, so we decided to go to Toni's and drop by the hippie party.

That hippie party was... no words.  At one point, when we were still at Toni's, Julie called and said that the party was "indescribable" and "There's drums!"
Of course there's drums. It's a hippie party (eeep)
We parked a little way up and upon getting out of the car were attacked by drumming and the stench of pot. All the way up the street!    When we got to the driveway enterance, we were greeted by a hippie girl with a beer and a flashlight.  She asked us for a five to ten dollar donation and when we stepped back (to wait for another person to get there) she says, "Is the reason you're not coming in the money?"  and goes on a thing about how they embrace the anti-capitalist lifestyle... after asking for money.  AHHAHA. 

Anyway, we called Julie, and she comes stumbling up the drive- pipe in one hand and beer in the other.  She takes us around the back way, over a fence, upon which I got stuck and impaled my leg on a nail (eeeeep) and gave us the tour.

We went through a little area with trees which was dubbed "the chill area".  Blankets and bean bags were spread all over the place.  Just beyond that to the left was a campfire circle, where a bunch of people were singing songs.  She then lead us into the house.  In the kitchen, there was a mandolin player sitting next to a huge, three foot tall hooka.  Not a bong, but a hooka. 

Outside, there was a filmstrip being projected on the side of the barn, a small area in which you could paint and those paper bag lumanarias everywhere.  Julie lead us to the "drum room", which was completely dark, except for christmas lights.  The HSU samba band was playing, so the drumming was actually organized, not random hippie groove jamming.  The room reeked of pot and hippie body odor, so we bailed it out of there as quickly as we could.

We ended up just standing around outside, before leaving.  The best part was the cops constantly cruising by and the huge amount of beer cans being thrown on the ground, killing the environment :)

It was the most  hippie experience ever.  I can't even describe how horribly cliche'd it was.  I'm surprised there weren't any Screeching Osperey costumes.     I wish I had a tape recorder to get all the conversation we heard.   Oh, stupid hippies.

 It's funny, none of the people our party (the other people worked at the Gap and the Bounce-a-rama at the mall) were having a good time.  Especially once the samba band packed up and left,  the hippies took to doing their own groovy drum circle.  Hippies dont' have rhythm.

God, I hate Arcata.  :)