The hook
A whole town of ornate Victorian "butterfat palaces" survives on the Humboldt coast, and every spring it's where a three-day race of giant human-powered art sculptures crosses the finish line.
01Why it's worth it
Ferndale got rich on dairy in the 1800s, rich enough that the farmers built elaborate gingerbread Victorians they called "butterfat palaces," and the whole town, nicknamed Cream City, is now a California Historical Landmark preserved down to the storefronts. It's so intact that Hollywood keeps borrowing it as a stand-in for small-town America; Outbreak and The Majestic were both shot here. But the best thing about Ferndale is the Kinetic Grand Championship. In 1969 a local sculptor named Hobart Brown bolted extra wheels onto his son's tricycle, a rival artist dared him to race it down Main Street, and it grew into a three-day, 47-mile cross-country race of enormous human-powered contraptions that pedal and paddle over road, sand, mud, and bay from Arcata to Ferndale's Main Street every Memorial Day weekend. It is the most Humboldt thing imaginable, and the town keeps a museum of the machines.
02How to experience it
Ferndale is five miles off Highway 101 south of Eureka, about five hours from the Bay. Walk Main Street and the residential blocks for the architecture, and stop at the Kinetic Museum to see the past racing sculptures parked like beached whales. Come Memorial Day weekend for the race finish if you can time it. It pairs with the Lost Coast, which begins just to the south.