Sapphire hued rivers wind past the tallest trees on earth before emptying into the raging Pacific Ocean here in Humboldt County, a true paradise on earth.

While I can’t make it out into the Redwood forest or to one of the rugged cove beaches every day , I am lucky enough to be able to do my work online. As a freelance writer, that means the cafes of Eureka’s Victorian Old Town are my office spaces. And they are just as inspirational.

Used bookstores, art galleries, brew pubs and bakeries are now housed in buildings that were once brothels and drinking dens. The gold and timber booms put Eureka on the map a 150 years ago, and the town has never regained its original glory. And that’s a good thing.

For those of us that now haunt the waterfront Old Town, with its views out over the Humboldt Bay and the verdant rolling foothills at the bay’s edge, Eureka is magical place lost in time. Often, the fog obscures everything, making it a place lost in place as well.

Too far from the Bay Area to be a weekend destination and too small to really ever be stressful, the county seat is an outpost of slow city living on the edge of one of the most beautiful and diverse natural areas in the world. It really doesn’t get any better, I love it here.