Dear Readers,

You know, if you really want to you can figure out (more-or-less) where they filmed the Endor scenes in Return of the Jedi. You can do your internet research, scope out the old logger road that winds up out of Crescent City, and make your way up that road to take in the iconic setting for yourself. But if you do so, you will entirely be ignoring the recent documentary on Netflix called Murder Mountain, which makes clear that the hills of Humboldt and Del Norte Counties are no longer owned by friendly people, but by creepy drug cartels. You will entirely be ignoring that you travel into those hills at your own risk. Apparently, I am in the group of people that did not heed the warnings, and because of that I had a pretty weird, creepy morning!

The day itself started out with a bunch of bizarreness. First, I woke up to a dark and stormy day. Not ‘oooh, it’s a bit cloudy out’ stormy, but dumping buckets of rain stormy. So I slow-walked the morning hoping to wait out the storm (which I did). I grabbed some breakfast downstairs at my hotel, which I immediately bungled by being a Red Bluff heathen who doesn’t seem to understand that Covid is still a thing. “Sir, you can’t serve yourself,” the hotel person informed me in a condescending tone. “Sorry,” I said in response and asked if she could then pour me a coffee with two creams and two sugars. “Oh, well you can get coffee on your own,” she said in a now snarky tone that hinted that I was some kind of ignoramus. Oh, well excuse me, I thought to myself. How dare I not recognize that I can pour my own coffee after you just told me not to touch anything!

End of rant.

After breakfast and packing up, I drove around the hotel to check out. The entrance had a car in front of it, but it was no big deal and I stopped behind it. As I walked in the door to quickly drop off my room key and get out, the man in the vehicle in front of me rolled down his window, fully masked up and alone in his car. “Whatever, if he wants to wear a mask alone in his car, that’s his prerogative,” I thought to myself. It was the next part that baffled me. As I drew near his vehicle, he rolled down his window, took off his mask (mind you, he was now actually next to a human being, the only time that masks supposedly make sense), and asked, “Hey do you need me to move my car?” I politely informed him that he was fine, and he proceeded to put his mask back on and roll up his car window. “Humanity has lost its mind,” I murmured under my own mask that I have been re-wearing now for weeks if not months.

Following a very quick check out, I was on the road and heading north to my Endor destination in Crescent City. I was so excited, and the storm was clearing up a bit! Unfortunately, I had to stop to pee about 20 times during the short drive, due to the coffee that I had to serve myself back at the hotel, and during one of those pee stops I was nearly mugged! Or murdered! Or maybe they were just trying to sell drugs to me…? Or maybe I was just being paranoid? I don’t know, but it was definitely one of those hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-my-neck moments.

So, to replay the scene, I stopped at one of those beach restrooms because I really had no other option at that point, and as I pulled up there was an old, creepy Volvo parked next to me with an equally creepy look’n bro sitting in the front passenger seat smoking something. It was ominous, but manageable. So I got out of my car, and started heading over to the restroom, and while I’m still about 30 yards away, another creepy look’n bro steps out of the restroom. But he doesn’t engage in normal human behavior like proceed away from the restroom he has just walked out of or walk back towards the Volvo. No, he just leans against the wall right outside the restroom door like the biggest creeper on Earth and stares. Who does that!? Meanwhile, I hear behind me that the bloke in the Volvo has gotten out of his car, and when I look back I see that he has started walking in my direction. It was at that point that I was like “Oh crap, this is how I die,” and I immediately took a right turn and walked over to the beach. I walked the beach for a ways, while continuously looking over my shoulder, and luckily no one followed me. Maybe I was just paranoid. When I finally gathered the courage to head back to the parking area, the Volvo was gone and I was able to do my business and get out of there.

My other pit stops were delightful by the way. One even had a giant Paul Bunyan statue set up next to the bathrooms:

So finally, I made it up to Crescent City and located the turn-off to where the Endor scenes were shot in Return of the Jedi. I am not going to discuss the turnoff, but if you choose to find it someday, at some point after turning off the 101, the road narrows and gets windy and then boom! You are clearly in at least the general vicinity of where they shot the movie. The plants and trees will look the same. Everything will check out! That’s the spot that I reached, and in an excited fashion, I grabbed my lightsaber…errr…selfie stick eager to start taking some cheesy selfies (but also feeling kind of weird because this was literally the middle of nowhere).

As I was gearing up to take my very first selfie-stick selfie, it happened. Revving up on his dirt bike, a guy who definitely looked like he was growing drugs when not dirt biking, turned the bend in the road ahead of me and drove towards me while hopping up-and-down on his seat like he was trying out for Mad Max. Almost immediately behind him came charging an old pickup with its brights flashing my direction. As they road past me I immediately freaked out, put away my camera and gear, and got back to my Jeep. Apparently in the process I took a rapid-burst of three selfies, showing my equally rapidly changing emotional state, which I include for reference and laughter:

At that point, I was saying the f-bomb a lot, getting my Jeep started, and turning it around to get the heck out of there. The really scary part was that while the dirt bike kept going, the pickup just pulled over and stopped about 100 yards after it passed me. Now maybe I was being paranoid once again and these were just some genuine blokes ensuring my well-being (me being alone on some random road shooting photos with a selfie stick like an idiot), but for some reason I don’t think so. I drove past the pickup truck and proceeded down the road and mountain. The pickup truck never followed.

There is a lesson to be learned here, and I think it’s this: don’t be stupid like me! Go to the pre-approved, family destinations that are not random spots up old logging roads, and enjoy your day! In fact, after leaving Crescent City that’s exactly what I did for the rest of the day, and you know what? It was pretty great! (Except for the weird hotel I’m currently staying at…more on that in the next post.) Oh also, don’t worry about my safety moving forward. My further film-location adventures are taking me to more populated, accessible areas!

To be continued,

-Rob