I Spent the Morning Reading About Bigfoot

I've been a Bigfoot blogger for ten years now. Go ahead and laugh if you want to. It is weird how these things happen.

There's always been curiosity about the big elusive creature. Does anyone forget the first time they saw the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot video?



When my 2 youngest children were about ages 6 through 10 we took a lot of "home school field trips" and several times were in Trinity County, CA - to visit Weaverville, the Joss House, the museum there, and the area around Clair Engle Lake, aka. Trinity Lake. As we approached Trinity Center, CA - there was a Bigfoot statue, and I was immediately drawn to it. "This is what I've been looking for," my heart told me. "They're here."

Ever since I first heard about the town of Happy Camp, I wanted to be there. Happy Camp, CA is a very remote small town in the center of the Klamath National Forest in Northern California. On January 11, 2000 I moved into a cabin-like house there, surrounded by the forest. The house was just outside of the town, in a semi-secluded area. There were other houses nearby.

The town of Happy Camp is full of Bigfoot statues now, but when I moved there, the only Bigfoot statue was the one in front of the post office.

There were also "Bigfoot footprints" painted on the sidewalk in front of the liquor store, and many of the businesses in the town were named after Bigfoot. There was the Bigfoot Trailer Park, Bigfoot Towing, and the Bigfoot Car Wash. That was in 2000 - several years before JavaBob opened his restaurant, JavaBob's Bigfoot Deli. Now that is closed but there's a place called the Bigfoot Store that has a deli in it, across the street from where JavaBob's restaurant was.

Brandon Tennant of Idaho, and JavaBob Schmalzback in JavaBob's Bigfoot Deli late in 2005, in Happy Camp, CA. At the time we met Brandon Tennant, he was doing research while organizing a Bigfoot conference held in Pocatello, Idaho in 2006.

Bigfoot Lives in Idaho
Brandon Tennant illustrated this.
Buy at Amazon.

I was always curious about Bigfoot, and wondered why so few of the Happy Camp local old-timers had anything to say about it. They acted like it was a joke, but they loved the annual Bigfoot Jamboree, a three day annual festival over Labor Day weekend.

By 2005 JavaBob was president of the Chamber of Commerce and I worked in a small office across the street from his deli. The chamber needed a focus for marketing Happy Camp and chose to market it as an artist's retreat town. I told JavaBob that we already had a theme in the town - and it was (and still is) Bigfoot.

Monsters, Myths, and Me
By Robert (JavaBob) Schmalzbach
Buy at Amazon

Anyhow, I got serious about wanting to find the truth about Bigfoot. I wanted to know why this town claimed a theme of Bigfoot but then denied any knowledge of Bigfoot sightings in the area. So I bought the domain name for my blog, Bigfoot Sightings, and started doing research.

I've never seen one, but many credible people have, and I know they're real. I collected no less than five Bigfoot sighting reports about sightings that happened within a mile of the cabin I lived in, there in Happy Camp.

When I moved to Idaho in 2013 I wanted to be able to continue Bigfoot research in the forests around where I live, in Northern Idaho. I live in Post Falls, which is on a prairie. No Bigfoot here! And I have no car anymore... so I can't do field research. But I do intend to continue working on my blog, which has been silent for many months now. I spent this morning "cleaning it up" - ie: making format improvements - and reading the amazing comments people leave there about their Bigfoot sightings.

I do believe I'll be blogging more there, soon. It is time for me to compile the rest of what I know about Bigfoot sightings in the Klamath River Valley.

... I said yesterday that I might write more about Keith today, but I'm just not ready. Maybe soon, but not today.

Update 8/23 - I decided to write about Keith on my other blog: How Comforting it is to Know He Takes Care of Us

Missed Communications, Shopping and a Broken Playstation

Yesterday was Mother's Day. My oldest daughter, Simoné, called me from Georgia. Unfortunately I wasn't there to get the call and she just left a message. Then I called my mom and left a message. Then I called Simoné back and left a message. Yay for message machines, but I kind of miss the old days when we used to really connect with one another more often.

I drove to Grants Pass with my son in the afternoon - to buy him shoes. That was my primary purpose for going there. I like buying the kids' shoes at Big 5 Sporting Goods because the sales on brand-name athletic shoes are enticing. Aaron got a pair of Spaulding court shoes... they look great.

Then we went to Walmart and bought paint for his bedroom and the livingroom. He chose blue and yellow paint - to be applied with a roller that will make it looked textured, like stucco. The roller cost nearly as much as the paint! I got everything we need to complete the project. My livingroom will be white with green trim.

I also got all the supplies we need to fix his Playstation 2. I found a cool repair guide online so now all I need is nerves of steel and brains... to get this thing fixed. It is the second Playstation 2 he's owned. They seem to break down a lot. Right now we're dealing with disk-read errors and a CD tray that won't open.

My Daughter's Birthday

Today was my daughter's fifteenth birthday. She stayed home most of the time except for a short shopping trip and a drive up the mountain to check the snow level.

Thanks to Susan and Kyle for sending gifts to her!

I wanted to take her on a shopping trip to Oregon next month but she's decided she likes the idea of online shopping -- and staying home. We're many miles from any shopping centers. The nearest mall is a 3 hour drive away.

Now my son is asking me to take him to Yreka next month - to get gardening supplies. He's got a plan (on paper) for landscaping the front yard and already started implementing his side yard plan. It will look great here if he gets all this done this year. But because its raining this week not much is happening outside. He's been painting his bedroom instead.

Minimalist Daughter and a Broken Window

May is nearly gone. Just tomorrow is left then May 2002 will be no more.

We've been cleaning the house today. My daughter gave me two bookcases from her bedroom and I put them here in my dining room which is really more of a computer room and study. I straightened up in here, moving books into the new bookcases, while Keith and Aaron worked in the living room, moving the furniture around and washing the walls. We are planning on washing all the carpets within the next couple of days.

My daughter has developed a need for cleanliness and lots of empty space. In the last year she has gone from having the most unbelievably cluttered room, to having the emptiest room. Very annoying, when you consider that she cannot even stand for me to store a few boxes in the top of her closet now.

Well, it finally happened. Aaron and my daughter were roughhousing in the living room and a window got cracked because of their disturbing activity. How many times have I sat here and worried about that happening? Well I guess they just wouldn't believe me so finally it happened. Now I have one more window to replace. I have two others cracked right now. I don't much care for replacing windows but it has to be done. Last time I did it myself. It takes hours.

I am getting old. I'm going to be fifty in about six weeks. I need a nap. My daughter just got home from her ballet class. In two more weeks they're having a performance for the families.