Traveling Dan

ps Point Lobos

PS, the Monterey Cypress also grows at Point Lobos State Reserve just south of Carmel, a lovely place to walk around. I saw two sea otters thru a ranger's telescope!

A Poem (not mine)

Pebble Beach: too bad the whole thing wasn't made a state park long ago rather than what must be the largest private luxury community anywhere, though they let you drive or ride thru. Worth it to see the granite shore and Monterey Cypress that grow naturally nowhere else. The rich people and their ugly mansions are mere squatters.

today i'm heading into the heart of Big Sur and may be incommunicado for a couple days or weeks, so i'll offer this by Robinson Jeffers, the great poet of old Big Sur. Its not actually about Big Sur but it speaks clearly across many decades.

"Shine, Perishing Republic"

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity,
heavily thickening to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops
and sighs out, and the mass hardens

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit,
the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother, and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornley long or suddenly
a mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.

But for my children, I would have them keep their dis-
tance from the thickening center; corruption never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the
monster's feet there are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man,
a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught, -they say- God, when he walked on earth.

See This Aquarium

The guidebook said the ride from Santa Cruz to Monterey was "easy", so why was it so slow and hard? The headwind mainly, more and stronger of it than i've seen on a full day's ride. Wears you out. The terrain was mostly farmland. Did you ever wonder where your early season supermarket strawberries and artichokes come from? This is where. Salinas valley. Cauliflowers too. Industrial agriculture. Strawberry fields forever. And small armies of migrant labor picking them. You should have seen the cauliflower picking, it was a real eye opener for me. A long line of laborers in front of this absolutely enormous rolling conveyer/packer contraption, big knife in one hand, slice off the cauliflower, shear off the leaves, deposit it on the conveyer. Keep picking and moving, picking and moving, because the machine won't stop for you, crew boss guy is up on the big tractor pushing it along. Air conditioned in the cab you know.
Porta potties provided, mexican polka type music blaring from a portable stereo, mobile tacqueria parked on the roadside waiting for breaktime.
Signs posted along fields in english and spanish "no trespassing, field monitored electronically." What's the penalty for pilfering an artichoke? A couple miles later rural worker housing, a collection of derelict travel trailers with old-style TV antennas, dirt yards, roosters crowing. Think about all this next time you're in the produce section. What world does my food create?

They've turned cannery row into the exact opposite of what Steinbeck described, and invoke his name at every turn in doing so. There is even a bust of Steinbeck with an inscription from "Cannery Row" directly across from the "As Seen On TV" store. The place is at least as ironic and far more commercialized than the renamed "Original Main Street" in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, which provided the basis for Sinclair Lewis' scathing portrayal in "Main Street." Both are cases of unflattering but accurate description capitalized upon by a later generation lacking its own sense of identity.

But the Monterey Bay Aquarium, that's a whole nother story. It is really the whole raison d'etre for the current incarnation of Cannery Row. And lets face it, all the candy shops and clap-trap stores are better than the formerly rapacious sardine fishery. Rapacious until it collapsed.
I can't say enough about what a place the aquarium is. It is far and away the best one i've ever been to, and really seems to take its mission of promoting conservation of the oceanic environment seriously. I could have spent half the day just staring amazed at the jellyfish, but every exhibit is a display of life and form far transcending the terrestrial norms we are used to.

Spending two nights in Monterey at the home of Dennis Kelly, who i met at Easter dinner in San Jose and was kind enough to offer me a place to stay. He is Canadian and so talking with him provides perspectives you don't get as often from Americans.

The human history of Monterey is also fascinating. If you visit make sure to tour the history exhibits in the old Pacific building on old Customhouse Square near fisherman's wharf. Monterey was the capital of Spain's Alta (north) California. A lot happened here from the first Presidio and the friars who (as elsewhere) enslaved the natives to save their souls, to the pirates who burned the place down in 1818, to the planting of the US flag in 1846. Since WWII Monterey has been a center for Defense Department higher Ed, with both the Navy post-graduate school and the Defense Intelligence Language School. There are also the usual concentration New Age boutiques and galleries, as you might expect so close to Big Sur, and a "Museum of the Beats" with a storefront display of those cleancut postwar freaks who invented our counterculture.

another day, another god

Today (yesterday by the time you read this, that's how it usually ends up) was fairly short mileage, about 25 miles into Santa Cruz. Began the morning by repairing for the second time the faulty left pedal clipless clip thing. (If you don't know what I mean don't worry about it.)
Just south of Davenport did a little hike down to an almost hidden cliff-ringed beach with a cavernous sea arch tunnel right at the shore, sort of like a tunnel thru a curving wall of cliff guarding part of the beach. Hard to describe.

A few miles before Santa Cruz a colored-jersey road biker rode up beside me, asked me if I was on a tour. Turns out he is 74 years old (I thought 50-something at first) and is training for a tour thru the Alps this summer. His name is Ritt, he first toured in 1976, the bicentennial bike route from Oregon to Virginia on a 10 speed (if you ride you know how hard that would be on hills), since then has toured over 67 thousand miles and counting. He lives seasonally in a Sportsmobile conversion van. He was parked along the seaside bike path in Santa Cruz and showed me a beautifully put-together scrap book of pictures and memorabilia of his bike tours of New Zealand, between what I've seen and heard from him and Jesse (who cycled around the south island) and the New Zealander at Harris Beach, I know I've gotta go. Don't be surprised if these dispatches start coming from far across the ocean. The thing is Norway was already at the top of my overseas list, and I have relatives there.

The one time I was in Santa Cruz before was late October and the touristy boardwalk area was a ghost town, today it was a mob scene. And so many surfers they were lined up in the water waiting their turn at the waves.

Rollin' Again

Hooray, I'm finally out of the city again! SF was great and I had a wonderful time exploring and hanging out but I was jonesing so bad to get on the road again, back in the flow of the trip. Word to the wise: don't plan to get an early start, or any start, after an evening with friends at a tiki bar that serves drinks out of cups the size of salad bowls.

I'm at Pidgeon Point Lighthouse Hostel, an old Coast Guard station converted to a hostel about 25 miles north of Santa Cruz. Finally in cow country again, for what its worth. I love cows, I really do, the way they look up from their chewing and stare as I pedal by, but there are too many of the beasts. Just my impression after several weeks of biking past umpteen thousand (cumulatively) of them. Lets all eat one less beefy meal per week for starters.

If you've seen Spaulding Gray's "Swimming to Cambodia" (and run out and rent it if you haven’t seen it) you know all about the search for the perfect moment. Well, tonight's sunset just now was pretty close.
Not only a great sunset with nice afterglow on the clouds, but not 150 yards off the point a whale breached, full tail and all, then dove and breached again in golden glowing waves just beyond the surf line. So awesome I'm unable to even relate the feeling. Plus a pair of young sea lions swimming playfully in the rocky surf just below us, and various birds including pelicans.
First whale I've seen this trip, and the closest I've ever witnessed. Reminds me again to recommend the film "Whale Rider".

Thinking again about San Francisco: as beautiful and vibrant a place as it is, by the end of my visit I have to say I was almost depressed at the sheer quantity of human suffering there, vast numbers of homeless people of all ages and mental states, and huge numbers of people who clearly ought to be in some kind of cared-for setting (okay, loony bin), and not just all that but the obvious wrongness to me of all these people with not only no simple little sheltered spot to call home, actual home like you and me take for granted, even if only a dry little shack, not only no home but no place to even take a shit so they do it on the sidewalk. (I mean at a certain point you just gotta go.) I don't have any obvious solutions, it just brings home to me that a minimally decent civilization wouldn't give up on so many people, would have a place for people, a role. Actually, I believe scavenger (of cans, scraps, etc) is a legitimate role. And sitting there doing nothing except maybe ranting incoherently, that should be not only tolerated but rewarded, think of how little damage to the world these people are doing compared to all the nitwits in their Cadillac Escalades.

New Photos

Just to let you know I've got new pictures posted in the photo gallery ("California Coast" section.) It may be the last ones posted for some time because my camera went haywire and getting warranty service out on the road is extremely problematic. In the meantime I have a disposable camera and I will take very few pictures. Even as it is I've taken way more than I posted on the site, there are only so many coastal scenes one really needs to see before getting the idea. The reality never gets tiring but pictures make you go glaze eyed after awhile.

Yes I'm still in San Francisco, somehow I always end up staying longer than intended on these kind of visits. I was originally going to get going by yesterday but one thing and another and I won't be ready today, and tomorrow is supposed to be all rain and wind, so probably Friday. I like being flexible but I can't be TOO loose either or I'll never get further than Santa Barbara. Or for that matter Santa Cruz, that's another serious potential vortex so I think I'll ride straight past it.
San Francisco has of course been great, yesterday Lee and I walked for miles thru town, up and over hill and dale, the architectural and geographic quality of this cityscape is greater than any other American city. And the public human scene, all I can say is this city is more entertaining than most. Of course the cost of housing is ridiculous here so its fortunate to have someone to stay with. And yet like many other large cities, the cost of meals is amazingly low, you can get high quality food of almost any nationality for next to nothing.

Hey, if you're ever in San Jose make sure you tour the Winchester Mystery House. Sunday I went to San Jose for an Easter dinner with my friend Jesse at some friends of hers, and on the way we stopped at the Winchester House. It is the estate of the Winchester who invented the repeating rifle, and after he died his widow spent the rest of her life building the house to instructions given her by the spirits at her nightly séances. The result is the biggest and wackiest house imaginable. Worth the admission. Even aside from the doors to nowhere and zigzagging stairways with 3 inch risers, there are more Tiffany stained glass windows than anywhere else on earth. Well, maybe Citizen Kane has a bunch down at San Simeon, I'll see when I get there.

flowers in my hair

When I lived in Reno I used to go to San Francisco from time to time to get my fix of a real city. Getting there involved a 210 mile drive on I-80, which after awhile I got so used to it was like a long commute with my brain drifting aimlessly, worn out at the end of it even though all I'd done was sit there on my ass. Like what always happens on an automotive commute. But riding my bike to SF from Portland has been stimulating and indescribable. And the physical difficulty of it, its a hard thing to explain but the sheer hardness of it makes it all the richer and more enjoyable. I mean I simply cannot believe how many impossible seeming hills I've climbed over.
The last 2 days of riding into town from Bodega Dunes were thru hilly pastures, then along Tomales Bay (which looks kind of like Hood Canal and is literally the San Andreas fault) then thru some more redwood groves and on into north-bay towns of Fairfax, Corte Madera, Sausalito and finally across the gigantic orange bridge into the great big city. There was a tailwind that practically blew me up some hills, it was great. On the ride in thru Marin county there were more colored-jersey type serious road bikers than I've ever seen, it didn't seem like there was an organized event just a huge popularity of that style of biking.
Then from Sausalito on across the bridge to Fisherman's Wharf there were literally hundreds of tourists on rental bikes following a little tourist bike map of the sights. I wonder if the rental place warned them the climb back out of Sausalito to the bridge is practically a vertical mountain climb. Maybe they have a pick up van service.

I'm staying in San Francisco with my old friend Lee in a place with floors that undulate from a century of earthquakes and settling. Last night we went to dinner with another old friend who also now lives here, Jesse Murphey. We saw a film called "The Man Without a Past" by Finnish filmmaker Aki Kourismaki, the best director you've never heard of. Jesse is volunteering at the film fest, so has "insider" recommendations on what to see. One or two anyway. Tonight we saw "Whale Rider", a fine offering from New Zealand that I recommend highly when it comes to theatres. I love the *idea* of film fests but when it comes to looking thru the program and choosing what to see I'm usually overwhelmed because there's like 200 films and the blurbs make them all sound like groundbreaking achievements in cinema.

I'll probably be here a few days, I should get my bike tuned up, oh and two crucial breakages: my left bike shoe clip-to-pedal thing busted so I've only had the advantage of clipping in on one foot for the last 180 miles, and 2 miles before the golden gate bridge my fancy-pants little digital camera (Olympus D-520) broke down, that annoys me to no end, not sure how I will replace it or get it fixed. But I'll post new photos soon from before it broke.

Crazy Roosky Otter Hunters

Last night I stealth camped a few miles past Point Arena. Meaning I didn't see the no camping sign until after it was too late to move on.
Ran into the 100-mile guy again, he's doing 84 today. His name is Scott Harding and he does outdoor and adventure photography. You can check out his stuff at http://www.scotthardingphoto.com

Good thing I wasn't doing 84, aside from being a fairly slow biker there was some incredible terrain. Almost every day I say to myself I’ve found the best stretch of coast yet. But the 10 miles from Fort Ross to Jenner is almost unbelievable. It's amazing they even built a road up it and it is obviously an ongoing project to keep it open and stabilized. If you ever drive it all I can say is keep your eyes on the road, which is a pity considering the views, but there are no guardrails and it would be excruciating waiting to slam into the surf as you plunged hundreds of feet.
Better to bike it and pause every 50 yards for another breathtaking view as you catch your breath (there's a lot of climbing involved.) Next time I do it I’m gonna take all day and just hang out on the edge of various precipices taking it all in.

Weather lightly rainy but visibility still clear to the horizon. Greys and greens of all shades.
There were cows today that were literally grazing on the sides of cliffs, don't ask me how they get there.
Fort Ross was where Russians came to California in 1802 with boatloads of enscripted Aleutian natives to grow food for the main Alaskan colonies. While they were at it they also trapped California's coastal population of sea otters to extinction and forced the local tribes people to spend 1.5 months a year slaving to harvest wheat to send to Alaska. They also traded crafted goods for food from the nearby Spanish Californians. They left after about 40 years when they had decimated the fur bearing sea mammal populations of the entire North Pacific coast.

i met a god

What I’m doing feels like a major accomplishment, even just so far as I’ve gone, but today I met a guy by the name of Richard Gregg who must rank in the high pantheon of bike tourists (if there is such a thing.) Just south of the yuppie-spa picket fence town of Mendocino, coming the other way was a cyclist loaded for what looked like a world tour. Which was exactly the case. He started cycling in 1990 during the first Gulf war and has been making his way around the world ever since. He stops and works sometimes then continues. But his overland mode of travel is always bike. At the moment he is going up the coast to Vancouver, then will turn east across Canada, south to Florida, get a boat of some kind across the Caribbean and continue down thru central and south America. He has a website, www.worldcycle.org, check it out.
Another godlike biker I met in the little town of Point Arena. He's a southbounder too but yesterday when I felt good to have done 50 miles including the big hills he churned out 100 miles, in other words 2 of my days in one. Wow. I'm enjoying my pace though.
Today was one little or not so little hill after another. There was one in particular that honestly felt like riding up a cliff, I couldn't believe it. I took a picture of one of the curves.
There is something anomalous but fascinating to me about cow pastures that slope gently down right to the sheer cliff edge above the ocean. I don't usually think of farms and crashing surf being side by side but the coast is like that.

Cresting the longest hill of the day (up from Navarro River) a guy driving the other way in a gargantuan RV (pulling a car too) gave me a big thumbs up and smile and a friendly toot-toot of the horn. Now I’m normally pre-disposed to hate giant RVs and their drivers, but its amazing how in encountering one person, that individual can serve as an ambassador for the whole group and thus form or change your opinion of the group. So now, until evidence to the contrary, I love RV drivers, friendly old folks with smiles and thumbs-ups that they are.

Two sad road-kills I came upon today: first a bright yellow little bird, probably a goldfinch, then a few miles later a bobcat, yes a bobcat, laying there on the side of the road as if taking a nap, must have been killed the night before. Beautiful animal it was, I’ll post the photo when I get the chance.

peice 'a cake

I love the way people will drive to the restroom in a campground (from their campsite.) Just an observation.
Today was the day of the dreaded Legget Hill, and like many things much feared in advance it was actually a piece of cake. (Partly no doubt because of the fearing.) Okay, that's not true, any of you out there thinking of biking the coast. It really is a Very long climb, the longest so far on the coast though possibly not much worse than Oxbow Summit way back in the Oregon Coast Range. The second hill today, Rockport, was actually much steeper though not as high. Now on the coast itself the road is an endless series of sharp ups and downs as Highway 1 curves in and out of ravines and headlands. Its actually a beautifully engineered road, from the era when roads (like the old Columbia Gorge road) went with the geography rather than demolishing it.
I ended up doing 50 miles today to Russian Gulch State Park. After setting up camp went and explored all around the wonderful shoreline, cliffs and chutes and bowls with churning surf, the power of it is something to behold. Great time to be at the coast, flowers are all abloom. It is so cool to see lupine and paintbrush blooming on cliffsides next to the crashing waves, because I usually associate those flowers with my other favorite environment, high mountains in mid to late summer.

The weather was fair all day and if it does not rain tonight it will be the first full day without rain since Harris Beach, Oregon. The previous couple days here were almost entirely rainy, luckily with breaks now and then thru the day but still... there were moments, nearly blinded by sheets of rain, water splashing up, sky bleak dark grey, hands numb, feet soaked, leg muscles burning, bike and trailer and me all spattered with grime, water getting thru my raingear, getting thru everything, when I really knew I was crazy, that this thing I am doing is nuts. But always moments come along with some surprise or beauty or encounter or insight or whatever, and the day is a blessing no matter what.

hippies and hillbillies

Today was a long 48 miles, hill after hill (to prepare for the Big One, Legget Hill, tomorrow.) Legget Hill is where you leave 101 for good and cross over the coast range on Highway 1, its all Highway 1 from there on down the coast.
Still lots of Redwoods today as the route wound up and up the Eel River Valley (sometimes with scary drops to the river below and no shoulder), but also open green oak-savanna meadowy mountainsides, the combined effect lives up to the description "Tolkien-esque." So much so in fact that there is a tourist trap called "Hobbiton USA" where you can stroll among hobbit houses and Tolkien characters. You think they'd be doing a land-office business these days but they were apparently still closed for the season.

I'm still trying to figure out the little town of Garberville. I stopped in there to buy a few grocery items, expecting as always a typical little redneck small town. I know its a stereotype but most towns under 5000 are conservative little places. Friendly maybe, but seed-cap and monster truck conservative. So imagine my surprise when I began to notice, every direction I turned, hippies. Left and right, up and down the street, in the stores and bars. Not just shaggy rednecks either, hippies. A few rednecks too, but the ratio was way out of whack for a boondocky little miles from nowhere place like that. I mean there was a hemp-goods store! I still haven’t really figured it out but I think it may be that this is one of the centers of the original 60's back to the land movement, and a lot of those people are still here and their kids and grandkids too.
_______________________
Next day now: I was right about Garberville being a center of the 60's and 70's back to the landers. I asked Susan the ranger/cleaning woman at the campsite this morning about why so many hippies old and young in the area and she told me straight up that it was back to the landers, and that she herself was one. Moved up here from Berkeley 30 years ago, raised kids, still lives back in the woods. Says it took a long time for the rednecks to get used to the "hip community" (as she put it) and vice versa but that these days more so than most small places there isn't much of a divide anymore. She told about how an old redneck friend of theirs said something disparaging about hippies to her (Susan's) husband, her husband said "but Bill, I'm a hippy" and the friend replied "you're not a hippy, you're a hill person."
Thus do hippies become hillbillies, but they're still hippies too in the old real sense of the word.

Photos

Just in case you haven't seen them, Dan's been uploading trip photos into his gallery.

back to the big trees

Well, it was a restful day and a half in Eureka at the home of Gretchen and John, it was a blessing to be able to have a zero mileage day (my first since Eugene) and also run some errands. I mailed off a box of stuff I wasn't using at all, so my load is a couple pounds lighter now. Put a bunch of new photos on the website, check 'em out, its not nearly all but a decent selection. Filled up on good food too, Friday night we went to this great southern and soul food place, can't remember the name of it now, Mama something's. Mama came around to all the tables making sure everyone was enjoying their meal.
On the way out of town I stopped at Winco Foods to buy a couple grocery items, I mention this only because it struck me what a soulless and machine-like way to procure food such places are. Winco, if you've never been to one, is like a Safeway on steroids. Disorientingly huge, vast quantities of everything, most of it packaged as if the whole point was to buy packaging and not foodstuffs, employees with glazed eyes, bag it yourself while the next person in line is already bumping into you.
I know a bunch of you reading this are regular vegetable gardeners. You know well what the ultimate antidote to hypermarkets is.

I was worried about the weather today, and in truth it did rain quite a bit but it wasn't near as bad as the hurricane I feared. The sun even broke out several times and the wind was only a factor for several miles. The route south from Eureka involves quite a bit of freeway shoulder riding but eventually you enter what I kept referring to in my head (having recently completed a Spanish course from the library) as L'Avenida de las Gigantes (that may or may not be right), the Avenue of the Giants. It runs parallel to 101 but mostly enclosed in the trees of Humboldt Redwood State Park. I was a bit weary at the thought of once again setting up camp in the rain but was delighted to discover that the hiker/biker campsite has a covered picnic table and patio, and since I’m the only one here, its my little high and dry castle for the evening. Its hard to convey what a delight such a thing is on a cold and rainy night.

a tailwind!

Yesterday was beautiful if fairly uneventful but notable for one happy fact: it was the first time on the whole trip where there was a consistent tailwind for most of the day. If you bike you know how much of a difference that can make.
I stopped briefly at one of the silliest attractions in the Redwoods, the "Trees of Mystery", where you can walk thru a hokey commercialized version of a nature trail and then ride the "Sky Trail" gondola for a mere seventeen, yes 17, dollars. You know how much I’ve paid so far for my redwoods adventure? Zero dollars. Wait, I did pay 79 cents for a Trees of Mystery souvenir pen. (So I needed a pen!) T.O.M. also has, ironically for a place that supposedly celebrates the beauty of the world's tallest trees, a gigantic statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe his trusty blue log-hauling ox. Most surprising was attached to the souvenir shop a small museum crammed with truly venerable and precious Native-American artifacts, weavings, etc, from tribes all across the continent. One wonders how the pieces came to be collected there.
Camped last night in Prairie Creek Redwoods state park, where elk roam en masse. Actually I didn't run into them until a couple miles down the road this morning.
In slummy little Orick there are at least half a dozen places selling chainsaw art, and I must say some of it is really nice stuff from a folk-art standpoint. Orick seems like a place with mixed feelings about the Redwood Parks and all that. On the one hand the town is a gateway to beautiful forests and the businesses in town obviously hope to capitalize on that. On the other hand chainsaws and the mythology of the lumberjack are obviously the root of these people's self-identity.
At Trinidad I met this guy who lived for 1.5 years in a tent at Clam Beach when he first came to town to work construction, now he leases a trailer. Can you imagine an entire coastal winter in a tent? I mean they get about 70 inches of rain a year here!
Poured rain sporadically today but tonight I am staying in Eureka at the home of Gretchen Konrady, my sister's former co-worker and a very swell person indeed for letting me make myself at home in the midst of this trip.

"shortcut" to paradise

It wasn't a shortcut, and there were a couple hours of purgatory involved, but it landed me square in the heart a beauty that transcends anything I could put to words.
The first 30 or so miles today from Brookings, OR to Crescent City, CA was all bucolic country lanes, cows and goats, views over to the sea. But all morning I was inwardly dreading the infamous Crescent City hills, south of town where Hwy 101 heads straight up 1200 vertical feet into the redwoods with no shoulders to pause on and trucks rumbling and fuming past. Then I stopped into the Redwood National Park info center in downtown Crescent City to use the restroom. Next thing I know I’m talking with the ranger at the desk and she tells me of a possible alternate route that bypasses the 101 hill. You just ride out to the end of Enderts Beach Road to the Crescent Beach viewpoint and keep going onto the Coastal Trail, which is the old Coast road but is now a trail for feet and bikes only. She did warn me of one section of switchbacks, otherwise it should be pleasant, though unpaved.
Well... yes, the switchbacks. After a quarter mile of cliff hugging, die if you lose your balance spectacularity, the old road drops to a creek, then climbs up at an impossible angle for what turned out to be several hundred vertical feet. I say impossible angle because it was far too steep and muddy and rocky to ride a loaded touring bike up. Maybe a knobby tired mountain bike with no load, if you had legs like locomotive pistons (which mine will be before too much longer.) But I KNEW it had to level out before too long, I had simple faith in the fact, and damned if I was turning back to town to ride up the freeway. So I got off and pushed, and pushed and pushed and pushed. And pushed. Up and up, one switchback, then another, over a fallen tree (I’m not kidding) then oh god surely it’s got to level out now, but no. I estimate 600 vertical feet, sweat dripping, bike and loaded trailer feeling like anvils on wheels. Then, oh great Lord you love me after all, it leveled out, even went gently down. All the while the woods were beautiful and the sound of crashing surf always below, but suddenly as I rode again on the level old roadbed the trees became enormous. I mean the real redwoods, you know? And then beneath the duff of the trail appeared a smooth path of the ancient pavement of the abandoned road, now almost entirely engulfed in redwood needles and moss. Above me, below me all around me the unspeakable beauty of the redwoods, the kind that leaves you mesmerized and spellbound, and far below to my right the surf still crashing and churning. And how many people have ever seen, since the road closed decades ago, this amazing little stretch of the coast? I'm camped now in the midst of it just off the mossy roadbed. This here is what it looks like when civilization comes then goes away and the 50 million year old Presence of the forest reclaims the bitumen.
I very nearly camped inside a fire-hollowed redwood (like a small room), that would have been a perfect poetic capstone to the day, but then I noticed it was swarming with pale crawly millipedes of some kind. Outside is nicer anyway.

Interesting historical note about Crescent City: the harbor and most of the central city were destroyed by a tsunami caused by the famous Alaskan earthquake of Good Friday 1964, the most powerful quake to ever hit North America.

south coast spectacularity

Hear ye! Hear ye! All ye peoples of Portland and elsewhere who think Lincoln City and the rest of the north coast (however nice the spot) are what the Oregon Coast is about: the south coast is where its at.
The stretch from Gold Beach to Brookings, Samuel Boardman state park in particular, is world class. basically from Port Orford southward you get great scenery and very little over development. And if you come here, whether by car or bike, make sure to take the time to walk the little trails to places like Thunder Cove. All in all I'd say the cliffy, sea-stacky Samuel Boardman to Harris Beach stretch may be one of the best coastlines in the world.
Luckily too the weather was great today riding from Humbug Mountain. Clear skies bring out all the rich
blues and greens of the churning surf.
Also saw a turkey vulture and a falcon, and a bunny. The other day on Seven Devils road there was a big shambling porcupine.
Today for the first time on this trip I ran into other bicycle tourists. First a fellow by the roadside who said he just last week sold his gemstone shop and his house in California and is now riding northward searching for something new. Maybe he'll meet the guy I met getting coffee in Port Orford who is selling his land in California in hopes of starting some kind of commune near Langlois (near Bandon.) That was an interesting character. I could write at length about the interesting people I’ve met so far.
Here at Harris Beach I’m camped next to a New Zealander named Paul who is biking the whole coast Mexico to Canada. His original plan was to go south from San Diego thru Mexico to Panama but upon arrival he learned of the extreme impracticalities and dangers of that for a solo first-time bike tourist so went north instead. After this he will supervise rope courses near Chicago for the summer then continue east to Europe, east Asia and back around home on one of those multi-stop excursion tickets. The total cost of it is incredibly cheap for what you get (4 continents, long time frame, etc.), like $1500.

Today is California!

uphill into a hurricane

According to the forecast in yesterday's paper it was supposed to be dry today, then a weak front coming thru tomorrow. Did the Doppler radar machine break down? The satellite fall out of orbit? I knew half a mile into it today that it would have been a good day to take a "zero" and spend another night at the hostel in Bandon. But I plugged along, encouraged by a ghostly bit of sun thru the grey. Instead it just got steadily wetter and windier as the miles crawled by. And believe me they crawl when you're facing steady headwinds and rain that's like the mist setting on your shower. Nothing misty about it. Like one of those garden hose attachments for soaking the vegetable garden. And literally every time I said to myself "it CANNOT get worse" the wind would pick up and the rain would intensify. The last couple hills before Port Orford stretched out like mountains, even though they weren't objectively much. The plan today was to ride as far as Humbug Mountain state park, about 8 miles south of Port Orford, but I was almost hypothermic by the time I got to the town so I gladly stopped at first cheap dive motel I saw, the Port Orford Inn. I have a strictly limited budget for indulgences like motel rooms, but sometimes you hafta do it. I love camping more than almost anything, and have been outside on many a stormy night, but there are limits. Incipient hypothermia is one.
The clerk is a friendly old Wilfred Brimley-esque guy, watching figure skating on TV as I stumbled in. Told me I could put the bike in the room or in back under the covered parking.
Weather notwithstanding, the countryside was very pretty, what I could see of it thru my rain spattered glasses. Rolling pastures and woods and cranberry fields/bogs. The sheep didn't seem to mind the weather, and the cows they never seem to mind anything. I like cows. Its nice riding by all these placidly staring beasts. I like the horses too. In a car you never get a sense of them. Even on a day like today I wasn't jealous of the people in their cars. I swear.

cheese factory

Word to the wise: never walk into a fudge shop after a day of biking but not yet having eaten dinner. I did that today and walked out with 3/4 of a lb of fudge, 3 different flavors including this cranberry one that is one of the best I’ve ever had. The south Oregon coast is one of the cranberry growing capitals of the world.
I'm in Bandon tonite at a slightly strange little hostel called the Sea-Star. Instead of regular hostel style bunk rooms there are little closet sized rooms each with a bunkbed and a shared bathroom. Its clean though. My roommate is a guy named Guy from Sacramento who teaches school, taking a 2 week road trip. Nonetheless he is grading papers.

The ride today from Sunset Beach went up and down a punishing series of hills called Seven Devils. I recall there is a mountain range in Idaho east of Hells Canyon also called Seven Devils. (Why not 6 or 8 Devils?) It was on my list for last summer but I didn't get there.
These Oregon 7 Devils sure have diabolically large clearcuts, I’ll say that much. And then interspersed along the ridges will be little backcountry homesteads with a trailer home and chickens and like 3 cows.

Bandon, as you may know, is the home of the high quality Bandon Cheeses which you see for sale in finer grocery stores. Unfortunately, as I learned from a local at the bar attached to the hostel, Tillamook just bought the Bandon cheese factory (a small but quality operation) and shut down production, now selling Tillamook cheese with the Bandon label masquerading as the distinctive Bandon cheese but it is just Tillamook in disguise. Meanwhile the south coast dairy farmers are left hanging and have to find new places to sell their milk.
But the fudge, they still make that right here in the shop.
Housekeeping note: to email me on this trip use this address: dan@travelingdan.com
Also, please do leave comments if you wish on the weblog but realize that I do not have regular online access to read and respond to my site. I do all my emails and journal entries with a text-only email device called PocketMail.

Umpqua to Sunset Bay

Only 30 miles today but lots I could write. The day started in a blinding squall of rain, soon followed by blinding glare of sun on wetness followed by more rain, etc. You know the pattern. Wouldn't be so bad if not for the clouds of spray blowing from semi trucks. About 10 miles into the ride a bright red pickup pulled up next to me, the driver replete with mullet and Harley-Davidson bandana... and offered me a ride into Coos Bay so I could get out of the rain for a bit and avoid riding across the notorious Coos Bay bridge. Now granted my intention on this trek is self-propulsion, but I’ve learned in my travels to always cheerfully accept good hearted offers of help or hospitality from well meaning strangers. Such encounters are what makes a journey memorable and much richer in meaning. You may ask, how did I know this guy was solid and not some sketchy redneck out to steal my bike and dump me in the reservoir? Well, you just know, its a sense of things and people that you learn. Most people are awesome, tee-vee scare stories notwithstanding. This guy (Dave) was stellar, mullet and all. In the 15 minutes of the ride I heard many interesting stories of his life, I’ll relate one to give an idea: He grew up in Coos Bay but for 6 years (90's boom years) he worked in Montana on construction of giant log homes for rich people. Once a rich Thai businessman flew the entire crew and the complete pine-log materials to Thailand to build a huge American style log house in the tropical forest outside Bangkok somewhere. Now he (Dave) assists dev. disabled adults in a group home and also delivers the morning paper 7 days a week.

After he let me off in Coos Bay I bought some fresh fruit and rode the remaining 12 miles to Sunset Bay State Park. I splurged beyond my budget and rented a yurt, I’ve been wanting to stay in one ever since I worked at the Oregon State Parks reservation center last year. I must have made reservations for hundreds of them, but on a weekday in off season there's a decent chance of getting one unreserved. At 27 bucks a night they are actually a great deal, very cozy yet spacious too. And warm and dry.
Just down the road here, surrounded by wild forest and just yards from the cliffs and crashing surf there is a beautiful formal garden. It was built 90 years ago by timber baron Louis Simpson. He also built a mansion that burned to the ground and a 2nd one that the state eventually tore down. Simpson himself died penniless in a cottage in North Bend, the town he founded.
Also today, the first time in Oregon I’ve seen a beaver, the State animal, but it was dead beside the road. Seen plenty of live ones elsewhere before.

Rain pounding down again out there, nice to be in the yurt.

to the coast! in the snow!

Eugene often functions for me as a sort of pleasant vortex of indulgences but I finally extracted myself and hit the road. Rather than take busy highway 126 over to Florence I opted for the beautiful and nearly empty Smith River route. Actually to get to the Smith River itself I first traversed 35 miles of bucolic green small-farm hill country out Crow Road and Wolf Creek road, past an inmate work camp, and up over high winding Oxbow Summit in BLM forest/clearcut country. 3 big (BIG) climbs today but now down on the Smith River it will be level for 40 miles to the coast. Camped in dark woods beside the river. The river bottom woods are lush, relatively unscathed. This coast range country is obviously too logged to be wilderness but it is nevertheless very wild and empty. I seem to have about 200 sq miles to myself here.

Next day now, it rained all night and shortly after I rode out at 8:15 am it started snowing! Believe you me, I was surprised! 2 days ago it was 80 deg, and snow at nearly sea level in the Oregon coast range in April is almost unheard of. It snowed hard for nearly 2 hours, the hills were white and Chistmas-like, it even started sticking in the very valley bottom. The novelty of it made up for the sheer cold wet misery of the ride. Eventually it turned over to rain and now in Reedsport @ 2:00 PM bright sun. I'll probably stay tonite @ Umpqua Lighthouse state park. Had lunch at Leona's Diner next to Safeway, a very old school diner, the Rueben was mediocre but the milkshake was top-notch. The kind of place with walls covered with glossy paintings on wood of howling wolves, sunsets, and romanticized American Indians. The latter most ironic since the natives of the Umpqua area and most of the Oregon coast suffered a genocide pretty complete even by the bleak standards of history.