Immersion: Northern California and Beyond

I was already awake.

The text at 5:35 a.m. Sunday morning read, in part, “maybe you are looking at the moon equidistant between Jupiter and Saturn. I have my surf boat on the car…. But my bike is looking lonely.”

Being that I’d surfed the day before, I took the bike suggestion to heart. In just four miles, however, I was changing a flat near a trolley station. A homeless man illegally parked in the trolley parking lot working on his car came over to watch and offered to sell me a cold drink, and if I didn’t have any money "we could work something out."

A man in a jeep waiting for the light to change watched this exchange for a few moments before pulling over. The former Marine, an Ironman competitor, got out to offer assistance, largely to dispel the homeless man, I believe. Bless his heart.

The slightly shorter-than-planned ride cleared my head and recharged my endorphin supply. Too much sitting, driving and long work hours; I felt like a banana slug. So I made my decision: I was leaving that very night while the street fair raged outside my apartment. I’d beat the morning rush hour and get a head start on my border to border journey. First stop: the land of actual banana slugs.

 How slow is northbound Sunday night traffic? In two hours I’m as far as…. Anaheim. Somehow my timing landed me squarely front and center for the 9:30pm Disneyland fireworks. Great bursts of cascading white glitter exploding to the west of the freeway practically in front of me. Hundreds of other cars are crawling even slower now to watch. As I pass underneath it sounds like car tires blowing. The afterglow of rockets bursting in air in my rearview mirror are like police car lights approaching. I didn’t like fireworks much before; now they’re pure bad news.

Traffic is flowing again, maybe hitting 35 mph, until it’s not. I hold my breath, hoping the car speeding up behind me sees that our lane has stopped, and that the impact doesn’t launch my kayak through the rear window of the car ahead, splitting the space between two heads of glittering  Mickey Mouse ears. He veers just in time barely missing my bumper, leaving that metallic taste in my mouth.

About the time I’d hoped to be easing down the north side of the Grapevine, I was in fact, in North Hollywood. My original dream of spending the night in glorious Buttonwillow? Fantasy. Settling in at Frazier Park at midnight, I am splurging on a bowl of cherries and the Sunday NY Times.

Maybe there would have been no rooms in Buttonwillow. I’m just sayin; looking on the bright side.

 As always, the slog through a drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley seems a relentless barrage of old country, new country and Christian radio. I’d been here several months earlier to photograph these acres of cattle and hopeless viaducts. Our story about the nation’s dwindling water resources showed me just how bad things are, how little water there is to be shared above ground from the rivers, and below in the aquifers.

Bypassing a welcome invitation from friends in lovely, I headed across the Richmond Bridge. Stations like KSLUG and KMUD broadcast Democracy Now. Local programs discussed concepts like indigeneity and ethnobotany with experts. John Sebastian and The Byrds took over the playlist.

Diffused by fog the sun set on the Noyo River in Ft. Bragg as I paddled behind a couple from Wisconsin and one of my best friends guiding our flotilla downriver, pointing out double-crested cormorants on one side, ospreys on the other; a boneyard of valiant former fishing vessels receding into the foliage.

 A calm morning on the coast isn’t always what the locals want. Sure it’s a perfect summer day.  But that means there’s no viable surf slamming against the rocks for play. It’s a day designed for hiking and mountain biking and … work.

 Why can’t human families grow the way redwoods grow? A circle of starters enmeshed at the roots, individual trunks shooting skyward till they reach full growth. If you look up into a redwood canopy, a complex embrace woven of green arms reach out, laughingly, sways in the sunlight. In these redwoods the sound of wind in the branches is actually wind in the branches.

As many times as I’ve walked under the fragrant pride of a pine or redwood forest, I will never tire of seeing clear streaks of light illuminate green needles against the chocolate-rich trunks. Nor the casual creeks with water so clean you only know it’s there when colorful leaves land spinning on the surface.There's no hate in the forest.

Residents of these rugged coastal environs have a mutual understanding: surviving here gives you the joy of being part of all this indescribable beauty.

But the rite of passage that is winter here means simply living is believing in a world where humans submit to the overarching control by Nature. Where else can you talk about the six-foot long octopus embracing your crab cage as you pull it up, or the nests of birds half the size of a sedan or the single rouge wave that put a fishing vessel on the rocks, and have  everyone nodding in acknowledgement of the story’s veracity?

An evening spin among the caves, small pour-overs and beds of bull kelp was all I needed to validate the long drive and insure I’d be back sooner than later.

One cannot look at the ocean here without wanting to be in it. My friends Jeff and Cate at Liquid Fusion Kayaking have crafted a lifestyle that allows them to not only be perpetually in kayaks along the coast or on mountain bikes through the redwoods, but in which they can share all that with anyone willing to try. Generous souls, they live what they preach: eating local, using their graywater for organic gardening and advocating for environmental protection.

 Tracks to Kayaks lets people ride the famous Skunk Train to a bridge where they jump onto kayaks to return to the sea on the river.

The pain of leaving Ft. Bragg was mitigated by the coast-hugging highway north. And by roadside attractions like tree-trunk sized carvings of bears, salmon, more bears, and live elk grazing in the appropriately named Elk Meadows.

 My kayaks wouldn't fit through the tree at Leggett, CA, however.

Oregon was a blur.

 Picking wild blackberries on the side of the Smith River was the last cool fresh air. It was now evening so I made a promise to myself to return to Wonder for the wild driftwood creatures. The neon blue peace sign glowing in the darkness as I passed Calapooya made me smile. But from there on until Creswell, it was only the rolling hills of Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest to the west, the Umpqua National Forest to the east were a sea of green: fir, pine, redwood tree tops. A glimmer of hope for the planet’s few remaining forests flashed through my brain. The sun was a hazy fireball on the horizon. I could smell smoke from an unseen blaze being battled far away. Hope faded to anxiety.

Breakfast with the Blues on the radio seemed fitting for Eugene, Ore. while weaving my way between logging trucks over bridges in the morning fog. Gradually thickening traffic over an uneventful five hour drive culminated in downtown Seattle, followed by the end goal of walking around Greenlake where sun-starved Seattlites dotted the grass like bees on blossoms.