The Middle from the End

Blog post number the second.
Though I have now competed my southward journey, I have yet to relate it internet-wise, and so must return in my thoughts to an earlier time, long before the California border, in order to present a clear timeline of events. Though clarity and chronological story-telling are not my chief concern, I think that I will yet use them as a back bone on which to build a fully fleshed tale of travel.

While still in Portland, I gained a better appreciation of our lovely neighbor to the south. The bicycle scene is full-fledged and I was able to do repairs on the bike so that I was not in broke mode. I also found time to bar-hop a bit, check out a neat little anarchist info-shop where I picked up a few zines contra the police state, the 2010 olympics, and capitalism in various other forms. I also checked out Burnside skate park, rode around the city on bikes and trains and gondolas, and generally hooliganized. But in the end it was time to leave the town and get on with the trip.

I left on a bright sunny morning headed down Hwy 99 towards Eugene to stay with my friend Helen. The first day was fine, nice little towns and farms, though not a whole lot to see. I found a nice camping spot overlooking the road up a big hill and spent a pleasent evening, though not a particularly restful one because i was still on edge from the last time I camped out. That night it started raining, and continued through the morning. This was probably the worst day of the trip. I pedelled into corvallis all wet and went into a nice place to have a cup o' chocolate and a scone and warm up a bit. I was still wet though, and as I headed back out into the world again the wind picked up. For the next two hours I pounded into the rain with the wind in my face coming straight down the Willimette valley. I had to stop at a McDonalds for another cup of coffee, and I couldn't feel my fingers so I had to work the key to my bike lock with my palms, which is not an easy endeavor. Paying was also a difficult endeavor, and after my coffee was done I had a really hard time going back out. Nonetheless I did, and finally made it to Helen's.
There is nothing like a hot shower after five or six hours in the wind and rain.

I enjoyed my night in Eugene, and wished that I could have stayed longer, but Helen was leaving town so I was too. I headed out the next morning to the coast to meet up with Hwy 101 at Florence. This was probably the first really lovely day of the trip. Everything was sunny, and I traveled along a river for a good part of it, which was just incredible. I ate lunch along a carved rock river bank, and watched the water flow, slowly eating away the minerals to form naturally sculpted wonders. The trip was a little longer than I expected, and I got to the coast as sunset was approaching. I didn't feel like dealing with guerilla camping, so I stopped at a local state park, and was amazed to find that they had a camp site for bikers that was only 4 dollars a night. I felt like I had hit the Jackpot. In the camp was another girl from Australia who was traveling from Portland to San Francisco, and I learned that "Hike n' Bike" campsites were common along the coast; Double Jackpot! I decided that the 4 dollars was worth the peace of mind and comfort afforded by a real official campsite, and that I would do my best to stay in these sites for the rest of the trip.

The next several days were quite magnificent, with only a few negatives. The Southern Oregon coast is incredibly beautiful, with big rocks poking out of the water and incredible cliffs. The big spruce trees are hung with beautiful moss like the southern live oaks that I saw in Savannah. The twisty road hugging the cliffs affords panorama after panorama of the sea waves crashing and hidden coves accessible only by boats. My second day on the coast it rained again most of the day, but I was smart and wore more rain protection, and so stayed warm most of the day.

I reached California on the fourth day out of Eugene, and had a bit of a scare. As I was nearing the end of the day, A squeak started and proceeded to get louder and louder over the course of a mile or so. I had just gotten over celebrating reaching California, and now I had more problems. It was worse than anything I had heard yet, and I was very worried that my bottom bracket had given out, and resolved to stop as soon as possible and get to a bike shop early the next day. I made my way to a park that was a bit out of the way, and after following tiny signs for what seemed like forever I reached the park which was, to my extreme dismay, closed to camping. I had a moment of panic, as I was surrounded by farm land with no place to camp, and I made the snap decision to get a motel so that I could be close to town and get my bike fixed early the next day. I got in, got myself settled and started looking at my bike. Turns out it was just the wheels on my rear derailer, and I fixed it with a little well placed lube. I was very happy that I didn't need any more repairs.

California started off with a bang. After my panic on the first day, I felt happy starting the second day with a nice flat stretch. After about a mile this turned into the 2nd steepest and longest hill I was to climb in the whole trip. I crawled up it for an hour or two, into the Redwood National Park. This was followed by a rapid downhill descent over bumpy road, inches from trucks and giant RV's. I felt more alive than I had ever been, screaming down the hill, hooping and hollaring the whole way. The road went all the way back down to sea level, and was then followed by the 1st steepest and longest hill of the trip, reaching an altitude of 1500 ft. from sea level in a handful of miles. I was dubious of what was yet to come, but after this second hill it was easy riding to my campsite of the evening. The next day I made a brief stop at Humboldt State University to use the comps, then pushed on to Humboldt Redwoods State Park, which has the incredible Avenue of the Giants. I reached this an hour before dark, and slowely pedelled between these ancient monolithic trunks, craning my neck to see the tops and trying not to crash while enjoying their immensity.

To this point I had been pushing myself each day, and was suffering from strained tendons and strained patience. I would get very angry at the wind and the hills, and was causing myself to miss the most important part of the trip, which was the trip itself. Why ride your bike if you got angry at the unique challenges of bike riding? The slow ride through the Redwoods in the fading light was a inspirational and enlightening moment, when I realized that my surroundings required more than cursory attention, but actually my full attention. This realization changed the rest of the trip for the better, and I think that the following days were one of my more enjoyable periods of life in memory.

The following day I spent two hours on the Eel river between riding, basking in the sun and dipping in the river, watching the dragonflies land on my toe and the glint of the fish swimming through the reeds. I slowed my pace, moseying up hills instead of wrecking myself on them. I took a break day on Halloween and spent the day reading Frankenstein by the banks of the Eel, cooling my heels in the hold mountain water. The following day I followed the road over the hill to Hwy 1, and was again blown away by the magnificence of the coast line, similar to S. Oregon but new and beautiful in its own way. Along the Coast I stopped in tiny Mendocino, and wandered the sculpture garden as I ate my morning snack, regularly taken an hour and a half to two hours into the ride. I met a funny old guy who lived his life walking up and down Hwy 1 staying at the Hike n' Bike camps, and who was about to get both of this shoulders and both of his hips replaced as a cause of it. I guess that the life of a nomad can be damaging if taken to an extreme. I stayed at a property owned by a friends grandmother the next night, and felt a bit like I was guerrilla camping again, though I wasn't really trespassing.

My final night before I got to the Bay Area I stayed in Bodega Dunes, near Bodega Bay, and spent a good twenty minutes looking out at the horizon, thinking about the trip and the near conclusion of it's longest leg. It had been a good trip and taught me a lot about myself, and about life. About how to slow down, appreciate what is around because no matter how important the destination, its never so important that you forget about the here and now.

I wrote a little piece about this when traveling two summers ago. I was going from Rio de Janiero to Paris, and counting two long distance busses, a plane, a 10 hour layover, another two planes, and a train, it took me in excess of 60 hours, not including the several hours running around Paris to find a room. I wrote this about 2/3 of the way through.

Thoughts while sitting:
The hours while away slowly
The need to sleep is delayed by the lack of a place
Like a form of torture, the designers of airports want to inflict upon us delirium through constant wakefulness
In motion or still, hours are measured the same
Time from when I last had a place to rest my head until the next place of comfort.
I don't even demand comfort
A carpet at least, or some grass
Not these interminable passages of marble and steel.
Modern travel consists of beared inconveniences,
beared because they only last so long

I would rather take my time, if it meant I could lay down once a day
when I'm tired
and rise again to continue,
rather than exist in this limbo,
waking coma
'til at last I arrive at the destination

Some famous person wrote that the journey is as important as the destination, and its attainment.
For me, as for many, there is no "final" destination,
So why do we rush to seek it

Perhaps by embracing the journey, the destination becomes less determined
I know where (what city) I will sleep next
If I was on foot I would sleep where I pleased.
I will fly, then taxi, finally to a hostel
On a boat, I could sleep on the go
or find a harbor or cove and cast anchor in the calm.
We are in such a hurry to get "there", we forget life isn't "there", it is "Here"!


I think I may have found my method of transportation, whereby I can experience "here" while still journeying towards a there, appreciating both for their own merits.

My last day of the leg I travelled through farm country which was gradually consumed by the suburbia of the Bay Area Metropolis. Traversing Petaluma, followed by a short bit of country in Sonoma Valley, and then true megalopolis starting with the city of Vallejo, over the Carquinez Bridge, and then through the contiguous cities of Rodeo, Pinole, El Sobrante, San Pablo, Richmond, El Cerrito, Albany, Berkeley, and finally my destination in North Oakland. It was quite a change from the wildness of the last several weeks, and I wasn't overly pleased. But my misgivings were erased when I arrived and was greeted with a wonderfully warm welcome. I was so happy to arrive having come just around 1000 miles since leaving Tacoma.