et in arcata ego

here we are at michael and wendy's in arcata, california. it's a town of about 12,000. humboldt state university here. it feels like haight ashbury of san francisco downtown--lots of greasy warm hearted nappy headed hippies walking around, looking kind of dazed but optimistic. plenty of cafes and cheap mexican and a great bookstore.

michael and wendy live at about twelve or so minutes from downtown, traveling by bike. two ginormous hills capped off our 45 or so mile day yesterday. but a sauna, built by michael, awaited us. also seclusion and warm beds. they have two dogs, weasel and lucy, as well as a rooster and chickens. the rooster crows in the morning and it sort of makes your day, if you're a city boy like me. speaking of the city, it feels weird to be back among so many people--we went for two days without cell phone coverage through the redwoods (the "trees of mystery" and "the avenue of giants"); through two towns--Klamath, pop. 827, and Orick, pop. 640. there was a theatre marquee in orick that said NEIL YOUNG, and I asked the waitress at the diner there what that meant. she said, "well, if it says neil young, he must be coming," filled up my coffee and strolled away. I called my dad and found out he'd be in san diego friday (we were 600 or so miles from there) and by god, I thought, it seemed possible he'd be there. turns out it was a joke. anyway. my dad thought it was pretty funny.

here are some pictures; looks like dinner might soon be served for us here.

on the right there is battle rock. apparently in 1850 some white guys tried to take this area--the town of... I can't remember. gold beach, maybe? we camped that night at mt. humbug.



leaving mt. humbug park in the morning. you can just see brent on the right side of the road there. the next few pictures are us on the way to brookings, california (I think.)



here's a picture on the wall of a pizza place in brookings. called "wild river pizza," I think. they were also a brewery. it was basically valentinos with no buffet plus a brewery. here's the "gourmet pesto chicken" pizza we had (which was rather tasty and eaten quickly). the table next to us was a little girl's birthday party, and the special, incredibly american birthday treat was a whole bunch of cupcakes in the shape of a unicorn (three and a half feet long, one and a half foot wide) and it was ALL, and I mean ALL OF IT, it was all absolutely covered--three or so inches thick--with frosting. pink and white frosting. tried to get a picture but it was blurry.


the tall order of the day after brooking was a 4.4 mile, 1600 foot climb through the first section of the redwood state park. it's that huge foresty mountain thing in the background, there. for scale, you can just barely see brian on the left behind the surfer standing behind the truck. you really have to zoom in. but cycling up to that thing--incredibly intimidating. as you can see, it was sunny. about 68 outside. once we got insidc, it seemed like sunset and we lost about 15 to 20 degrees. ewoks loved, fought, and died in this forest in a galaxy far, far away. that is, they filmed part of return of the jedi there. or whichever one it was. the next few pictures are from that 8 or so mile stretch (4.4 up, the rest down). they could have been better--but I was working my ass off to get through. took an hour to get through all that.


here's us at the beach afterward. me and brent rode six more miles to get beer and wine for everybody.




there's our campsite the next morning. half a mile from the hostel.
there's where we camped next--after another hill.




this is us just getting into arcata. then you turn around and keeping going, and you see this:

the rooster in the backyard. he means business.

and his name was BANDON

me and brent have stopped for lunch at a mexican place and a break afterward to digest in a coffeehouse up the street in bandon, oregon. we'll be able to smell the border of california tomorrow. on the way here from charleston, where we stayed last night, we rode the seven devils road, which snakes its way through a mountainous area. the "seven devils" are seven hills--it was a hell of a way to wake up in the morning. here's the guidebook's side profile view of seven devils:


we're going to end up at mt. humbug camp, believe it or not. we'll be meeting up with brian, amanda, and ann, three people we met the other day. they're from ledville, colorado. they're pretty great. we've also spent a couple nights with matt, who is like a lightning bolt doused in gasoline and set on fire. I haven't seen it yet, but I imagine that his blood is either glowing neon or molten lava. talked last night about meeting john denver at a cheyenne mountain publicity thing, then fly fishing with him. he's got a piece of the malibu coastline with a "solid redwood temple" 45 feet high by 25 by 25. it has a twenty foot tall teepee inside. it's next to one of bob dylan's homes (sarah lowndes was there when matt was last "home"--I say "home" because he's been touring off and on for four years. on his custom made bike.)

the first time we saw matt was at the newport bike shop (which featured a lounge and a shower and laundry room for bikers). I was getting new tires and my rear hub fixed and he busts in wearing what looks like the batsuit asking for some lube. the mechanic recommends some to him and he walks over, looks at it, and guffaws "no, that's way too big; I need something smaller" (it was about seven inches tall). here's his bike:

he DOES have room for gourmet coffee, just not the bottle of bike lube. oh yeah. he also plays the digeridoo. here's more pictures of our gyspy camp that we made (many thanks to Steve and also to Matt for hooking us up with a place in town). amanda has the lighter hair; ann is the brunette; and brian is the firebeard.





here's some pictures of us partying at the restaurant the night before (that's it in the background of these pictures, by the way; the yard here extends into the charleston bay. or whatever it was called.):



here matt may have been regaling us with stories from him and steve's (the restaurant owner and cook) past. something about mexico and mescal, drinking the tequila with the worm, eating cows heads that had been boiling in water for hours (and some other more sane food I can't remember)--getting so drunk that you pass out and wake up and don't realize for a few seconds that you're face down in the sand, your mouth full of grit--then whoever was running their camp calling them over, filling up a fabric funnel/cone with pounds of coffee and dumping water straight through into your cup--then grabbing your surfboard and paddling out into the surf, paddling with one arm and puking into the ocean on the other side.


here's where we really met all these people, got to know them. matt ponied up for two bundles of firewood and we had a really great time. matt made new york strip stew and me and brent had some (twas declicious, of course). called the honeyman campground--was the most beautiful yet. had to wind your way into the hiker/biker camp site; incredibly tall trees there (probably 250 or 300 ft high canopy); really interesting site layout.



here's some random pictures ocurring between cannon beach and charleston and then today, as well:


this is brent in---newport. we camped next to a guy named bobby who masterfully made a fire and grilled chicken over it. then we ate the chicken and vegetables in pita bread, grilled as well. fabulous.
these are my sleeping clothes--my three foot wool socks and striped long johns. I probably had something just like this when I was three.


this is the bandon national wildlife refuge marsh.

you see this every so often: there are dunes here. they vie with the trees--the trees sort of halt the progress of the dunes, but the dunes erode the soil away from the roots over time.


this was one of the most beautiful things on the trip so far. not sure how well it translated into photos--but here it is. an overlook from the highway.

brent playing in the cafe where I'm blogging, invisibly, to his right.

that's all for now. looking to be in san francisco in ten days or so.

lincoln, city OR; & cetera

lincoln city is kind of a craphole. halfway between an actual city and the thousands of tourist beach cities leaves you with a lot of washed up drifty looking people (me and brent), people you might expect to see in nebraska city or kearney (kitschy-happy), and people you see in coin operated laundromats.

slept in the park in the middle of the city last night. we made spaghetti with pesto sauce and a green pepper again; this time, though, had triscuits and a bottle of wine. during the night the racoons got into my saddlebag and a pannier--they finished off the triscuits and got into ALL OF MY INSTANT OATMEAL THAT WAS FOR BREAKFAST. so I was pissed. kept going out to chase them off in the middle of the night, afraid they'd chew up my equipment. they were really, really fat. now I'm in an internet cafe where the guy running it plays way too much police for his age (my age).

a few days ago, when we were still in astoria (wonderful town of about 12,000) we stayed at fort stevens. here's the beach off the south jetty, near area C--



We tried to make a stew there, stealth camping about a hundred yards from the ocean. we had chicken broth, mushrooms, potatos, carrots, green onions, beans, broccoli, pepper, and red pepper flakes--we obviously didn't know what we were doing. here's what we ate, and here's brent eating it--

Oh--and here's (supposedly) the Goonies house. we stayed just down the block from it, with Steve, who you can see on brent's blog.


But yeah. astoria was a great place--for 12,000 people it was kind of amazing how diverse the shopping/eating/cafe/pub experience was. everyone was very friendly as well.

the plan is to be in california in a few days; we should be camping among the redwoods soon. I can't wait for that. okay. time's up.