Showing posts with label bigfoot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bigfoot. Show all posts
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Trip to Happy Camp
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Redwoods
Windows Live Spaces In honor of the new list of wonders of the world I have put together a little slide show of the wonders of Redwood State and National Parks.
Friday, June 13, 2008
regional Radmul
The country is made up of many different regions. It is one of the ways we get our identity and in America identity is a big thing. I am a Californian, not by anything I did I just happen to be born here by a stroke of luck but it is part of my in group. It means something to be in that group just as being southern or western or a Yankee means something. Part of that meaning is derived from regional art. If you ever have the chance to travel through the Pennsylvania Dutch country you will see the hex signs painted on barns, very cool art for the fertility of the farm. In the Radmul region of the moment it is chainsaw art. Up and down the north coast of Cali carving stumps into cool stuff for the tourists is one way an artist can make a buck in an environment that because of limited transportation has little economic development. This is a region that derived its wealth from the exploitation of resources and once the trees were cut and the river fisheries screwed up the economy went into the crapper. The growing of pot has provided a positive cash flow with mixed effect. Criminal activity is probably not the best way to build a sustainable life style, but I digress.
As I ride through the towns and parks of the coast I try to take in the local art and remember how it was when I was a kid and how what gets made has changed over the years. There are still lots of bears and fish but some of the kitchy stuff from my youth has been replaced by dragons and unicorns. Of course Paul and Babe the blue ox are still there but now they have been joined by space aliens in Crescent city. Here are a few examples of the regional redwood art and some Aliens to boot. More can be found here and here on my photo storage sites. Hope you enjoy and someday get the chance to see them in person.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Radmul Rides South
I am not a morning person so getting an early start is not usually my thing. When on the road I am finding it easier because I am crashing early. It tends to work itself out but the nervous energy of anticipation gets me going on trip days.
Heading south is a little flatter for the first 20 miles or so but once you get to Scotia it is an uphill ride. I started slow warming up my leg muscles as the sun warmed up the day. The country is not as stark as the coast but is just as beautiful in its own way. Mixed forests and meadows, Fortuna and Loleta are dairy country with Humboldt Creamery the local brand. They do make a tasty Neapolitan ice cream.
Along the way I passed Table bluff and the Humboldt National Wildlife Refuge as well as lots of cows. Then it is into the logging towns and Palco mills. The smell of lumber being milled is like being buried in those pine-scented trees from the carwash. The smells of the road seemed exceedingly strong on the first day riding south. Cow dung, road kill and Western Red Cedar in overwhelming waves. You are riding along and wham and a few hundred feet down the road it’s gone fortunately.
Speaking of the smells the road kill report for this trip included 3 snakes, 4 birds of which one was a massive crow, 2 possums 1 deer and a house cat. It was almost two deer as a fawn came flying up to the freeway but I startled it back before it got into the traffic.
I had a spot of bad luck in that I had brought along a really killer cinnamon roll for breakfast and it fell off the trailer somewhere along the way. I had added it at the last moment and stuck it in so as not to smash it and as a result I got nada and ended up at a Denny’s for a Grand Slam. Filling but a huge let down. Two days later in Garberville I had essentially the same thing, pancakes eggs and sausage, at the Millwheel and it was a thousand times tastier; that and I hate to eat cooperate food.
The Avenue of the Giants is amazing. I rode my bike thru a 5,000year old tree and saw another that people had thought was extinct for 20million years. In between is about 25 miles of old growth forest even if it is only a few miles wide the big trees give you a sense of perspective. When you see one of these mountains with a replanted tree farm that they try to pass off as woods and compare it to a real forest like this and it drives me crazy. The human population of this region tends to be a little different as well, after all this is the land of the Bigfoot. I passed by Hobbiton USA and an ear of corn on the side of the road. Chainsaw carving is abundant in addition to kitschy tourist art and some interesting stuff from the hippies.
Heading south is a little flatter for the first 20 miles or so but once you get to Scotia it is an uphill ride. I started slow warming up my leg muscles as the sun warmed up the day. The country is not as stark as the coast but is just as beautiful in its own way. Mixed forests and meadows, Fortuna and Loleta are dairy country with Humboldt Creamery the local brand. They do make a tasty Neapolitan ice cream.
Along the way I passed Table bluff and the Humboldt National Wildlife Refuge as well as lots of cows. Then it is into the logging towns and Palco mills. The smell of lumber being milled is like being buried in those pine-scented trees from the carwash. The smells of the road seemed exceedingly strong on the first day riding south. Cow dung, road kill and Western Red Cedar in overwhelming waves. You are riding along and wham and a few hundred feet down the road it’s gone fortunately.
Speaking of the smells the road kill report for this trip included 3 snakes, 4 birds of which one was a massive crow, 2 possums 1 deer and a house cat. It was almost two deer as a fawn came flying up to the freeway but I startled it back before it got into the traffic.
I had a spot of bad luck in that I had brought along a really killer cinnamon roll for breakfast and it fell off the trailer somewhere along the way. I had added it at the last moment and stuck it in so as not to smash it and as a result I got nada and ended up at a Denny’s for a Grand Slam. Filling but a huge let down. Two days later in Garberville I had essentially the same thing, pancakes eggs and sausage, at the Millwheel and it was a thousand times tastier; that and I hate to eat cooperate food.
The Avenue of the Giants is amazing. I rode my bike thru a 5,000year old tree and saw another that people had thought was extinct for 20million years. In between is about 25 miles of old growth forest even if it is only a few miles wide the big trees give you a sense of perspective. When you see one of these mountains with a replanted tree farm that they try to pass off as woods and compare it to a real forest like this and it drives me crazy. The human population of this region tends to be a little different as well, after all this is the land of the Bigfoot. I passed by Hobbiton USA and an ear of corn on the side of the road. Chainsaw carving is abundant in addition to kitschy tourist art and some interesting stuff from the hippies.
Radmul Rides South
Back from the southern trip and I am sore as I have been in a while. All the last leg, 48 miles, was into a 20 to 30 mph headwind. that just sucks the fun out of any ride. It makes it like riding an exercycle for like 9 hours straight as opposed to the wonderful weather on the trip down. Here is some video from the road. I will post more in the coming days. It was a great trip with some of the most amazing country. The new packing arrangement with less weight was nice but some of these hills still take a long time to get over. I have found that if I just go at it eventually I will get to the top. When the sunscreen is running into your eyes and you are gasping on the side of the road that can be harder than you might think. shot lots of pics and they are up on flikr I will put together a group for here when I straighten that page out. set up to upload the way I have in the past but screwed up something and it started to upload my whole catalog so I need to go through and edit it but that will have to wait.
A few procedural notes. The state web site is not accurate for open campgrounds so if you are traveling call first. Benbow was closed for the season when I got there so I went down the road To Richardson Grove. I want to head south again and go farther but time was a problem. I will give more details of the trip but I have to shop and get coffee today and I am moving kind of slow. I did a little computer work on the road but not quite as much as I should have. I hope to get in a little better shape over time as now I am pushing hard each day so at the end I am too tired to type much. The voice recorder works well for making notes so I am getting some writing done but I still need to put in the transcription time. enjoy the vid and I will give you a better yarn in the next post.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Hump day grumbles
Went out riding and thinking. Still have to find a waterproof bag for the bag but picked up a few lighter weight items, I am serious about getting the weight down by a bunch. Found a pillow a voice recorder and a small tarp. Still need a stool. Shooting for 50 lbs on the trailer and 10 on the bike. I am going to return the bag cover if I can find the receipt that was looser but all in all I had a great experience. I am going out again on Tuesday. Think I will go south this time to the Avenue of the Giants. I think that will take me past the home of Big Foot but I am not guaranteeing footprints.
The photo is of Equisetum or horsetails. The first actual science I ever did involved making slices of plants like these to determine whether or not they were a C4 plant. Up until then all the labs I had done were pretty much follow the recipe type experiments, this one I designed myself and executed it successfully the first time out. My hypothesis was that they grew so well because they using both photosynthesis and aerobic respiration as in C4 plants. To prove this I needed to find chloroplasts in the bundle sheath cells. I made these slides with perfect cross sectional views and popped them under the scope and the null hypothesis was correct. Still remember it though.
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