The Hillsdale

The cruel tendrils of winter smacked me in the night. Frost on the tent and Ice so thick I had to chip it off the windows of the car.Was not to bad in the bag but when the need to pee finally drove me out there was no going back. I recommend the Exped air mattress for keeping you protected from the ground chill.Would have taken some pictures but the batteries in the camera froze.

Found a place to lay up for the winter. The Hillsdale bldg, has a sordid past and a decidedly seedy present. Built in the 1920's my place has huge windows, a claw foot bathtub and a Murphy bed. A place straight out of a Dashiell Hammett noir film. A place Sefton could have could have called home. I pick up the keys on Friday. (Link to "The Black Mina" NSFW)

Random Quarks

The days have sucked the confidence from my marrow. I have spent a bit of time thinking about luck. “You make your own luck”, the spew of the privileged can be heard amongst the reeds. The reality is that the universe is just a dice game. The meaning in life comes from within, not imposed from some dictator in the sky but how one reacts to the strong interaction of quarks. We live with the illusion of free will side by side with the realization that quantum fluctuations could destroy the present reality in the blink of an eye.

How do I explain the lack of, “Truth Justice and the American way”, I don’t I do what the rest of the world does, I create an illusion I can live with. A story that allows me to go on without taking the short walk over to madness. When the pattern will not hold at the center I add another twist, or I don’t. I let this be the world that falls through the cracks and lands on the dustbin of the many worlds. There is no particular reason that I should be untouched by the fate storm that has struck down those around me. In an age that has an average life expectancy in the 70’s why are my entire circle dead well before 60. As the center of my own universe I am seeing a pattern that defies the odds but in reality the sample is too small and I am excluding those that live on.

The story that follows is as random as any that one may encounter and I will endeavor to lay bare as much of my reality as I am able, the question of how real that truly is will be up to you gentle reader. I hope you enjoy the escape.

Moving becomes a way of life. In the first 5 years of school we moved at least once every year. Before starting school there were an equal number of moves that I can remember but they do not stand out in my mind as much. Always being the new kid is not a unique experience I am sure. The only thing I am sure about it is that it sucked. Always having to make new friends by the time you get to junior high you are an outcast. That feeling began when in the 4th grade I was put into a special class for the “accelerated student”. Prior to that the kids had let me drift into and out of groups without much grief. As when I finished high school there was no money for further education the move fucked up my life with very little reward.

Being different is not necessarily an advantage in life. We are a social animal and being outside the herd informs the development of your skills. I developed the skills to negotiate with the unknown and the ability to fake things in many different social situations. The road to freakdom is paved with minor insults and slights that accumulate over the years like lime scale from calcified water. One day you wake up and the rest of the world is out of your reach. Normality is just over the horizon but you can’t walk in a straight line.

The travels and camping idea is not dead but will require refinement. In the next few days I will endeavor to rent a studio or 1 bedroom and will venture forth on the bike when the weather permits. This will require more planning in advance more distance research but in the end should work out to be as much fun. I am just not cut out to be homeless I guess. Always the catch 22, until I can generate some income from the writing being on the road full time is cost prohibitive while not being on the road makes it harder to generate interesting content.

Cold Water

Heading back to the beach tomorrow after one last night at the Inn. Bathroom ceiling was dripping yesterday and the came in and patched it. Spent the evening at the Mormon church for The Taylor family baptism. In the real world even when your friends do something odd it is nice to try and be supportive. It is a nice group of people and I hope it gives the kids what they are looking for but I doubt it. The water was evidently too cold for Taloura's taste and the Stepford kind of smiles on the faces of some of the folks was a little creepy. I was polite and sat quietly while they talked about the power of their magic and such. Kept thinking about the Southpark episode with the family that tries to recruit Stan and his family. If they were not such homophobic misogynists I guess it would sit better but as my life is not exactly firing on all cylinders at the moment it seemed a bad time to give advice.

The Adventure Begins

The first night in the new tent was a true adventure. Set up camp about 4:30 and got inside before the storm broke. Wind and rain howled most of the night and I only had to add stakes once. Stayed dry although it was pretty cool outside the sleeping bag. The Coleman heater warmed things up for getting in and out of the bag and getting dressed but I don’t run it when I am asleep per the instructions. The ride up made for a tough day. Up at 7 moving the last of my stuff to storage before loading the car and doing a final cleaning.
I held it together pretty well until was turning in the keys to the place. When they asked about Don and I gave some details I broke down and for the whole drive my emotions were raw and as I headed north the tears flow on occasion.
Stopped along the way to take a few pictures and Anoria kept running through my mind. Escaping to the realm of fantasy has healed me in the past. When I returned from caring for the old man I almost didn’t make it. Went a little crazy in the desert with heat when the transmission died in Texas. By the time I made it back to the north I had some form of respiratory infection that gave me a Pink Floyd fever. When the fever broke I wrote and wrote and that brought me back to sanity. I hope for that same type of healing this trip. Even though the move to the valley was expensive and ruptured a disc I am still glad we did it. The lost coast still is free of the taint of sadness that pervades so many other places.

Coming to a close

Went out to Travis AFB and renewed my Id card. Wanted to be sure my medical eligibility was up to date before I became homeless. Doing all the tasks that modern society deems so necessary and have become huge pains in the rear.

There has been a change in initial destination possibly. Trying to do everything above board has caused the vehicle transfer to become a cluster fuck. I should have just called as Don and gotten the payoff and sent them a check. Because I was honest I have to wait for death certificates and lawyers before cutting them a check. As a result I may need to travel to Eureka next week to transact everything. If I do I will stay for a while and see some friends and familiar haunts.

I am thinking about staying out on the Samoa spit for a week and getting my bike legs back. Haven’t ridden much in the last few months and some conditioning is in order. Also working the bugs out of my system in a familiar environment seems like a good idea. I can take some of the old games up to Kay and Chris so there is that benefit as well.

Half Moon Baked

The care giving is finished and I am beginning to work on the 5.3 project. I am going to get back to the ocean and begin with Half Moon Bay . I have about 10 days of this and that to clean up the apartment and finish a few of Don’s affairs. When that is finished I think the water would be a good place to start. I will be going in the winter months so they allow for up to 14 nights of camping.

Redemption in the Third Act.

Reinvention is the great American Idea. We love a comeback in the third act more than any other culture. In that vein I am giving some more thought to my next act.

Living well is a relative term. For me it is more than creature comforts and extravagant entertainments. It is living by an ethical and moral standard. I have not always succeeded but I have tried.
I lack the talent to write fiction and am too lazy to write nonfiction. The travel Idea works well for me. The thing I need to work out is mail and an address. The first place I think I will do is the Point Reyes area. The other possibility is the San Diego area if the weather is still cold. What I am thinking is that I can create a review of an area and an article that would have some market value. I want to bike camp and the unique factor will be the biking aspect. Pick a spot, set up a good route for moderate riders to enjoy for a week of vacation. The types of things I will include are of course restaurants, camp grounds and local attractions but also bike repair shops, places to park your vehicle or ways to get to the spot with your bike and gear on common carrier or public transportation. I can include reviews of equipment and post those reviews on sites that sell my gear to drive blog traffic. The open questions that I will have to answer is can I stay on the road all of the time. I may need to hole up in the winter and how hard will that be to find decent places for short term at a price I can afford. I anticipate it taking 6 to 8 months before I begin to see any return. Other possible revenue streams can be selling Photo’s. selling blog ads if I can begin to generate traffic.

Keeping my medicine filled. Keeping the mail and bills paid. These are the big problems with the travel. When I tried to do this type of walkabout before those were elements that fucked up on a regular basis.


As to my previous trip I am armed with new technology and less funding by far. The motor home was nice for the comfort but sucked the life out of things with the costs. That and there are RV people and I am not one of them. They are a nice group but they are for the most part older and much more conservative than I am. And I was in my 40’s during that trip. I am more liberal now if that is possible even though I have closed the age gap.

My original plan to bike across country may still happen but I need to get in much better shape again before trying it. I am going to have to put some planning time in and check my equipment.
I think I will write more this time, can’t say it will be better as some of the stuff on that trip was good. Just failed to finish any of it. I was always more productive when out alone during that time anyway. After Rick died Don quit any pretense of writing anyway. What might have been, a sad phrase.

Radmul version 5.3

The world is about to take one of those monumental shifts. Everything is about to move six inches to the left all at once. 124,000 people die in accidents every year in the US. Those people’s orbits shift faster but not generally any further.

In assessing this shift I am forced to confront past decisions and how they worked out long term. I am not going to bail, that is not my style. I do need to make a plan quickly and first up I need to start getting rid of stuff.

I have another attempt to make. I tried to do this with 5.0, My virtual midlife crisis and again with 5.2, the move to the valley. This 5.3 version may have some profit potential. What I will produce might have an actual market.

People that have jobs get limited vacation time. Cross country trips while novel are not realistic for most people. Spending 5 to 7 days riding around an area camping and cycling is. I will go to a tourist destination; the Napa Valley, the Carmel Monterrey Bay area or a national park. Spend time investigating and exploring then design trips for biking vacations.

I will create a website and solicit camping and biking ads as well as creating a weekly pod cast and travel articles that have sales potential.

I will take photos and review the eateries. I will find the local bike shops and other types of shopping. Search out and find the bike friendly places to stay and camp. In addition I will explore the ways to get to the destinations with bike and gear by car and by public transportation and by common carriers.

Smugglers blues.

Have been working on the lost years project for a while and thought I would share an excerpt. Here is a little Glen Frey tune to set the mood.

When we finally got to the front of the queue we were greeted by a woman in her fifties by her appearance. Gray hair in a style like Edith from all in the family with glasses and a big wool sweater. She was not smiling. We handed over our documents. Me my drivers license and passport, Don only his drivers license. The woman took this as spme kind of personal insult. That Don didn’t have a passport or a birth certificate was some how an affront to all of Canada. Things went down hill from there as our, “We just wanted to drive up and check it out but were staying at a hotel in the US.” reason for our visit was too vague to suit her.
She looked down her nose at us for a while, looked down her nose at our papers and then walked around the vehicle looking down her nose at the Jeep. She granted us one last dirty look before heading into the office with our ID. A few minutes later we were directed to pull into a parking space and join the party inside.
The idea that we had failed before we even got into the country was just too rich. We sat on the bench we were directed to and waited. I was not concerned at this point as we hadn’t done anything so what could they do? If they denied us entry I would come back by myself tomorrow morning and life goes on. And then we walked into a skit from Monty Python.
We were called into an office with a middle aged nondescript bureaucrat in a bulky sweater. He reminded me of Graham Chapman as the British major because of his bushy mustache. He offered us a seat and asked where was the third man? We looked at each other and then back at him with blank expressions.
The man held up the two drivers licenses and 1 passport and repeated the question “Where is the third man?” Although his accent was more nasal than Chapman’s.
I resisted the urge to say, “oot and aboot” and explained that he had two pieces of my ID and if he would check the names he would see that there was just the two of us.
He looked at the passport and then at the two licenses spreading them out on the desk. Then he looked up at us and smiled and inquired as to the reason for our visit to Canada.
Once again we related the tourist story. We wanted to check the place out see the sights. I was not really expecting to have problems getting out of the US, I was ready for the third degree getting back in.
As the woman had earlier he explained that a drivers license was not proof of citizenship and while they didn’t require a passport they did need proof of citizenship all the while speaking in a very neutral bureaucratic tone. Then he asked again, “What happened to the third member of our group?”
While I am amiable and comfortable talking to anyone Don is loquacious and tends to ramble inappropriately. I had always known this and it didn’t much matter most of the time, this was not most times.
Don began to ramble about being down south and having things packed away while I once again tried to explain that the border guard had two pieces of my ID and that there are only two of us. All the while the Canadian had an impassive look on his face. When we finished he smiled and turned to his computer terminal. He made what looked like three entries and then turned back and asked us to wait on the bench outside. The, “Group W” bench ran through my mind but we were the only one’s there so it was not nearly as fun.
About 15 minutes later the Canadian version of Edith Bunker handed us back our papers and told us to enjoy our visit. She walked away and we headed for the door. We thought that it could have been an excuse for them to search the car but they can do that without a reason so? Perhaps we fit the profile of weed smugglers and they wanted to check us out? It was the third man stuff that freaked me but at this point I was ready to go all in. Another really bad way to decide on a course of action and later I accepted the risk for my decision.
We followed the freeway into town and using our rudimentary map from the Cannabis Culture magazine made our way to the section of town that harbored the smoke shops. Unlike in America this was not some seedy garbage strewn back ally but part of a clean newer mall. The folks I asked for help were very nice. They explained that as in our neck of the woods the legal status was somewhat ambiguous and that the seed folks were located elsewhere in town. The young lady gave me a card and wrote the address of a seed bank on the back. She had long dark hair and plastic hoop earrings and I think she thought it cute that the old hippy was looking to score some seeds.
We had to convert a little cash to get out of the parking garage. Everyone else was more than happy to accept dollars. That was back when our money was worth something. So with a couple of loonies in our pocket we headed across town.
Did I mention it was cold. Some of my readers will have seen my piece on the, “cash for clunkers program” and what a piece of shit the jeep we were driving was. At this point it was mostly minor things like shorted wiring in the stereo and the passenger door lock didn’t work. It drove lousy in even the slightest wind but we found out in a few months what that was about when the rear end disintegrated. Like all vehicles of that type it was poorly insulated and the heater barely kept up as the darkening night brought a significant drop in the temperature.
We found the address and parked on the cross street. We were on a bit of a hill and the neighborhood of first floor businesses with three or four floors of apartments upstairs reminded me of San Francisco. Most of the stores were closed with the exception of the two seed sellers in the middle of the block. I scanned the street and with the exception a few people way down the block we were alone. I locked and closed my door and started for the store when Don let out a loud, “shit” followed by a string of colorful expletives.
I thought he had broken the key off in the lock but it was the lock itself that had broken. I let loose a few choice words of my own at that point but I wasn’t that worried. The odds that anyone would steal our jeep in the 15 minutes we would be inside were so small as to be nonexistent but Don decided to stay outside with the car.
Perhaps he had been spooked by the problems at the border, paranoia strikes deep sometimes and improvisation is a talent some people do not possess. Don went into a mild freak out and decided to stay outside while I went in. He got back in the jeep and I went down the street into the building the address indicated.
Inside the place looked like any office. A desk with a lamp and computer monitor. A 4 drawer file cabinet and a couple of chairs. A guy in his thirties with thinning hair and thickening waist line greeted me and offered me a seat. There were a few posters of buds on the wall with seed producers advertising logos. That was the only evidence that this was other than an insurance salesman’s digs.
We chatted a bit about genetics and Amsterdam and the strains of cannabis that worked best for pain control. I took care not to mention that I would be taking them to the states and he pointed out that while the courts were forcing medical cannabis on them the government was still being rather dickish about things on the whole.
He handed me a black three ring binder that served as his catalog and I began to leaf through it as we talked. The pages were plastic with small pockets usually reserved for keeping trading cards in mint condition. Each pocket contained a couple of seeds and a picture of the buds they would produce as a label.
We were interested in feminized seeds. The plants are forced with certain hormonal stressors to produce almost exclusively female offspring. Of the genetic lines we were interested in he had White Widow and California Orange from the Dutch Passion line. He charged a 75% premium for feminized but we had already factored that in to our calculus. Saving time had become a prime factor so I handed over 400 dollars and received 24 seeds. 12 White Widow and 12 of the Orange.
The seeds were in tiny little plastic vials with printed labels on each.
My business in Vancouver concluded I now had a little time to spend on seeing the culture. He gave me the skinny on the weed scene, again in the shadow world of tolerated but not perfectly legal. Down the street 2 blocks was another shop that I could purchase some bud. He added an address to the card I had from the smoke-shop and we said our goodbyes. This seemed a bit like a screening process, If you were cool you got passed to the next station on the weed railroad.
Despite the problems I was feeling good and walking tall as I started up the hill to the jeep. The buzz lasted the length of that stroll and the whining began. It was too cold to go get smoke, somebody would steal the car, they would smell it on us at the border. what sold it for me was “We could come back tomorrow to check out the scene.” I said fuck it and we headed back to the good old US of A. Of course I knew it was bullshit but I didn’t feel like arguing.
I was wearing some cheap ski gloves made out of an inflexible vinyl and stashed the little vials of seeds in the fingers of my left hand. I remember being nervous but I fully expected to beat any search in my normal arrogant fashion. We were doing everything wrong and should have hung longer or at least bought a T-shirt but we were at the border before thinking about it much.
For all the nervousness the crossing back turned out to be anticlimactic. The young border guard on the American side asked for our Id and ran his little mirror under the car. They had some sort of laser off to the side that did something and Don told the broken lock story as the reason we were back so soon and we were back in the Scottish Lodge in a musty room as successful smugglers.

Foggy beaches and divided brains.

Spent the last few days shivering in the woods as my planning was undermined by bad intelligence. The weather dudes had predicted dry sunny and mid 60‘s, what I got was wet, foggy, overnight rain and mid to low 50’s. Still had a pretty nice time at Patrick’s Point State Park. I had stayed there in their Hiker Biker camp ground but always on my way to or from someplace else. This time I thought I would spend a day exploring the park.
My fitness level has deteriorated after the lung frying of the fires so when I finally made it to the top of the hill I was wiped. The sun would make its only appearance around that time so I made camp and collapsed. After a nap I got up and wrote for a while. Another installment of a new obsession will be up later in the week on the rude blog. Today I am really feeling it as my legs are aching and my joints are swollen. But the Raider’s are winning and the codeine has kicked in so things could be worse.
The harsh weather limited the filming out at the ocean. I climbed down the trail at Wedding Rock and got some good footage of the shore break but most of the out to sea stuff was pretty washed out. The vids will be up on the Radmul channel on youtube. Earlier in the day I rode over to the Sumseng village. A preserved Yurok village with some dugouts and plank style houses. The amount of labor involved in making those planks with an ancient adz must have been enormous. They are kind of dark dwellings without windows and kind of hobbit hole doorways.
Out at wedding rock a few months ago I spent a little time up top doing some whale watching. Wasn’t able to get any photos but did see a few of the leviathans. Thinking about consciousness and having some odd dreams out on the point put me in mind of the brains of whales. Whales never sleep, they have to come up for air 24/7 so if they were to nod off they die. They do dream, or put half of their brain into a REM state. Our brains are divided into hemispheres as our a whales but while ours are constantly interactive through the corpus callosum the whale brain can operate as separate halves one side dreaming while the other stays alert and remembers to surface. That duality would be a very alien intelligence. To have one foot in the world of dreams and one in the realm of reality would be very cool.

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.

Close encounters ofthe Radmul kind

A trip that began with watching Roy Neary play with his mashed potatoes and ended on a wind blown plain in Wyoming was 25 years in the making and with the help of three little birds it is one I will spend a lifetime remembering.
I am by no means ancient but today’s Sci-Fi fans have no Idea how lucky they are that they live in the age of computer-generated effects. Lets face facts the original Star Trek was pretty lame but it was all that we had. That was Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The space ship on the Devils Tower scenes were cool enough to make up for the corn, in addition I did develop a crush on Teri Garr. As with everything Spielbergian it is too schmaltzy for me, he ruined Jurassic Park by not getting the book but that is a separate matter.
The lingering image of the Devils Tower stayed with me as it stayed with Roy and when the chance came I took a day and watched the clouds race across the face of one very unique landmark.
The geologists call this type of formation an igneous intrusion. Magma crystallizes underground forming a Pluton, (named for the god of the underworld) and when the softer sediments erode around it you are left with one ancient hard on. The oldest rocks date to the Triassic period. While the details of its formation are still being debated it is undeniably cool.
The landscape approaching the Tower is straight out of a western film. It sits in the northeast corner of Wyoming near Sturgis S.D. and in the days of the cattle drives
This area was one of the largest shipping points for livestock in the country. Lots of grasslands and Ponderosa Pines the Black Hills are the homeland of the Lakota Sioux. They have some legends about the forming but for me sitting there watching the shadows of clouds drift across the face imagining the millions of years it took to emerge from the earth is much more awe-inspiring. For me the truth of nature is more wonderful than superstitions and legends.
I approached from the south about midday stopping in a large turnaround approximately 10 miles from the base. Had the place to ourselves as in November the tourists are nowhere to be found. The wind blows all the time or so it seems, wind power should do well there and cold. man it was cold.
After fixing a beverage I stepped out to stretch my legs in the sun and take the measure of the place. It was loud; I am talking hard to stand up to rushing past your ears driving rational thought out of your brain loud. The long grass was rippling and the tree branches swayed as a few isolated clouds cast fast moving patches of blackness against the green and grey. Writers throw the term azure blue sky around but that is the only phrase that fits that day. Eventually the wind drove me back inside and the silence was a relief but it was also a disconnect cutting the line to ET so to speak.
No army helicopters with sleeping gas flew over, not a single saucer with flashing lights and sounds like a Simon game landed on top and the few cows and sheep in the fields were immune to the nerve gas if it was around. These were the thoughts running through my mind as my wind chapped face warmed in the gentle rocking of the RV.
A movement caught my eye off to the west as a large majestic bird drew my attention away from the tower. I was expecting a hawk or crow but the white crest and dark brown body screamed eagle at me. I followed his path westward a second bird came into view and then I spotted a third much higher in the sky.
The two lower birds began to circle alternately flaring their wing and tail feathers to catch the wind. They rose 100’s of feet with barely a flap of those graceful wings over several minutes. I thought they were going to join the third and drift off into the heavens but that was not the case. The two stayed about the same level as each other as they rose but always kept a respectable distance from each other. All at once they both folded their wings ducked their white heads and dove at the central point created by their circling. It was so sudden and utterly unexpected that I let out an audible gasp.
After passing within what appeared to be an inch of each other at breakneck speed they spread their wings into the wind and began to climb once again. As the dance continued for pass after pass eventually one bird emerged higher than the other after each run and the two were gaining altitude over time.
As I watched in awe at the power and majesty of their ritual it ended as abruptly as it began. One of the two finally came level with the third and those two flew off together as the laggard turned west and sailed away alone.
I felt a twinge of sadness for that lone bird and wonder how the other two faired. Were they going to mate? Did they nest and start the next generation? I like to think so just as I like to think Roy found happiness on that alien world.
While writing this I learned that Teri Garr has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. This is the same horrible disease that claimed my wife Cary. They have a few treatments for it now but still no cure. If you are so inclined drop by here to learn more or possibly help out with a donation.
.

Heat wave

The weather has changed in radical fashion. The temp hit 100 yesterday and mid 90's today. I have never seen it that hot here even in August let alone May. 1oo on the bay is so muggy it is hard to breath but what the hey it is what it is. After the last long ride I broke down and picked up a pair of bike pants. I hate looking like a yupster but the jeans chafe like a bitch and the new pants are very nice. With the underarmour shirts and new helmet I no longer have that hobo look and it is really quite amazing how different people act towards me now. I find it very sad that to be treated as a person one can't wear jeans and a T-shirt on a bike. Still waiting on new part so I am hanging close to home, also Don blew up his Jeep yesterday so we will be working on that this weekend.
On the horizon next weekend the Kinetic Sculpture Race. After that I have Camp Obama a training session to work on the fall presidential campaign. I am still not thrilled with all of Barack's positions but he is so much better than the alternative I will put in as much time as I can to get him elected.

May?

Got in a good ride today for the first time in a while. No rain, no cars running me off the road and the pain in my knees was tolerable. This week has been a bummer with tech and turf problems so I have not gotten much done on the creative front. I doubt that I would have gotten much done this week anyway simply because of the time of year. I have trouble getting into the frame of mind that leads to good stories under the best of circumstances but anniversary week is never the best of times.
I am going out to the beach to camp this weekend and hope to get back into story mode. We have a first Saturday downtown art show each month and I will see if anything interesting is doing there. I have finished shooting the pictures for The Black Mina project but the storey is stalled. I have an idea were to take it just having trouble getting there in a decent manner. Same problem with the Devils Tower storey.

A little more southern radmul

I encountered a wide range of people on the southern ride. I am not particularly social but I find that people want to talk to weirdoes on bicycles. Neither am I antisocial and I am an amiable fellow so I indulge people’s questions and listen to their stories. One young lady in the Miranda Market told me about her late grandfather taking up riding at an older age. I munched a Popsicle and cooled down while she told me her tale, she had an infectious smile and brightened a morning that was already going very well.
At the Richardson Grove campground I met some folks from Hanover Germany. The worlds fair was there in 2000 he said. They were driving up the coast in an RV from San Francisco. One of them had gone to school in Berkeley and loved California. Hard to blame the guy, it is the coolest place on the planet that I have seen myself.
While waiting for my breakfast in Garberville I had a conversation with a tourist from Aurora Colorado. He was digging the big trees so I recommended the giant sequoias near Santa Cruz to him. Hope he makes it they are truly spectacular. It is on my list of places to ride to so some in person pics will be forthcoming.

For those that are interested in the details the ride lasted 4 days and covered 162.4 miles. For fans of hills there are 3 600ft climbs within about a 4mile run so there is definitely some challenging portions to Hwy101 thru southern Humboldt County.

The Black Mina project

I have the plan for the south trip. Day 1to Humboldt State Park. then down to Standish Hickey on day 2. Day 3 I head north and east out hwy 36 to Grizzly Creek. Day 4 back to the house. A short trip but I need to get back for Jury Duty next week and this way I can always extend.

The picture of the little cow palace got me thinking about going south when I was a kid to the Cow Palace in SF. Saw the circus there and that seems an apt metaphor for my current endeavor. Although I want to avoid the lions and tigers and especially the Bears I have been called a clown on more than one occasion.

I have posted a piece of fiction called the Black Mina on my Rude blog. It is more adult than might be appropriate here and will be serialised over several parts. It does require a sign up but it is free if you are over 18. Check back next week for picks from Phillipsville.

Redwood trip report

I returned from the camping trip up the coast. The weather was a little damp but the scenery was unbelievable. I need to work on my conditioning before tackling the mountains again. I traveled 125 miles in 4 days of riding. I made 34.4 miles each of the first 3 days with the short day coming when I arrived home.
That was odd the way it worked out but ran into a few problems with a trail that wasn't maintained. I wasted half a day trying to reach a campsite out at Ossagon Creek. There was blow down all along the trail and I thought what the hell I’ll be a good guy and clear some but eventually got to a section that needed a chainsaw, which I did not have. I had portaged twice already and gave up and turned around after tweaking my ankle. By the time I got back to the paved road I was whipped so I went down hill to Prairie Creek.
Let me back up a bit, on day one I was up early and after a few packing modifications I was off. Took a while getting used to the weight again but made it out to Clam Beach by lunchtime. Then it was all uphill for a while to Westhaven and Camel Rock. I shot some vids and pictures along the way and ended up at Big Lagoon for the night. That was one of the things TV taught me wrong. From watching Giligan’s Island as a kid I did not know the thing that made it a lagoon was the sandbar. They always just paddle out on their rafts or whatever. Speaking of Bad TV from the 60’s seems more than just Bob Denver was 420 friendly. Dawn Wells got busted for pot possession; we have some useless laws for a free country. It was the camp host at one end of the campground and I at the other in what felt like the middle of nowhere. I sleep well in the true dark and quiet, a few hours after sundown the silence is clarifying. I would have slept well under any circumstances, as I was exhausted.
Along with the trail problems I also had a few tech problems. My tape recorder gave up the ghost, it was 15 years old but damn it pissed me off. The sleeping bag cover sweats so it was a total waste however I did get good at guying the tent to avoid condensation and the rain bothered me not a bit when I was inside. Since I was not going as far I decided not to rest day 3 and rode back to Clam Beach another 34 miles.
For the next trip I will be cutting the weight and looking for something a little less mountainous but I need more conditioning. This trip the wildlife I saw elk at the little red school house some mule deer and a falcon. I did not get photos of the Sandhill Crane or the Egrets. The chainsaw carvings were a little more exotic. The road kill report was pretty light a gopher 2 birds a field mouse and a skunk.

New Picture Page

This is one of the restored Victorian homes that dot our little berg. I have a new page up on the website so feel free to check that out. That style looks pretty good but I do not think it will be practicle for the road. The amount of time involved online will make it tough. I plan to put an average of 1 day a week in a motel with a net connection. I am going to try to coordinate it with days one of my friends does her cam show. Uplaoding typing just the time involved that requires the net will be the determining factor. probably save that format for special events.
I am also looking to find a theme. A universal thing to photograph in each location to tell a story. I have some ideas like country stores perhaps.

Part two "My Night at the Top of the World"

Part Two
The road is up and down but mostly up so it is slow going and a little stressful and as the witching hour approached I pulled in to a snow maze. The parking area had been plowed but the snow was probably drifted to 15 ft maybe. Well above the roof of the RV anyway. It was eerie dark as the working streetlights stopped at the off ramp and I was alone. The cooling rig was the only noise. That tic tic tic as the engine settled for the night faded while I waited for my eyes to adjust.
I went out to walk around and get the blood flowing before I broke out dinner. My lungs were assaulted by the cold at my first breath. Think huffing razor blades in a meat locker. I had to have a smoke to warm up my lungs but eventually I stopped gasping at the air and began gasping at the sky. When Carl Sagan was talking about Billions and Billions this was the sky he was looking at. I do not know if it was being enclosed in the open or thin air but it looked like the stars were casting tree shadows on the drifts.
The cold asphalt making crunchy sounds I stumbled around with my mouth hanging open trying to look at everything at once.
Some time later I came back to myself and now that I was awake in every cell I was starving. I reluctantly went inside and turned on the light shutting out my surroundings in the glare the windshield. I made a salad while the radio scanned up and down the dial landing on a rock station out of Telluride. Never been there but I always found the name cool going back to smugglers blues from Glen Fry. They were playing my style of tunes and so I heated up some devil chicken and chopped some veggies while listening to Floyd and the Stones waiting for a replay of a king biscuit flower hour with Neil Young that the DJ hyped between songs.
I set up a table and chair outside, opened the windows to blast the tunes and slipped into my mummy bag with a tall crown and ginger to fight the chill. I munched and sipped and watched the stars move across the sky mesmerized as people have done since the dawn of man.
Heart of Gold, Like a Hurricane, and The Needle and The Damage Done; songs from better times when death was still a stranger. I took a look at my place in the grand scheme as, “Don’t Let it Bring you Down,” screamed from the radio and the occaisional shooting star flared in the Colorado sky.
I am not going to get into the minutia that divided us. Every family has its quirks and squabbles that seem petty to the outsider but that we cling to like a warm blanket to wrap ourselves in the comfort of old hurts real or perceived. Each has its own dark secrets outsiders are never shown the wounds that cannot be healed because they can never be mentioned. It is a long time since I read Piaget and do not know if he is still in favor but as I remember it all the wiring imprints in the first few years so the things that made me are not the memories I can recall anyway.
If Libet is right I never truly had a choice to make in the first place. Maybe things were in motion and I was just making up the story in my mind to fit the patterns preventing madness from paralyzing me. I simply drifted among the stars thinking that we would all be going back to the stardust from which we began. At one time in the distant future each atom in my being would be as alone in space as I was alone on this spine of the dragon. Would any part retain memory of any of those egregious transgressions? When the last of my nerve endings decayed to carbon and nitrogen and were blown away by the solar winds to the far edges of the universe it was not going to matter so why should it matter now?
In the end I could do no less for my dad than I had done for strangers hundreds of times in the past. And when a month or so later I was sure the time had come I woke my stepmother so they could have their final moments together and I could begin to turn the page

Part One of, “My night at the top of the world.”

Blog nonsense.
Went out and found a water purifier today so next trip we can avoid the crypto and whatever. A good day for a ride and I got a few more pics of the local merchants I have been finding supplies at.
I have as of yet not been able to get back into the state of mind I found yesterday. The creative process being what I am interested in exploring I thought I would share a little on the subject before I post the first part of that story. I am enjoying blogging and the linking thing is very interesting. Something audaciaray said on twitter got me to thinking, “working with video is interesting in a different way than working with text.” Working in Blog is a subset of text that is unique from standard prose. I think about the telling differently in some ways. I think it has the potential to be very creative but it also has a tendency to break my focus. Looking for the link I have lost the train of the story but that can be part of the fun. The synthesis of original and sampled material can work well but I think it will take a great deal of practice for me to do it well.
I find that I am a bit verbose in some of these posts and I think in this case size is important. Too long can work against readership in an ADHD world 700 or 800 words should be a max I am thinking. On that note here is Part One of, “My night at the top of the world.”
It was a bad time for me. I was heading to Newport News to stay with my dad. He had colon cancer and needed more help than my sister or his wife were willing to provide. I had flown out to see them and hung out for 3 wks and they talked me into moving in with them for the duration. I needed to store the motor home and if I was going to deal with my family for any length of time I needed to get some Green. It was a stressful time as I was also giving up tobacco. The quitting smoking stuck after about 6 months of off and on with the help of nasty skin patches and gum. At least as far as tobacco anyway. There were no storage spaces that I could find in a hurry so I took the rig east and stored it in Hampton roads. I will get to my eastern adventures in the future but I felt it important to set the tone a bit before I take you to the top of spine of the dragon.
In Le Morte d’Arthur Merlin refers to a rocky mountain range in Britain as the spine of the dragon. The men that built the transcontinental railway thru from the west, mostly recruited in southern China brought their legends of dragons to the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the valley before it. As a teller of tales I feel free to blend those legends into my own as I tell the story of a cold dark night of the sole spent on spine of America’s dragon.
Vail pass on I 70 is 10,666ft and near its top there is a rest area that I had all to myself on this particular night. The contrast from my day was profound. I had driven thru Arches National Park or as I like to call it Wiley Coyote National Park after the roadrunner cartoons. Out of Utah and up the Rockies it gets greener and fresher and the sky becomes a deeper purple blue as the sun sets in the backup cam. I like driving at night when I am trying to make time and because I didn’t want to get were I was going I had stalled as long as I could without sticking it to my sister. That and when you stop in highway rest areas in a motor home the freakin trucks run their engines all night but they leave early so I like to pull in late.
I will post part two in a few days in which our hero comes to a decision. No mean feat for a world champion procrastinator