On the Road from Seattle, WA 1/3/10

PR - Hey, Joe you still with me?

Friend (Joe) - Yeah, didn't you recognize me when I joined you on the Burke-Gillman trail yesterday?

PR - Was that you?

F - You just never know when I'm going to show up.

PR - Well, it's nice to have help wherever it shows up. Going through the U of W parking lot and then around the back side of the stadium to the Mont Lake bridge was brilliant . We avoided the crowds heading to a Husky basketball game.

Speaking of help I had plenty after leaving Bellingham.

F - How so?

PR - After the ups and downs of by the water's edge Chuckanut Drive it started to rain rolling onto the flats nearing Mt. Vernon. You know I would have sworn there was a pair of peregrine falcons perched on a power line pedaling through this open farm land. The swans feeding or resting in passing fields were unmistakable, of course.

Nearing Burlington off I - 5, I was looking for a place out of the rain to take a break. I found it under the entrance to the State Highway Patrol office. I decided to go inside and ask for directions through Burlington and Mt. Vernon to reach my cousin's place south of there. My nephew, Craig Barta had told me a shorter way to go but I didn't have a map that connected all the dots. The office person made copies of maps with directions through the two intervening towns. It was very nice of her.

F - So you got to your cousin's place okay?

PR - Yeah, there was probably a route with fewer intervening hills to climb but I made it just before dark.

F - How was the weather after that?

PR - It wasn't raining when I left early the next day but it started not long afterward. It continued into the afternoon. I was also pedaling into a headwind which didn't help. Early on I stopped and changed into rain gear.

In spite of breathable claims biking in rain gear is sticky business. Still the new rain gear is far superior to what I was using. At least I was dry if not altogether comfortable.

F - Where did you camp?

PR - At a friend's place as it turned out. I called Luke Irons a newly hired nurse graduate working at the hospital in Everett. He's the son of Tom Irons and Jean Aspen whose house I looked after in Homer last summer while they were away. They suggested I call him if I was in the area, I was.

He bailed me out with a place to stay. I had called him from Mathias Station on the Centennial Trail which I joined south of the town of Arlington. This is a rails to trails bicycle path. It was very pleasant biking through woodlands on a paved over railroad grade.

Fatigue and clarity of thought don't go well together, at least for me. I thought I could make it to Seattle the same day but it was much too far. A lost glove and backtracking up the trail to retrieve it put an end to this notion. That's when I called Luke. But there was a complication.

F - Oh yeah?

PR - Luke had a Honda Civic with limited capacity to tote my stuff back to his place. Still, he was willing to meet me and try. We arranged a rendezvous just outside the town of Snohomish not far from trail's end. It was too far to bike to Luke's place given the time of day and distance.

F - So did you manage to get everything crammed into Luke's car?

PR - We didn't have to as it turned out. I 'm not sure we could have either. He didn't have a hatchback model. Trunk space was pretty limited. Then help arrived.

F - How so?

PR - I was just turning onto Snohomish River Rd. paralleling the river when a green crew cab pickup stops in front of me. Of course, he was curious what I was doing and why. He was also a long distance cyclist. He lived in the area.

I knew of Luke's small car situation so I asked the driver if he knew of a place I could leave my bike and gear overnight. He was a bit puzzled by the request until I explained the situation.

F - So you asked some pretty leading questions hoping he could help?

PR - I suppose. But I really didn't expect him to offer to take all my stuff to Luke's place.

F - Is that what he did?

PR - Yes, he did. And it was a real help.

That's how I ended up meeting Don Stanfield and his daughters. I rode with him to Luke's apartment in Everett, not far away by car. On the way he showed me where I could take the Interurban Trail into Seattle. It was an alternate route.

Don was getting ready to leave for Dutch Harbor where he works as fisherman in the pollock Bering Sea fishery. He thought that it's being over fished. He wasn't certain how his season would turn out. If what he suspects is true, it isn't encouraging news given the state of other fisheries suffering the same fate or collapsed entirely.

F - Isn't that fishery regulated?

PR - It is but I don't know enough about it to say how well the regulations are enforced or match the science. I do know by catch is a huge problem.

F - What's that?

PR - That's the tons of fish and other sea life scooped up in huge trawl nets and discarded as waste. A lot of the dead fish are salmon destined for interior rivers one of which is the Yukon. And the king salmon run in the Yukon is in decline and no one knows the reason with any certainty.

F - The by catch can't be very helpful?

PR - You wouldn't think so. The by catch limit has been reduced but the wastage continues.

F - This is a renewable resource that if properly managed should last forever, right?

PR - Right! The problems of overfishing or collapse of ocean fisheries, dying trees, contamination of the atmosphere are just the "tip of the iceberg." The ability of our planet to support life is slipping away before our eyes.

Add to that wars and other social injustices. It really is a form of collective insanity. It all comes from a misperception of relationships.

F - Haven't we talked about this before?

PR - We have but you know it doesn't hurt to repeat something especially for those just joining the conversation. We are all One. More people I run into in my travels have this understanding. But many more do not. This is a change of perception a paradigm shift.

F - What do you mean by One? Isn't that a New Age idea?

PR - You wouldn't consider Jesus New Age who said "I and the Father are One?"

F - That's different..

PR - Is it? Or is it a failure of understanding, to accept a lesser truth about the nature of our relationship with the Great Mystery many call God rather than the greater which is that of unity or Oneness, not separation? At a level beneath the physical which is to say at the level of the spiritual or energetics there is no separation between ourselves, the created world or that which is Greater than self. All the dysfunction, the "madness," in our world comes from this misperception.

Because everything is connected. What we give to the other individually or collectively comes back to the self or group eventually. Yet we live out the illusion of separation and keep repeating mistakes of the past.

It's no ones fault really. But if we don't wake up and stop doing what we are doing to the life support system of the planet we'll all be in big trouble.

That's why I'm riding. Adopting effective solutions to stop contamination of our atmosphere from fossil fuel burning is an urgent matter. If we're lucky we have a decade, no one knows for sure, of course.

If you were handed a stick of dynamite with a slow burning fuse a prudent person would do everything in their power to defuse it quickly before it goes off. That's what we face with climate change.

We dare not drag this out in a decades long process that does not reduce CO2 emissions to safe levels (350 ppm scientists tell us). It's our children that will suffer the worst consequences of climate change if we don't get it right the first time. We are literally playing with dynamite, not yet fully awake to the danger we face.

We cannot continue to put human needs above the needs of other living things. It is life supporting life that makes ours possible.

With the new understanding comes an appreciation of the interconnectedness of all life on the planet and with the Giver of Life. There are consequences for everything we do. Many more understand and know this and are being from a place of Oneness.

F - I don't get what you mean connected at the level of energetics?

PR - You've probably experienced someone coming into a room and sensing a change in energy, either positively or negatively, right?

F - Yeah.

PR - We radiate energy, you could call it soul or life energy. There is no place where one energy field stops and another begins, they overlap. They change color with a person's mood. Some people can see these auras. I'm not one of them.

There is a real energy connection between all of us. And yet we are part of one Universal, life energy, reflected in physical form, unique unto itself.

You could liken it to one huge mansion. We are the rooms in it, connected yet part of something far larger, greater, incomprehensible to our finite minds, awesome.

F - But how does this bring an end to the madness?

PR - There is great power in a collective consciousness that seeks to create a far different future. We will create a ship wreck if we don't heed the warning signs all around us.

The way to peace on Earth and peace with the Earth is the Way of Love. Love is misunderstood. It knows the inherent connection of all things with itself. It is why we have been repeatedly advised to overcome evil with good. Yet we have chosen to largely ignore the advice. It is the only thing that works that understands the linkage.

F- So you haven't given up hope?

PR - Not at all. We are the dreamer awakening from a nightmare. There is too much fear based reaction to events already. But the situation is urgent. We don't have decades to halt the increase in greenhouse gases (CO2) let alone reverse dangerous trends. The safe standard we need to reach is 350 ppm CO2. We're over that already and increasing at 2ppm a year.

It is our moral obligation to create a future in which our children and theirs can flourish free of concern about the health of their life support system. We won't get there until we kick our addiction to burning of fossil fuels and create a clean energy future.

F - Wow, it just seems like such a daunting challenge?

PR - No doubt, but we have come together before and it can happen again. This is no time to jump ship and give up, it's time to bail water and make sure our politicians are in the line up.

F - Whew, from pollock to Oneness and global warming!

I'm left wondering how you got back on the road the next day given Luke's tiny Honda Civic.

PR - Well, Luke took good care of me. He treated me to dinner at his favorite restaurant the evening I arrived. The next morning he had to work but arranged for a prepaid taxi van to pick me up and take me to where I stopped cycling the day before.

F - Why didn't you just take off from his place and take the Interurban trail?

PR - I had decided early on that if I left my route of travel by some other means than bicycle I would resume again from the same place to preserve the integrity of my ride.

F - So you started again from where you met Luke and Don the day before?

PR - Right! But it was kind of amusing getting there.

F - How so?

PR - The cab driver was Destat, Ethopian. He took Luke and me to the Alligator restaurant the evening before. He asked me where I wanted to go? I told him Snohomish River Rd. "Do you know where that is," I asked. No he didn't. "I've got GPS you don't have an address?" "No I don't." Some more calling and conversation in Ethopian. The person he talked to didn't know either. He knew how to get to the town of Snohomish. The rest was easy. I remembered the way.

F - How was the ride into Seattle?

PR - Hilly and tiring but I really enjoyed biking in over the Samish and Burke-Gilman Trails. These are also old converted railroad grades away from car traffic for the most part.

After crossing the Mont Lake bridge I followed the green Washington Loop trail signs. It was up and down through quiet residential areas but eventually, after asking directions from other cyclists, I found the bike path approach to I - 90. I crossed the floating bridge to Mercer Island where my friend lives but I was whupped.

F - What are your plans now?

PR - I hope to link up with the Cascade Cycle Club for help with some media events and the next segment of the ride south.

F - Good luck!

PR - Thanks, I need the break and rest.

F - Wait a minute, what's your route leaving Seattle?

PR - From Seattle, I'll follow the Cascade bicycle trail to Portland then south to Eugene. From there I will likely cut over to the coast and continue south along the coast.

F - Safe travels!

Don - Peace Rider