Report from Eureka, Nevada

I got a call from Don on Friday. He was in Eureka, Nevada, making good progress heading east. He will be continuing along Hwy 50, which then joins with Hwy 6 into Provo, Utah. From there he will be following Hwy 40 all the way into Denver. He's made some connections with people in Colorado and hopefully will be getting some support with hauling his gear. He'll be going over Berthoud Pass before descending into Denver. At over 11,000 feet, Berthoud Pass will be one of the greater challenges of Don's journey. I'm sure it will help physically and mentally to not be dragging a 60 pound trailer behind. Thanks to all those good folks along the way watching out for him.

Don should be able to get to a computer in the next couple days. I'll pass along a report as soon as I hear from him.

On the Road from Fallon, Nevada 2/22/10

PR - Hey Joe you out there?

F - Yeah, always. What's up?

PR - A brief on the road report. The sun's out, the snow's melting, and I'm needing to make miles yet today.

F - When did you get there?

PR - Yesterday, but I spent most of Sunday waiting for a snow storm to pass. An appropriate day to be resting and me only 8 miles out of town. Then it snowed all night and into the next day. I could see it coming behind me and pedaled through a few flurries. It was a long day with darkness closing in on me.

F - How much snow did you have?

PR - Not that much really, maybe 4 inches but it was wet stuff. It didn't stick to the roads.

F - So you're heading down the road right after this, eh?

PR - Yeah, as heavy as I was out of Alaska. Stores are few and far between heading east on Hwy 50. The next "big" town is Ely about 250 miles away. I'm packing a weeks worth of food from here.

F - Lots of interesting history along your route.

PR - Yeah, stuff you don't pay a lot of attention to speeding by in a car.

Dayton just east of Carson City, the capital of Nevada, is on the Pony Express Trail as was part of my route across the Sierras. Night before I camped near so called Ragtown, not really a town but a place where emigrants stopped for water to do their laundry after a thirsty desert crossing. Ragtown from the laundry hanging on bushes.

The Carson River and some others flowing off the Sierras disappear into the desert sands.

F - What are you doing for water, by the way?

PR - I'm packing a jug of water from Fallon. Not quite sure I can make the next small town and water before sunset today with a late start.

One last piece of history. I passed a small stone monument by the roadside in Dayton honoring Paiute Chief Truckee. He helped and befriended emigrants heading west and died near this place in 1860; a town, a river, and valley, are named after him. John C. Fremont, the explorer, also honored this legendary Chief.

One of my first fishing trips with Charlie, my dad, was on the Truckee River with my aunt and uncle who lived in Reno. This is also for me a journey of remembrance.

Well, enough for now. More to say about sacred places down the road.

F - When will we hear from you again?

PR - Probably not until Cedar City, Utah, 5 or 6 days down the road. Passed Ely I'll probably head southeast bound into Utah on 21, more watering holes than the alternative.

F - Catch you down the road.

PRD

On the road from South Lake Tahoe 2/19/10

Friend (Joe) - I see you made it over the Sierras. How was the crossing?

PR - You know, I couldn't have asked for nicer weather, sunny and warm for the two day climb to Echo Summit.

F - Which way did you go?

PR - I decided to keep going over Hgy. 50 from Placerville instead of Hgy 88. It was the most direct route from where I was at. You may recall I said I had to pick up winter gear I'd sent ahead there.

F - So you got everything okay?

PR - I did. I made it there from Sacramento before the Post Office closed and everything I'd sent ahead was there. I was most anxious to have my warmer sleeping bag and tent stove. It was all there waiting. My "just in case" new studded snow tires from Don's Cycles in Grants Pass were also there. I was a happy camper.

And you know the following night I fired up the stove. The last time was at Jackass Summit in BC. Heat, warm tent, it doesn't get much better than that cold camping.

F - So it got really cold on you.

PR - No, it wasn't below freezing but I had climbed up to 5000' by then. It was cooler and there was patchy snow on the ground. I was about six miles or so west of Twin Bridges on an old road grade above the main highway, in the pine forest.

F - So how was Hwy 50 for biking?

PR - Not great for cycling. In a lot of places there are no shoulders and even during the week plenty of traffic, but I made it, with help.

PR - So I'm sitting at my host families kitchen table writing this. I just looked up. Whoa baby! A black bear, big, just walked up on the back porch.

I yell at Jean, She's upstairs on the phone and runs down, gets a pan out and bangs on it. The bear ambles off, in no great hurry. It had a red ear tag.

This one is a known character, his name is George, Jean tells me later after a phone conversation with a friend. People aren't as careful with garbage here as they should be she says but George is apparently old, sometimes sleeps under a porch and hasn't broken into anything yet apparently.

The winter has been mild here Jean tells me. Still it's not normal for bears to be wandering around this time of year.

F - So a little excitement in the AM eh?

PR - I'll say. This one wasn't acting aggressive, but what a surprise, look up and there's a bear framed in the window, 10 feet away with only a couple of glass panes of separation.

F - Did you get a picture?

PR - No, in the excitement didn't think of it until after, of course.

PR - One more story from the road.

F - Let's hear it.

PR - I reached Echo Summit in the early afternoon, 7400' roughly. I didn't see a sign for Echo summit with the elevation on it on my side of the road but there was one on the other side. I cross the road to take a photo of my bike in front of the sign. I'm getting set to take a photo when a truck pulls in behind me. It's Mike in a California Transportation maintenance truck I find out after some conversation. He says I saw you back at Strawberry heading up the hill. You know there's a steep downgrade right after the next bend, the road is narrow with no shoulders. I didn't know. There was only a sign saying steep downgrade. Mike takes a picture of me, then I take his.

Cars have to swing into the other lane to pass you he tells me. I don't want anyone hurt on my road. I'll follow you down the hill to the bottom so cars can't pass. He tells me where there are a couple of turnouts I can pull into to let cars pass. I'll let you know where he says, it's only 4 1/2 miles long. He has a PA system in the truck.

Wow! Kindness and consideration for the welfare of others, so many times repeated on this journey. I thank him for that, grateful, humbled.

I tell Mike about the Warm Showers host family I'm going to stay with in Lake Tahoe south. A few minutes later an Outback Suburu pulls in front of me. I guess it might be Greg my warm showers host. He told me he was going to Placerville when I called the evening before. He said he might see me on the road. It was him. He said his wife Jean wasn't going to be home when I would arrive. He drew a map for me with directions to the house and the combination to the garage door.

F - So no problems getting down he hill.

PR - No, thanks to Mike. Just round the next bend from the summit, a stunning view of distant Lake Tahoe as the valley floor falls away to the north. Mike says pull over and take a photo if you want. We pull into the next turnout to let cars pass and I for a quick photo.

F - So what are your plans now?

PR - Head down the road and make a few more miles today.

Many thanks to Holly Wenger in Sacramento for hosting and riding part way with me to and from Sacramento and to Jean and Greg Bergner for letting me stay with them in their lovely home by a marsh with indroductions to George.

On the Road from Sacramento 2/15/10

F - I see you made it to San Francisco?

PR - Yeah, it was pretty neat coming across the Golden Gate Bridge on a bicycle. Lots of cars whizzing by but virtually no traffic on the west side bike way. Brought back memories of other passages, with Anne my mother, when I was a small boy heading to Hawaii on a Naval transport ship, years later on the Lynn Ann, a chartered Marine Mammal Laboratory research vessel, then by car in more recent years with my wife.

F - So no problems finding your friend's place?

PR - Some but not major. I followed a two lane bike path into the Presidio, an old Army post, then couldn't find the exit without asking for help. After that following Vicky Hoover's instructions to her place was easy.

F - I meant to ask you before why we didn't hear more from you on the California coast?

PR - Well, I apologize for that. I tried. I made a blog post from the Ft. Bragg public library roughly halfway between Fortuna and Petaluma but it was lost in the electron shuffle.

To catch up a bit, if you haven't seen what remains of the old growth redwood forests in northern California you really should. Once there was 2 million acres. Sadly only 100,000 escaped the axe and saw.

Two days past Fortuna I rode through Humbolt Redwoods State Park, 30 some miles along the Avenue of the Giants. In the Bull Creek State wilderness there was a big tree area shown on the park map. It was off my direct route of travel but I wanted to camp midst these ancient sentinels. I payed for a hike/bike camp site then went and found a place off the main trails by Bull Creek. The patter of rain drops on my tent and the rush of water over shallow riffles lulled me to sleep that night. It was a rare moment of solitude, away from the madding crowd. I felt at home in this sliver of wilderness.

F - Way cool! Tell me about San Francisco?

PR - Well, I didn't have any luck with the media but not for trying. I did connect with Anna Goldstein and David Kroodsma with 350.org, the climate change group. They are working to have this become the global safe parts per million standard for CO2 emissions. I look forward to a fruitful collaboration.

I also visited Sierra Club friends from my days flying in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Vicky Hoover my host and friend had flown with me into the Refuge as had Carol and Dexter Hake and Bill Gomez whom I visited in Palo Alto. I took the Cal Trans train there. I stayed overnight with Carol and Dexter. Oranges and lemons from their trees were ripe and plentiful, luscious treats along with a dinner of Dungeness crab. All of this a far cry and welcome change from my more mundane ramen noodle dinner combinations. It was really wonderful to catch up with old friends again.

Bill Gomez took me on a hike through Stanford's Jasper Ridge 1000 acre plus research area. He's a docent volunteer which allows him access through otherwise locked gates. He showed me one experiment to determine why the native oak trees, both deciduous (leaves fall off in winter) and non deciduous were not regrowing from their seeds. Virtually all the trees on this site and outside are old trees. He explained it was not a problem with the seeds, they would sprout but are not surviving. The deer and gophers are eating some of the sprouting seedlings but there's more going on thus the project. It could also be a problem related to seasonal changes in soil moisture, he said.

We walked across the spillway of a 100 year old concrete dam with a multi acre impoundment behind it. He said it's typical of the problems that surface when dams are proposed for removal as this one had. The water behind the dam was only 12 feet deep now due to sedimentation. There is, he explained, a segment of the public that wants to leave the dam in place for flood protection. Yet most of the excess water over tops the dam because it's too shallow giving scant protection. Others, of course, want it removed to restore the habitat and fish run in the stream.

The latter would be my preference but allaying the fears of those in opposition remain an ongoing challenge to dam removal in many places.

F - I see you're no longer in San Francisco. How did you get out of town?

PR - I took the Baylink ferry to Vallejo on Saturday. I didn't get there until just past noon. Even so I was further along by 30 some miles before camping on the outskirts of Vacaville. It was a great day to be on a bike, sunny with temperatures in high '50's maybe more I'd guess, flowers in bloom.

It was pretty interesting riding down Georgia Street heading out of town.

F - How so?

PR - Part of Georgia Street was blocked off for a farmers market. Some vendors were already beginning to close up shop and go home. I stopped at a stand selling mandarin and regular oranges.

I asked how much they were. I was told I could get one pound of mandarins for a dollar, a bargain I thought. I bought a pound. Right afterwards an older woman came up to me and said I want to give you some money for your trip. She saw my polar bear sign with Ride For the Planet draped over the side of my loaded B.O.B. trailer. She hands me one dollar. I thanked her for the donation "What's your name," I asked. "Douglas," she responds. "Your other name," "Elie Douglas, they call me the Hat Lady." She was wearing a white knitted hat, made of wool, I couldn't be sure. "Do you make them," I asked. "No I just wear them." I remembered her name as I headed up over the immediate hill out of town and others that followed.

F - You've got more to say about this I can tell.

PR - Of course. It really didn't come to me until the next morning what this was about. By this time the sun was up in a nearly cloudless sky, the birds were singing their hearts out.

F - And that is?

PR - What is the underlying theme I've spoken about before on this journey?

F - I'm not sure, we've talked about a lot of things.

PR - What happened at the fruit stand? Remember there are no coincidences and there is always more going on than meets the eye. I bought one pound of mandarin oranges, for one dollar that I received a one dollar donation for from the Hat Lady. Three elements in one here, a sacred number, reinforcing for me the central theme of this ride and our relationship to one another. One pound for one dollar with one dollar returned, we are all One, connected in ways we do not fully appreciate or understand yet. Eating mandarin oranges on a warm day is a good thing and so is repetition until we get it. When more of us "get it" and act from that understanding we will have peace and an end to war, violence and the madness. We will know that to do these things to one another we are only harming ourselves individually or collectively.

F - Whew, it's a stretch for me.

PR - Stay with me it ain't over yet.

F - So now your in Sacramento?

PR - Yeah, Holly Wenger another Sierra Club friend rode out to meet me yesterday when I was northbound on the Jedediah Smith Bikeway along the American River. It was a good thing too. Her home is in the burbs not close to the trail. We'd been in touch via cell phone so she had some idea of my whereabouts. Having her as a guide made it easy.

F - How was the trail?

PR - The Jed Smith trail is excellent, two lanes, speed limit 15mph for the "hot dogs." I crossed the Sacramento River first with a view of the State Capitol. Horse drawn carriages carrying tourists past while I waited for the light to change. Then I biked and walked through Old Sacramento over a rough board walk along the river. That turned into a worn paved path leading upstream to the beginning of the Jed Smith trail along the American River. Sunday, Valentines Day as it happened, there were lots of folks out sighseeing, enjoying the spring weather. A stern wheeler was tied up at the dock, old railroad cars were parked on a nearby siding, lots of old things to see. A couple on a tandem bike insisted on taking my photo with my camera rather than the stand alone shot I was about to take. That was special!

Later we went out to eat at a Chinese restuarant with Holly's friends. Holly asked me beforehand if I had enough energy for it. Just enough, tired but not exhausted. I was famished, my usual condition. It was good food, good company and me the last to finish. I was in hog heaven. I love Chinese food.

Crystal Olson treated me to dinner, a Valentine gift, gratefully received. We sat next to each other. She's a music arts teacher in the California State University system, been to Nicaragua and Rwanda 10 years after the killings. She wore a red Valentine day jacket that sparkled much like the conversation and company, a day to remember.

I ate two chocolate covered fortune cookies for an extra measure of good luck. Not really, I was one hungry hombre and they were sooo good. But the fortune telling wasn't bad either. That's my story.

F - Catch up with you down the trail.

Peace Rider

On the Road from Petaluma, CA 2/9/10

Friend (Joe) - Wasn't that California coast awesome?

PR - Yeah, it was awfully hilly, up and down and around and up again.

F - Awesome, as in beautiful, spectacular scenery, not awful?

PR - Oh, that, yes, of course. Waves crashing into cliffs, spray flying, turkey vultures soaring, meadow larks singing and cows feeding on lush green hillsides, all of that and more. But with that some of the toughest miles of my journey, whipped me in shape for the Sierras and Rocky Mountains ahead. Lots of ups and downs where stream courses have carved there way into the landscape on their way to the sea.

F - So have you decided on a route west yet?

PR - In general, yes. From San Francisco I'll likely follow the Adventure Cycling route through Sacramento to Placerville. There I'll rendezvous with some of my winter gear shipped ahead to me by friends c/o General Delivery. From Placerville the choices are Highway 50 or Highway 88 to Carson City then on to Fallon, NV on Highway 50. Follow that across the State into Utah at Cedar City.

F - Did you stop at Ft. Ross south of Stewart Point?

PR - I did. Did you also know that before that I passed a Ross Ranch as well? No relation that I'm aware of. Ft. Ross was established in the early 1800's as a Russian/American outpost to support the Alaska fur trade. The Russians also brought Aleut natives from Alaska to hunt sea otters along the California coast. The big wigs lived inside the Fort and the rest outside. By the time the Fort was abandoned around 1840 the population of otters was much depleted. There wouldn't have been eucalyptus trees growing at the original site as they are today either.

The Fort has been restored to resemble the original. An interesting stop, this time of year, minus the horde of tourists.

Then you know it's California when you see flocks of California quail, wild iris, plum trees, and Scotch broom in bloom. A couple of days I was also well soaked after all day rains. But I had several spectacular mornings that came in clear and crisp making up for it.

F - When do you plan to be in San Francisco?

PR - I left Santa Rosa and Terra Freeman's place yesterday. She's a member of the local Sonoma Peace and Justice Center. This connection came through David Hazen, a Peace Alliance friend in Eugene, Oregon. I am again being well taken care of.

I'm in Petaluma at the moment staying with other Peace Center friends, Kendra and Eugene. It isn't far down the road from Santa Rosa. But it will make my ride into San Francisco a bit shorter when I leave here after posting this.

F - How's the new bike holding up?

PR - It is faster and that's a plus but the tires weren't as durable as the Schwalbe's I had on my mountain bike. Ten miles out of Santa Rosa the day before yesterday I ran over a rough patch of Eucalyptus seed pods that gave me my first flat on a main tire, the rear. I put in a new tube. It went flat too in short order. A rescue call to Terra got me a lift into town.

It also got me to an open house at the Santa Rosa Peace Center that was going on as my roadside drama unfolded. Food, folk music and rest were just what I needed.

F - So what was the problem?

PR - Turns out the tire had a ruptured side wall that blistered, pinching the tube leaving me running on the rim. I ended up buying two new Armadillo tires yesterday, the closest I could come to the puncture resistant Schwalbe tires on short notice.

Yesterday Charlie Gesell, a neighbor of Terra's and I biked out to where I had the flat tire then back into town, about a 21 mile circuit. I got a chance to try out my new tires. It was also a very pleasant way to spend a morning with a new friend biking past vineyards, the Pinot Noire wine country, surrounding Santa Rosa so Charlie informed me.

F - You couldn't just chill out and stay out of the "saddle" for while, eh?

PR - Well, as I think I mentioned before it is important to me to maintain the integrity of my ride by not skipping portions of my cycling journey when I go by car. In this instance it wasn't a safety issue and I had the time. I felt rested. It was a pleasure pedaling over flat ground without a load.

I've got to pack up and hit the road to make San Francisco before dark, about 50 miles from here. Looks like a great day to be crossing Golden Gate bridge. Later, and many thanks to Terra Freeman, Kendra Mon and Eugene Lane my gracious hosts and new friends with the Sonoma Peace Center.

F - Stay safe!

Viajero por la Paz - Don

PR - a bonus for blog followers, Terra Freeman's simple recipe for yogurt. 1/2 gallon of milk, 4 tbs. powdered milk, raise to a temperature of 180 degrees (takes a candy thermometer), let cool to 120, add 4 tbs. starter mixed with warm milk, keep it warm for 8 hours afterward then cool and presto, you've saved the planet from a few more plastic containers and yourself some of your hard earned cash. She keeps the yogurt in a large glass jar.

On the Road from Fortuna, CA 1/30/10

PR- Hey Joe you still with me.

F (Joe) - Yeah, a lot wetter, how about you? Where you been this past week?

PR - Me too. On the road and not close to a computer. Fifty miles or so down the road out of Eugene I dried out in the home of Wayne and Karolyn Estes. They are Warm Showers hosts I connected with.

Wayne is a retired Motorola engineer and Karolyn a master gardener. Wayne is also an experienced long distance cyclist and was very helpful with route planning on south.

F - Which way did you go from Wayne and Karolyn's place?

PR - I was going to take a longer scenic route to Grants Pass but when I left it was raining and overcast. I decided go more directly to Grants Pass down I - 5. With ear plugs the traffic noise was more tolerable. Four summits later I was in Grants Pass. From there I hung a right onto Highway 199 the next day connecting to Highway 101 southbound out of Crescent City. You may recall Crescent City was hit by a big tusami after the '64 earthquake in Alaska.

F- I do. Why did you chose to go this way?

PR - I wanted to experience the redwood forests along this route again. My wife and I had traveled this route once before. Only remnants of these ancient giants remain. Once they covered an area of some 2 million acres, now only 100,000 acres of these old ones remain. There were far sighted people who came before that worked to save what now remains right up to present.
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Yesterday I rolled into Fortuna, a small town just south of Eureka. I'm staying with Jim and Francene Rizza, retired teachers and high school friends of Bob Ritchie, ABR Fairbanks.

You know this trip continues to be a blessed journey of happenings and encounters. I hiked the Cathedral Trees trail the day before yesterday where words fail to describe the awesome beauty and grandeur of these the last of the tall redwoods. Forest giants, ancient sentinels, silent witnesses to all the goings on on this planet perhaps wondering when we will come to our senses.

At the base of the "Big Tree" at the Big Tree Wayside, I met four women who had stopped at the base of this forest "Ent" 1500 years young or so. One of them laid out a Chinese tea set on a nearby bench and served us all Oolong tea from tiny tea cups. She said the ceremony is all about coming together over tea served up many times from these diminutive cups. Fitting, since what I'm striving to do is bring people together now working separately.

Back in Eugene I was standing in line on a Saturday morning waiting outside for the used and returned clothing sale at REI to begin. I arrived about 45 minutes before opening. Already there was a long line outside the store. All the items were assembled outside.

The man just in front of me was older, a little younger than me but not by much. We struck up a conversation. I told him what I was doing and why. Turns out he was Tom Taylor, Editor for the Eugene Weekly, a progressive paper published once a week. I had been trying to get in touch with one of his reporters without success. He said they had already done a series of articles on climate change. I didn't think much more about it except to wonder at the "coincidence."

As it happened I found a lighter weight sleeping bag I was looking for.

This wasn't the end of the story as it turned out, some of which I related in an earlier blog.

Just today I received an e-mail from another friend there who sent me an article Tom had published after I left about my ride. It really is awesome and humbling the many things that have happened like this. There is just so much more going on than meets the eye. I am so blessed to be a part of it.

F - What lies ahead?

PR - More tall trees on the Avenue of the Giants along Highway 101 just south of here. I'll leave Fortuna this morning after I finish with this. I should make San Francisco by the weekend following the coast most of the way. From there head east back to snow and winter crossing the Sierras into the high desert country of Nevada on Highway 88 most likely.

Catch you down the road and a BIG thank you to my gracious hosts on this leg of my journey.

F - Later!

Don - Peace Rider