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