Driftwood

I have so much to write... so much time away from the computer to make up for, that I have a feeling that this next entry will happen in installments over the next few days.

A little time travel... and we're off.

I left Crescent City prepared to face my biggest climb yet, 900 ft from sea level, at maybe a 6% grade the whole way. The stretch was about 4 miles uphill, and the grade, above all else, was the killer. At this point I feel as if I could ride uphill for hours... I ransacked the continental breakfast at the Lighthouse Inn. I am full of carbs, and have five hardboiled eggs sitting in my food stash. I've had about 3 cups of black coffee, and more water. I'm good to go.

The minute I hit that grade I was shock. They say the first mile of the day is the hardest, and no one likes to start the day uphill. I'm lucky though, and the sun is shining bright. There isn't a single cloud in the sky.

I have to interject here, because I am haunted by so many precious details that were left out of my last entry. Such as the cows that chased me in the rain, every time I passed a pasture. They only do this in the rain, I've since learned. I thought they were mocking me at the time. I could imagine them saying... "You're going so slow in this rain... we can go faster than that!!!". Now I think maybe they saw my passing as a little game to shake off the soak for a minute. It can't be fun to be a pasture cow on a rainy day.

Moving on. I'm back to my old ritual of stopping every 200 yards on my way uphill. I'm out of breath and my legs feel like they are pumping nothing but lactic acid. I am regretting the lazy dinner I had last night. I am wishing I had combed the town for wheatgrass and avacadoes, instead of that celebratory pizza. I continue feeling this way for about a mile.

Then something changes. I find myself not bothering to stop, knowing it won't make the hill go any faster. The lactic acid has calmed from a boil to a good fuel, and I'm starting to feel like a slow machine. I'm got my "law of the hill" passing under my breath like a chant... "Just stay vertical. Just stay vertical". I suddenly find that I am moving along at a fainrly decent clip.

The hill goes on forever it seems, and when I'm nearing what feels like it must be the summit (the trees are thinning at the top, the air is changing) I meet an older hippie and his daughter waiting for a tow truck.

"When do I reach summit?" I ask them, struggling to hold my bike upright.
"Oh... about two miles left." they tell me.
"Oh shit."

We chat for a breif moment, and I head around the next curve... and damn if they weren't bullshitting me! I hit a good downhill about 200 yards past them. There were two more miles yes, to the "technical" summit... one little jump uphill after a nice flat run... but no more 6% grade, and soon I was sailing down, endlessly down, out of the hills, redwoods streaming past on both sides.

Apparently, I was going a little too fast. Maybe a little too focused on keeping safe from the wind on my downhill sprint. I missed something. In one moment something changed, and I missed it.

I was running alongside the ocean cliffs, and almost done with the hills. I had stopped a few times to rest my wrists, and shake the nerves out. I was on the final stretch... and I heard the sound of plastic flapping.

I assumed that I was hearing the little plastic bag I keep tied around my seatpost, to protect my saddle when it rains. Nothing to worry about. Then the sound stopped. I thought to myself.... Crap, I just littered... Assuming the plastic bag had gone flying off the cliffs behind me. I felt guilty, and didn'tfeel like stopping was really an option, due to my speed, and the distane the bbag would have flown, and the unlikely-hood of my finding it. I kept going. A car honked at me a moment later, and I said sheepishly, half to myself and half to the driver who couldn't hear me... "I know, I know, I littered, I'm a jerk."

About a mile down the road I stopped to talk to another bike tourist, headed in the opposite direction. The conversation came around to music, and he says to me... "Where's your guitar?"

"Oh right here... " I said, ready to laugh about my little guitar all hidden in her nest of plastic bags. But she's not there. And suddenly it dawns on me just what happened up on those cliffs. My guitar has taken flight. Gone.

The other tourist (Alex?) and I ride into the headwinds and back up to the hill where the little symphony occurred (the honking, the flutter into silence). His gear is a lot easier to take down, so he hands me his bike, which is monsterously too big for me, and I attempt to ride it up the hill. I look hysterical. I'm sitting on the crossbar half the time, devastated and feeling foolish. I make it up high enough and begin the meticulous searching of the cliffs that I will undergo 3 more times, over the next 24 hours.

The Redwoods youth hostel sits at the bottom of what I now affectionately call "Gidgit's Hill". That was my little Baby Taylor's name, Gidgit. The cute hostel worker drives me up later that night. I walk the hill again in the morning. I even climb down the cliffs into the brambles and covered myself in tiny scratches from the endless prickebushes. She's nowhere to be found.

So here are my theories:

1. Gidgit really wanted a hill named after her.
2. The universe wants me to question my attachment to material things.
3. The universe wants me to write an a cappella record.
4. Gidgit secretly wanted to become the most beautiful piece of driftwood in Japan.

I walked on the beach with Alex a little in the evening, shook off as much of the heartbreak as I could, and in the morning I forced myself to leave Gidgit's Hill after my final, prickerful exploration.

My morning at the hostel started slow, both as a result of my forlorn glances backwards, and the flat tire I woke up with... and the insistent little piece of wire I had to manipulate out of my tire with the tip of a kitchen knife. I did't hit the raod until around 3pm.

There was one more fairly big climb ahead of me, and I didn't want to lose the day, so I got moving at a fairly good clip. I was running through the flats, not yet at the climb when I passed a rider stopping at atourist attraction.

"Where you headed?" I hollered, not stopping
"San Fran."
"Same here... maybe catch you later!" and I rolled on

Not moments later the guy pops up next to me, happy to have found someone to share the days ride with. His name is Ray, and he is in the mid to late 60's... and of course in way better shape than me. So humbling, these cyclists.

Ray and I rode well together. He shot ahead of me on some of the hills, and waited at the tops. When the second stretch of hill came along, he rode alongside meand we made small talk, which made the hill go by much faster. Soon we were in a beautiful sprint through the redwoods, and we hit Elk Prairie National (or State? I have to check to be sure) Park just in time to set up camp.

Ray has mostly been stayin in hotels since he realized his tent leaks in heavy rain, but he tents down a ways off from me for the night. I like his company, so I am glad that he sticks around.

We share a dinner of everything we have lying around. Peanut butter and crackers, oatmeal, polenta and tea. I try to crash early but I'm not quite worn out enough, so I head out into the campground when I hear a guitar playing somewhere.

I never found the guitar, but I did find a college class. I asked if I could join a few folks at their firepit, and it turns out they are this little college class from San Jose State, studying the National Park system. They even get to take field trips!

One of the kids is incredibly stoned, and kinda hysterical... the way kids get when they are young, and smoking pot still causes lightheartedness. I chat with them for awhile, about education, and less important things... like Peep jousting.

Here's how it goes. Seeing as how it's easter candy season. Pick up some of those little marshmallow creatures called Peeps. Take out two of them and put the on a plate. Give theme each a jousting spear, by sticking a toothpick out of them... aimed at the other one. Now put them in the microwave. Instant entertainment. Thought you might like soemthing to do on a rainy day. Go play.

The school group was finishing up their trip, so they gave me all of their cmp food. Peanut Butter, Jelly, White break, apples, and a few bag s of chips. Oh... and leftoever toast from Denny's. We ate all the toast around the fire, and Nikki, the very-stoned-boy, was very enthusiastic. About the toast.

Ray wakes me up in the morning with a holler, and we hit the road without eating, aiming to find some breakfast in the next town. Five miles in, after a near perfect ride through the redwood forest... quiet and dry, with the morning light lingering, mostly downhill or on flats.... we hit a great little diner. Ray likes pancakes just as much as I do. Breakfast was goood!

We hit the road full and happy, and have a good steady ride. This is the first day I have planned to do more than 30 miles. In fact, in order to get to Eureka, where the family-of-family-friend's are putting me up for the night, I need to do 50 miles. Having Ray with me is good to keep me moving.

Oh... and I want to mention that Ray has ridden Bhuton (sp?) in the Himalayas... I think he said that's the closest you can get to Tibet on a bicycle tour. There was a stretch where they rode downhill for 50 miles straight. I can't imagine.

Uh-oh... thsi computer is running low on juice, and I don't want to lose my writing. I will publish this and write more soon.

Sending love,
xo Malcolm