Tales from the Redwoods

Brandon/Port Orford KOA – Harris Beach State Park, OR – Crescent City, CA (via Jedediah Smith State Park) – Sue-Meg State Park

When I was about twelve years old our family took a Vacation-like trip to San Diego, where my Dad had some conference for work. We all piled in the Ford Fairmont station wagon. The trip was full of Chevy Chase like adventure – which was apt because I think my Dad and Chevy were separated at birth . . . Let’s see – we had a few trips to emergency rooms across the country, the car barely made it over the Rockies, one of the rear windows blew out on the highway and we had duct taped plastic in place for the rest of the trip, and we all visited Tijuana – which made a pretty big impression on me as a little kid. 

But the reason I’m telling you about this now is a side trip we took through Yosemite. Piecing it together now I think we must have driven through some Sequoias. As we drove through my parents were urging all of us kids to marvel at the trees. I looked up from the book I was reading – Shogun – and said, “Oh,” – then went right back to reading. 

My parents were very upset. 

“You’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all,” I explained.

Looking back now I can see why my parents were so mad at me. 

I guess Sequoias can live 3,000 years. Redwoods only go to 2,000. Doesn’t matter. These trees are incredible. It’s almost . . . No. It is a religious experience to stand beneath them, and look up at their majesty. I mean, these trees were standing when Christ walked the earth. And Mohammed. And the Crusades. And the Dark Ages. And the Renaissance. And the American Revolution. And all the craziness that’s happened since. 

They’ve just stood there. Stoically. Through wind and rain and fires. Through droughts. Before there were people here at all. When it was just the Native Americans. And they’re still standing today.

And they are huge.

I think we’re both in Redwood love.

The great thing is that we have at least a few more days of Redwoods.

In the end, Redwoods are probably a big reason why the Pacific Coast is such a popular biking route – I guess people flock from around the world to see them. 

Which brings me to Paul Bunyan. 

It seems like every trip we take I run into these dubious Paul Bunyan claims. Paul Bunyan in Wisconsin. Paul Bunyan in the U.P. Paul Bunyan in New York. Now, Paul Bunyan in California? Come on. Everyone knows that Paul Bunyan is from Bemidji. He wasn’t some beach bum. 

And yet, I have to say, there is a certain logic to it. After all, the redwoods are pretty much the biggest trees in the world. I guess it makes sense that Paul might have come out this way for a few days – just to see what the fuss was all about. 

But he definitely didn’t hang out at the hokey “Trees of Mystery” park – where his statue sits today. That’s just pushing it too far . . . 

I will, however, admit that after talking to some old guys in the parking lot – who assured us that it was “totally worth it” we paid the $30 and enjoyed the “Trees of Mystery” experience. Turns out that a ropes course up in thousand year old trees is pretty darn cool – although it did take some getting over my fear of heights. 

We have been meeting quite a few fellow bikers the last few days – but I want to highlight one in particular. Kai. This is a young man we met last night. He’s heading the opposite direction from us – biking from San Francisco to Vancouver – but we ended up at the same campground last night. 

Kai is a maritime engineer. Which means, I guess, that he hangs out on ships criss-crossing the world, making sure that everything – like the engine and the rudder and that type of thing – works. His last voyage was three months, and took him to Alaska, up and down the Pacific Coast, over to the Philippines and Australia – kind of all over the place. 

That’s cool, but that’s not really why I’m excited about Kai. No. It’s Kai’s bike touring choices that have me excited. He’s the first fellow bike tourer we’ve met who uses unleaded gasoline as the fuel for his cook stove, and maybe the first using a Brooks saddle. Both excellent choices as far as I’m concerned. 

Remember Andres and Mae from Colombia? We met them a few days ago. They were using denatured alcohol as their fuel. Great idea, Burns super clean. Except they soon realized that it was not readily available on bike routes. They finally found a place that had it – and out of fear that they would never find the stuff again – bought several cans of the stuff – which they are now carrying along on their otherwise ultra-light set ups. Kind of unfortunate to add ten pounds of fuel to a bike you have spent thousands of dollars on in order to cut every ounce of extra weight . . .

E-87 isn’t the cleanest fuel, but, perhaps sadly, it is readily available pretty much anywhere in the world – meaning you never need to have more than a few ounces of the stuff at any one time.

And the Brooks saddle. Takes a little breaking in – but once you have it figured out, it’s amazing. No more diaper-like bike shorts. So comfortable I’ll never understand why more people don’t use them . . . Especially for touring . . . 

So you can see, I think Kai is a pretty darn smart young man. 

Two more quick stories to share to give you a feel for the area . . . 

We arrive in the town of Arcata, where we’re having lunch outside a grocery store. A ZZTop bearded guy approaches us. 

“Where are you biking?” 

He’s very excited. He explains that he used to bike all over the eastern seaboard. 

After a while we ask him what the main industry is in this town.

He looks pretty dismayed. 

“Well, it used to be weed he tells us. “But then ‘they’ screwed us over.”

We prompt him to tell us more – not that it took much prodding.

“Weed used to be like $5,000 per pound. Now it’s like $200.”

He explains that, yes, marijuana was officially illegal back then, but in this area nobody cared. Everyone knew that people were growing the stuff, but, per Kyle, it was the driving force of the town. The implication is that the legalization of pot kind of destroyed the livelihood of Arcata. Because when it was illegal, it was worth more. Now, people grow pot all over the place and Arcata is not so special anymore . . .

A bummer for Kyle because that’s why he moved here . . . although he is an electrician as well as a weed grower, so he’s doing just fine.

Finally, a little vignette from our lunch spot along the road . . .

So we’re at a tribe-run gas station on a reservation that is part of the Yurok land. We buy some fried chicken and we’re sitting outside eating lunch when we hear a guy proudly proclaim that he had killed a seal today. 

I ask the guy about it: “You killed a seal today?”

“Yeah,” the guy tells me, “We caught him in a net. (I think they were netting fish and happened to net the seal.) I took a 357 (don’t quote me on the number, I don’t know my guns . . .) and shot him in the head.”

I nod, because I don’t know what else to do.

“Then I brought it back and power-sprayed the hide, and some friends were making lunch with the meat.”

He was clearly pretty happy about the whole thing. 

He hopped in a pickup with his buddies and drove off. 

Pretty sure he was Native, because we were on the reservation, my sense was he lived nearby, and he had the dark hair that is often typical of Native peoples. 

Not the way most of us imagine Native people. In our romanticized imaginations a Native American would never kill a seal so crassly. But he seemed like a nice guy, and, after all, it sounds like he’s putting the seal to good use. The thing is, life is complicated. The oversimplified stories about the good and the bad people in the world are, in my mind, just not true . . .

Too ambivalent of an ending though . . . 

When we went back into the gas station before heading out, the two women who helped us were wonderful. They told us about their tribe, they shared that the campsite down the road (where we are staying now) – Sue-Meg State Park – was really nice. Sue-Meg is the name of a tribal town and the State recently changed the name of the State Park to honor the local tribe. There are a few different bands of the Yurok, but they all speak the same basic language. One of the women helping us knows the language because she took it in high school. The other knows a few phrases. But they are both obviously very proud of their heritage. Rays of sunshine in the world. 

Oh, and the redwoods are very important to the Yurok generally. They make dug-out canoes to travel on the nearby rivers out of fallen redwoods. They consider the redwoods to be sacred living beings that act as guardians of the forest. 

Standing among the redwoods, it’s hard to feel otherwise . . . 

Tomorrow we ride the “Avenue of the Giants” – more of the big trees – with our friend Corey from Minneapolis. Long story, but we are crossing paths with Corey for a few days . . . Pretty fun!