Well, we are officially on the road! We found a cricket in our kitchen on Wednesday night (who finds crickets in San Francisco?,) and saw it as a portent of good luck - the Universe saying "Vaya con Dios." But after getting a late start on Thursday, we promptly got stuck in commuter traffic and only made it as far as the Motel 6 in Ukiah. But that's okay. The developing theme of this trip seems to be "slowing it down" and then "slowing it down some more." We are not in a race to get anywhere; we are only on the road to nowhere, right? Toward that end, we are making decisions that force us to linger in the places that we do stop. So we found a great lap-swim pool in Ukiah and then spent a few hours on Lake Mendocino, where Layla chased quail (bad dog) and her water frisbee (good dog) before heading north to the redwoods.
We are finding lots of crazy critters (human and otherwise) along the way. Hilary stopped to look for guidance at a place called "Confusion Hill" and we met the cast from "Deliverance" working at the gift shop. We then took some cover shots for the Giants Calendar before heading off to the Avenue of the Giants, the scenic route through the largest old growth redwood forest in the world. Something like 52,000 acres of trees that are over 300 feet high and thousands of years old. How big are these trees? Really big, like the Russian River redwoods on steroids. Like the Big Basin trees squared and squared again. Big ass trees!!!
On Friday night we camped right smack in the middle of it all. The Humboldt Redwoods State Park is so amazing we decided to stay for another night. There is something about the light filtering through these big, beautiful trees that is very calming and very spirutual. It's like being in a great big outdoor cathedral. So when we met some people who invited us to a barbeque in a redwood grove on Sunday, it was a good excuse to stick around even longer. At this rate, we might never leave California......
I am presently blogging from Garberville, which looks a lot like the parking lot scene of a Grateful Dead show. Everybody seems to have heard about what these parts are famous for. The pot-culture is very much accepted in this region and we hear that even the old red-necks are growing pot now.
Anyway, the redwoods are awesome and all that. But might I expound for just a moment on the miracle that is our newest toy, the slingbox. Slingbox Rocks!!!! We were able to watch the Giants v. Padres on our laptop in Ukiah and on our DroidX in our tent in the redwoods! Go Giants! And on that note, I must say that we are becoming quite proficient at using our new smart phones. I've avoided all of this tech stuff for many years now, fearing that it would only be another oppressive connection to my job. But absent the job, this stuff is big fun! But they are dangerously addictive and we are finding ourselves a bit obsessed at times. Even Hilary, more of a dinosaur tech than I, was talking about live streaming and missing accessories in his sleep last night.
So we are off to a good start and it's hard to remember a time when I've felt more relaxed. It's difficut to get too riled up when our most pressing issue is whether to go to Crater Lake or the Modoc Lava Beds. It turns out that the United States are bigger than I thought they were...See you at our next stop.
P.S. We wanted to attach pictures of: us leaving SF, H looking very confused under the "Confusion Hill" sign, T, wearing a "Sandavol" tee shirt and posing in the arms of a giant wooden panda, and various shots of Lake Mendocino and Humboldt Redwoods. We'll try and figure it out by next blog...
