Dispatch: Joshua Tree - Lands of the Serrano, Chemehuevi, and Cahuilla
Up before sunrise. Before rooster crows. Stretch Rooster Peck.
Grab some goodies at Boo’s Organic Oven. Then on to the desert. At the entry gate, Jerry - a volunteer, no official ranger hat - offers me a route and is excited by my excitement. He illustrates the proposed journey with a family photo album that has pictures of he and his wife visiting the sites over the last 12 years. “Did you know,” he says, pointing to an image of a bird “that these birds can’t eat the lizards as is, so they hang them out to dry on the trees and then eat them.” “Like Lizard Jerky,” I say. “Exactly!”
“Jerry,” I ask, “Do they hang around waiting for their lizard to dry, or do they leave it in the oven and come back when the timer rings?” “I don’t know that I’ve been asked that! I don’t know!” Inquiring minds want to know, Jerry. He then palms me an object. “Don’t tell anyone I gave this to you.” I put it in my pocket “I won’t, Jerry. Thank you. I’m honored.”
Out to the desert. All of the trails are supposed to take 60 minutes or less. Strong recommendation from the Parks Department in this heat.
A now-familiar pattern presents: trees fallen and decayed yield life from and shelter. A being disperses in death. No longer consumed with living, growing, taking. The whole of what was self becomes offering in ceasing.
Petroglyphs carrying a message.
Shrubs scramble up against boulders finding shade for a few precious hours each day.
Crepuscular mammals find food during the bookends of day, burrowing into dry, dense fauna to pass the sun’s peaking.
The network is present. But the nodes are more widely dispersed than in the Redwoods.
Shortened shadow calls for shelter. Off to AZ.
Rainbows and flash-floods. Crack of thunder, downpour, door opens.
“An auspicious arrival!” an old friend shouts.
The pie from Boo’s survived the desert and the state-border crossing. It’s pretty freaking great.
Dispatch: Somewhere near Barstow
Rooftop brunch by the train. Food before flight. Fresno. Hugs and 666 and goodbyes for now.
And then there were two.
South on 101 towards Palm Springs. Traffic, traffic, traffic. Ah the thrill of “coming back” “flipping the light switch back on” get this economy moving.
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert.
And stuck in traffic.
A second sequence of hugs and departure. Til.
Return to solitude. Car rolls to Joshua Tree. Arrive before the sun sets and the jewel of this destination: a hammock swaying in desert wind as the sun sets under a crescent moon. Howling.
Joshua Tree Moonrise from a hammock
Dispatch: Sequoia
When you’re about to meet the one of the largest living organisms on the planet you should get up early.
Stretch. Meditate. Component Coffee Lab in Visalia. Fuel up. Head out.
The climb. Get to 6000 feet before the temperature is 107. Tonya the Ranger is less exuberant than I’ve grown accustomed to. But it’s hot up here and the uniform is not great for heat. A poly-cotton blend. No doubt. We can’t confirm. She suggests a water feature in Kings Canyon (again, the heat) and the path to the really big, old trees. We had been given a hot tip from Gordon at an REI in Berkeley to see a really big rock as well. Hopefully all before sundown.
First stop: falls. Snow melts up the mountain makes for frigid wading. Scratch the surface of the bark field recording. Back through the canyon. Pull over for a fiercely determined selfie. Enough of this. We’re late for the trees. They’ve been waiting since before Jesus and Muhammad since a couple centuries after Siddhartha sat under a Bodhi tree or the Greeks began to honor Dionysos in festival. Since all that subsequent art and practices.
That’s when this tree seeded.
Oh.
And then about 100 years ago a small human labeled this really big tree “General Sherman” who scorched the Earth to save a country that came into existence during the last 2” of rings in this tree’s age. Scorched earth in the Pacific Northwest. In the Southwest. The victims of the current campaign litter the parks. “General”s “Sherman” and “Grant” and comrades shake their heads in their own time waiting for us to depart from this amusement park made to marvel at what is not for our amusement. Before the park the cavalry was sent in to protect the trees from humans. Even then they knew: it’s the humans that will get you, every time.
It’s not for us.
“Oh my”s exhausted we head to Moro rock. An ascent that makes you dizzy. At the top: a view that quivers the legs. Sunset in 360 at 6713 feet. Good thing we have the GoPro.
The red giant slivers down behind the crest and on to other lands. We applaud it’s awesome departure.
Not amused.
Hours down the mountain. Head full of hairpin turns. Legs still shaking. Steadied by marvel and late-night talking about what next? Is it all as small as naming a tree after a human?
Dispatch: Travel Days 101.2
Rohnert Park to Visalia. 266 miles.
But - wait. First a diner in Berkeley and reunion with tech friends. All the smiley people. And animated discussion of AR, VR, XR, IRL - all the realities - and what they look like. And what they do and why we’ll keep doing them.
Return to 101. Farmland and stuffland is all from here to there. Irrigate for agro. It’s 107 degrees at the gas station. Green farmland, white big boxland and dry, flammable beige in between. The in between being the primary color. $15 for 3 gallons unleaded. 30¢ for one gallon H2O. The whiff of water wars in the distance.
Keep driving. Must see those big trees. Why? Because they’re big? Don’t question my twisted sense of motivation. Highs of a different kind have motored all sorts of obsessive engulfing driving across this too-big-for one-national-park-land. This is an inheritance. Gotta catch them all.
Sequioa. Kings Highway. Climbing 1000, 2000, 3000. Temperature drops with each 1k feet. At 4k it’s only 100 degrees. 6 - 87. Clear and cool.
These giants. Fists of gods touching down. Golden Gate: we did that. Burj Khalifa - designed and constructed by a human. Build big and be comforted. But this mystery. Beyond control. It denies the setting of our correct proportion. Put it away. 6000 feet.
Sunset. Blood red. Moon rise.
Tomorrow for the trees.
Dispatch: Travel Days
July 11. 503 miles. Direct.
Or take in this scenery:
Begin sitting on the shores of Smith River. This chillin’ time commences with a crackle-bang of limbs falling from the canopy. “Widowmakers,” the loggers call them. Followed by tranquility along the remaining undammed river in California. The view goes straight down to the rocks. Virtual meshes don’t know what to do with this clarity and map them onto the river-textured surface.
Gas up at Klamath who’s lands we’re on. Masks enforced. “Please respect our community.”
Drive exclusively on scenic highways wherever possible. Howland, Drury, Avenue of the Giants. 503 miles plus.
Stop and get out for one last jaunt. Walk barefoot to better hear the understory.
Back to 101. From dripping greens to dry yellows.
Round about 8:30: Willets. Pull in to El Chicano across from Taco Bell. Leave the chains behind. Luis takes our order encouraging veggie mole from his grandmother’s recipe. As he distributes the checks a conversation about Anime between those who don’t watch “like normal.”
Arrive Good Nite Inn in Rohnert Park at midnight. Under copycat art prints on the walls sleep like a blackout.
Dispatch: Prairie Creek/Humboldt/Yurok
Briana at the Hiouchi Visitor Center set us on a path. A visitor demanded to know where to get this picture found on a postcard. Or it didn’t happen.
We traveled out. Oooooohhh. Aaaaaahhh. And had to run back.
Two hours down to Arcata. Mist like the haze you always want but can never have. Twin Peaks becomes clear.
Collect our fourth and back to Prairie Creek.
Cathedral Grove.
oh my
A friend in San Francisco said: “You go there and you realize we don’t need Cathedrals.” Or malls. Or cement. Or much of anything.
Oh my.
”The scale doesn’t make sense.” -Afsoon. Because the roots go six feet deep and hold up 300.
”Have to retune my ears” -Espii. Because the bird song and buzz song is varied and layered and ah you can still hear that car.
”It totally makes me change my scale.” -Aoshuang because. Well. We’re very very small.
Dispatch: Humboldt
Woke up yesterday morning Hidden in Springs along the Avenue of Giants in trees stewarded under the name Humboldt. A delayed flight granted time to meander through some pacific coast beauties. The mantra of this walk, “oh my… oh my… ohhhhhhh myyyy…” It demands to be murmured out loud. The older couple in the same beaming state of awe seemed to appreciate this as-articulate-as-it-gets voicing of our collective thought-stumbles.
Found Aoshuang and Afsoon up the north Coast of CA. Up the coast Steven at Thomas H Kuchel Visitor Center gave us all kinds of recommendations for big trees for low bottomed cars. Equipped with maps we kept on north.
The trees were calling so after some Thai in Town we jumped over to Jedediah Smith State Park. And oooooohed and awwwwed all the way. Until we got lost. Pro-tip: pin your parking spot. We hi-tailed it back past our photo-op cookie trail and found the vehicle at sundown.
Con Alma Dec '20
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