I left Bandon late in the morning. Although at first I was worried this was a bad decision, it turned out to be a great one. Earlier in the day, the whole coastline had been enveloped in fog, but as I cycled along the shoreline, I started to see imposing rock formations jutting out of the water. It took me a long time to get all the way out of Bandon because I kept stopping to look at them, and to take pictures that unanimously failed to represent how impressive everything was. It was one of those times when you wonder how it is that any of this can possibly be real. How is it that I am lucky enough to see it? How improbable that I should be alive at this exact moment in time, on this particular morning in this particular place, just as the fog clears.
(As I was writing that, it autocorrected to ‘lucky beluga’ which was much funnier than what I ended up with.)
When I arrived at Humbug Mountain State Park later in the day, it turns out that I really was lucky – Suzanne had left earlier than me, which is usually the case, and she hadn’t seen a single impressive rock island. All she saw was fog. One strike against the morning people!
At Humbug Mountain, we met an older gentleman from California. He was on a ride up to Vancouver Island on his new E-Bike. He said he’d wanted to go on a bike trip his entire life but was never able to make it happen. A few years ago, he was diagnosed with a heart condition and thought his bike touring dreams were dashed forever. But then, he learned about E-Bikes – and he went out and got himself one, and now he is making his way up the coast, living his best life.
On our last night in Oregon, Suzanne and I stayed at the state park near Brookings. When we arrived, it was just us and one or two other tents. But as we ate dinner, a hiker arrived… and then another hiker. And another. And another, and another, and another, and another, until there were probably at least 30 of them scattered about. It was the most crowded hiker biker site we’d been at all summer. And strangely, all the hikers had more or less the same tent, so it appeared as if a bunch of identical shelters had sprouted out of the ground. Kind of like mushrooms.
The hikers did not say hello, but most of them seemed to know each other. Eventually, I forced one to talk to me. As it turned out, they had all been hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. There was a fire, which I was vaguely aware of, and they had all been forced off the trail and decided to hike the Oregon Coast Trail until they can hook back up with the PCT.
I don’t know what it is about long distance hikers, but the ones we’ve met have been a lot less friendly than the cyclists. With the cyclists, it seems like no matter what you’re doing, everyone thinks it’s the best trip ever. Weekend out from Portland? Overnight in the Bay Area? Finishing up the Trans-America route? Just getting started on your casual bike ride to Argentina? All of those options are the best trip ever. Whether you’re biking 5 kilometres a day or 300, it’s just cool that you’re on a bike trip!
But later that night, a hiker asked us if we were biking 100 miles a day. We said noooo… and she gave us a vaguely disappointed look and ended the conversation.
100 miles is 160 kilometres. I’m sure that’s fun for some people, and I’m thrilled for them, but for me that would just be a suffer-fest.
The next day was something we had been anticipating for ages – crossing the border into California! It was a thrilling moment, although if I’m being honest, I expected a more elaborate sign.
After biking past lots of farms, I ended up in Crescent City, where I spent the night at a church that’s on WarmShowers. The Veteran’s Memorial in Crescent City also marked the end of Map 2. Suzanne went a little further, and texted me to let me know that the biggest and steepest hill of the trip so far was waiting for me the next day.
It was indeed a very big and very steep hill. But it also marked the beginning of the Redwoods National and State Parks, and as I ascended, I started to see absolutely enormous trees. I biked so high that I ended up above the coastal fog, in the brilliant sunshine.
I’ve wanted to see the Redwoods since I was a very small child, and they did not disappoint. They were stunning – huge, beautiful, ancient. It felt like a place God could live.
I spent two nights in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (which is like kind of objectively not a prairie?), hugging all the trees I could.
It was hard to leave the park, but I knew there were more Redwoods coming. In fact, they used to cover almost all of Northern California, but settlers cut most of them down for lumber. The idea of cutting down even one of these giants is almost traumatizing just to think about – that we cut down almost all of them is horrifying. So many times on this trip, while biking through clear cuts and suburban sprawl and horrible car-dependant strip-mall-style infrastructure, I am reminded that all the world is breathtakingly beautiful – except for the parts we have intentionally destroyed.
Our species is capable of creating incredible beauty, but so often we choose not to.
As I set up my tent in an awful RV park located behind a lumber yard on a bland stretch of highway between Arcata and Eureka, I thought about this some more. And then I went to sleep, so in love with the world that my heart was breaking, that there couldn’t possibly be room in there for anything else. Thinking that if I could, I would gather the whole earth up in my arms and never let go, and stay like that until the end of time.
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