Jenny at Russian Gulch State Park, Mendocino, CA
Day 12: Crescent City to Russian Gulch, August 6, 229 miles
I was feeling terrible in the morning—my stomach—and at Crescent City by the beach we realized we needed new reservations for the trip, but some were solid, including our landing at Russian Gulch State Park, just outside of the town of Mendocino, so off we went into another misty, coastal morning, driving past the Trees of Mystery, a place we have never experienced, but stopping long enough to take a picture of the Bus and the giant Paul Bunyan Statue with Babe the Blue Ox.
We saw lagoons, and wading elk, and stopped in our beloved town of Orick for gas, and the 9 $ cookie. I love Orick because I once had fantasies of living there, revitalizing the Paradise Café, a magnificent old diner, but then I read The Last Tsunami, thanks Dad and link at the bottom—read this book before moving to Orick—and then we had some capitalism and photography in Arcata. Near Eureka we had an actual Hell’s Angel, cut and all, pull up beside us, and he gave us a thumb’s up as I contemplated his tattoos, a first for us with the Bus, though we have seen many motorcycle gangs, including Mongols and Swedish (or Norwegian?) bikers on the Bus’s inaugural trip.
The gas station in Orick, where they have an old fashioned gas pump and 9 $ cookies.
We stopped in Fortuna, not Garberville, because one of the tenets of the trip is “Don’t stop in Garberville!” but I did notice signs for “Confusion Hill” near Garberville, which seemed to be a place much like the Oregon Vortex my father loved, and close to a town I habitually avoid, just as the Oregon Vortex is somewhat close to Cave Junction, another town I avoid, and the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, near another town I habitually avoid, Boulder Creek. Perhaps there is something to this idea that these places are connected by ley lines, for they all have offered me strange encounters with folks involved with weed, or speed, or something else. I feel a little bad to denigrate these places in this way, but the last time we stopped in Garberville, I was in the Bus surrounded by a bunch of weird white dudes, folks Jim the pot farmer would call “hip-necks,” for hippie redneck, and it was not cool, and I met folks like that on my last sojourn in Boulder Creek, and as for Cave Junction, well, Jim, my mother’s partner and consummate hippie friend summed it up best: “Cave Junction is a place where you end up at the Greyhound station at 2 am and the bus isn’t coming.”
The Bus in Fortuna, CA getting a treat for Harold the dog. they have crickets!
So, Fortuna was lovely, albeit windy, and I remembered my friend Christina had a good trip there, and then we found a lovely turquoise pet store offering crickets on the marquee, but not needing crickets we stopped in to buy a GIANT bone for Harold the dog as we had forgotten to get him his giant bully stick in Ashland, and Harold believes that suitcases produce exciting dog treats, and so inspects ours with scrutiny each time we come home, likely because we generally use suitcases to transport giant dog treats (and clothes).
I was realizing that the trip was changing: we were headed south, towards home, and also we were in the parts of the state that I know more from my travels and life than from my travels with my father, but that made me sad and also helped me accept that he was gone, only he was not gone because his ashes were on the dash, and he still complained loudly via Bus noises when we went too fast, or past the many, many landslides.
I think we fell into a wormhole again near Leggett, and we did not drive through any trees, though some were on offer, but then we made it to Mendocino, one of the places I most wanted to be on this trip home, and we had beach walks, an epic fire (Robert was letting woman make fire at this point), and dinner and then again collapsed in the arms of the Bus, sleeping more soundly (at least me) than at any time so far.
campsite at Russian Gulch
Jenny at the beach, Russian Gulch
Links:
Trees of Mystery
Confusion Hill
This Bus Could Be Our Life 