Week 9: Shrooms and a Beer

2/27

I kick off the 27th in an act of hypocrisy: snoozing my alarm. For years that practice has reigned king at the top of my pet peeve list. Yet there I was, consciously bowing down to rest’s bad influence. I sleep long enough to blow my shot at Pacific Loon, but feel little remorse when I exit the room to a a Fort Bragg under siege from fog.

It’s never a good idea to ride in fog, but fortunately the day’s travels would only amount to twenty miles. I’d tackle these miles in two stints, stopping only in the cutesy and pricey town of Mendocino to grab lunch.

A flyover group of six Cedar Waxwings affirmed my selection of a lunch destination and pinged my year list to 161.

Whenever I enter even the slightest scrape of civilization, I brace myself for the same set of responses to my loony lifestyle:

1. Warnings of grave danger or personal horror stories (as if I don’t know the risk of being on the road all day after two months of exposure)
2. Mention of some sort of an acquaintance that rides a unicycle that’s usually presented as “Oh, my so-and-so rides a unicycle.”
3. “Have you heard about e-unicycles?”

Unless someone is hollering out “You’re missing a wheel!”, the range of responses usually falls somewhere in the preceding list.

Back on the road, I notice an odd trend at every bridge crossing. Rivers cannot seem to reach all the way through to their oceanic destination. River mouth after river mouth is silted in right where the union should be consummated in the form of an estuary. Maybe its just my easternness showing, but this phenomenon struck me as odd. I knew that the Colorado River no longer achieved a connection with the Baja as a result of intensifying agricultural thirst, but I was seeing this in every drainage.

It seemed as though the rivers lacked sufficient vigor to overcome the domination of the Pacific’s moon-driven craft. These placid passages wouldn’t have had much trouble snaking their way out to the freedom of the Atlantic, but relations with the Pacific are a different story. The Pacific nurtures in a different way, a stern and unyielding manner that’s nearly more deserving of the description of abuse.

But why weren’t these rivers stepping up to the plate and rebelling against their oppressor? Their courses were set, condemned (or blessed) to carry the water that their watershed provides. Back in the east, where coastal rivers etch their course in low-relief flatlands, tributary upon tributary join forces, each lending its own life force to form unstoppable giants over a large land area.

Northern California rivers have no such support system on the coast, coerced by hilly terrain to carry the water of a much smaller footprint. Combine the landscape’s will with the rain’s sheepish and unreliable presence in this part of the world, and you have mouthless rivers.

The winding ride down to my camping destination of Navarro Beach State Park was gorgeous. Upon my approach, the fog briefly cleared, and the water was electric blue. It was only 2pm when I arrived, but I went ahead and set up camp for $10.

There were no facilities in the flood-prone, beachfront campground, only porta potties. While there were a good number of folks out enjoying the beach access in the afternoon, including a nice couple who left me all kinds of supplies: coconut milk, a tangerine, apples, a bottle of tea, and some turkey; by nightfall I was the only one remaining.

I birded the small park as the day-users cleared out and then got to work gathering firewood for my inaugural Big Year bonfire. Finally I could collect copious amounts of firewood without having to pay some sort of state park fee. There was plenty of driftwood scattered across the sandy zipper that shut the mouth of the Navarro.

Just as I had finished my prep and set to lighting the fire, the flint on the lighter that I scavenged on an Oregon beach broke. I was totally SOL. There’s nothing more frustrating than going through the effort and having everything perfectly at hand, only to come up short in the most important part of fire building: the genesis.

I sat back to reflect on the meaning of this cruel curse and was excited to spot a lone figure ambling down the road towards the beach. After my desperate plea for help, he said that he’d check his car for matches. After he pondered for a bit on the beach, he returned to strike up a conversation. Just then, a car rolled up with lighter-bearing passengers, and the fire got its chance after all.

The man named Jaimie stayed for a while, unable to resist the supernatural allure of a fire. We plunged headfirst into a surprisingly deep conversation as he regaled me with tales of Grateful Dead shows and his own summer-long bike tour decades ago. He left me with a book recommendation and many thoughts to ponder alongside my crackling companion. In hindsight, Jaimie’s company feels almost too mystical to be true, but that’s California for you.

It was my first California campfire, and it would burn strong well into the night. A shooting star shot across the sky amid a break in the night’s scattered haze.

2/28

At 5:45 some hooligans rolled in and woke me before they realized it wasn’t a drive-on beach and then left to find one. Why does this always happen at campgrounds? I feel like a quarter of the time that I am at a campsite some random weirdos ride in at an ungodly hour and make a racket for no reason whatsoever.

When I did wake up under my own accord, the coast was still enshrouded in fog.

Fog or not, I had to press on. So I did just that.

Traffic was very light on the first stint, and riding was nice and mystical, owing to the profuse tide of fog pouring off of the ocean like a reverse waterfall. I was so happy to not be on 101, again thanks to the purchase of the camping gear! Instead I was motoring along the quiet reaches of Highway 1, supported by campgrounds and small dots of civilization.

At one vista, I was offered some shrooms by some intrigued motorists.

Are they kicking in?

Actually my inner Nancy Reagan kicked in, and I politely declined the offer. Tripping on shrooms didn’t seem to be in great accordance with the goals at hand.

After a lunch stop at a Mexican place in Point Arenas, the road ceased to possess any sort of allure. I quickly became frustrated amid construction zones, gusty winds, and terrible road conditions. I was slipping into tunnel vision as each passing car zoomed by and kicked up a gravel and dust cloud. It was one of those gray days that gets progressively colder through the afternoon, and I just wasn’t having it.

Eventually I did settle into a groove, Deck the Halls repeating in my head as I inched closer to Gualala(lala lalalala). I netted another yearbird in Pygmy Nuthatch at a pulloff and was offered a beer by a pedestrian north of town. If only people knew that what I really wanted was Gatorade and Clif Bars, not alcohol and hallucinogens.

Finally I stopped in at the grocery store in Gualala to get supplies and say hello to Brian, a cyclist that struck up a conversation with me on the road the day before. Hello Brian!

In the late evening sun, I made my way to the community park campsite south of town. Welcome to Sonoma County.

2/29

This campsite is bustling on a weekend. I haven’t seen any quite as busy since I’ve been camping.

Today is a bonus day, a leap day on a leap year. Only once in every four years can you write 2/29 without being accused of an act of idiocy. Owing to the fact that it takes the Earth 365 days and some change to complete its orbit around the sun every year, 2020 is designated as a special year to account for the accumulation of those partial days.

The year’s gift to me is an extra day. An extra day to ride, bird, and enjoy the adventure at hand.

So I took to the road, determined to take full advantage of the gift of time. I was pleased with my progress, knocking on San Fran’s Golden Gate at the start of the third month.

The road’s surface had improved tremendously, but the wind was relentless and brutal. What should have been a straightforward 20 miles became a grunge match against an invisible foe.

Nature’s other personas must have taken pity on me this day, as I was awarded two galliforme yearbirds, one of which, California Quail, was a life bird.

Soon I was upon Stillwater Cove, a geographic attraction with a namesake that seemed to suggest shelter from the uncaring winds. As I drifted off in the campground, I could only hope and pray that the wind would let up for March’s premiere.

3/1

It sho nuff did. And boy was I in sync for the start of my third month on the job. Every part of the day seemed to be exquisitely timed.

I woke with a desire to ride, so I hit the road fairly early.

Cruising south, I began to feel as though I was under the influence of the San Franciscan metropolis. Top-notch road conditions suggested affluence and prosperity, and these societal qualities lent much to the road experience.

This transition brought Teslas, more expensive lodging and food, stylish and attractive people, and more Teslas. This was the image of California most frequently broadcasted to the world, that idyllic dreamworld of Cali.

I rode alongside the fortunate residents of this land to reach the famed Jenner grade, where Highway 1 clings to the edge of some scenic sea cliffs that appeared too picturesque to offer any sort of threat. What met my eyes did not seem to match the dire warnings that I received north of here.

I had too much fun riding along the thrilling stretch, occasionally stopping to yield to trucks or RV’s that dominated the highway pecking order.

Waiting for me in the valley south of the Jenner cliffs was a construction zone or two. Surprise, surprise. But I had mentioned before that my timing was spot-on, and it was. My early morning exodus equated to light traffic and manageable morning winds where it counted, and my Sunday travel meant that the construction zones were policed by automated traffic lights, not patrolled by workers. Those lights could not stop me from heading right for the “Do Not Enter” signs to weave through the obstacles.

I felt a bit like a celebrity as I entered Jenner: people were giving me thumbs ups, taking my photo, and talking to me. Apparently I was getting into the part of California where the idea of distance unicycling meant something to people. I stopped for lunch at Cafe Aquatica, where the scene was so textbook California that it almost felt like a contrived experience. Outside of the small restaurant flew a pride flag in a prominent manner. The indoor atmosphere was guided by the timeless vocal prowess of Bob Marley and Jerry Garcia (not concurrently, of course). I ended up ordering a sandwich called “the Rainbow” before settling down to enjoy the live performance of the bossa nova duo that played in the sunshine, with the bay as their backdrop. It was one of those “can’t make this up moments.”

After this significant dosage of California, I rode like a madman out of town, fueled by adrenaline and good vibes. I’ve never felt so right cruising down the smooth asphalt of Highway 1.

I’m sure the scene in my head did not truly approximate reality, but I felt that I was pacing with the Sunday traffic just fine. In hindsight, I picture myself cruising along at automobile speeds, though I know my actual physical limitations.

Now in Bodega Bay, I settled down for a few days of birding and time off of the uni.

The heavenly day’s conclusion came with amazing looks at my lifer Pacific Loon in the bay’s sunset ambiance.

3/2

The second was lived to the fullest as I birded the hell out of Bodega Bay, which revealed itself as more of a notable hotspot than I realized.

Early on I ran into a cat named David who was scanning the bay’s waterfowl selection with a spotting scope. After chatting for a while, David headed onwards, aided by one of birding’s most revolutionary tools: the car. I followed at a snail’s pace, scanning every inch of the bay’s shore for noteworthy inhabitants.

David would soon return with tidings of a Rough-legged Hawk, which is exactly what I needed to hear at that moment in time. After boogying to the location that he described, I bagged the desirable Buteo and would go on to add three more yearbirds on the walk. The day’s list was a killer 71 species, which was practically 40% of my year’s total to date.

My Bodega Bay excursion possessed elements of novelty and familiarity, and the birding jaunt drug me through some unexpected episodes of the past. I didn’t expect old Van Zant delivering the southern ballad of “All I Can do is Write About It” as I chowed down on a BBQ sandwich at the marina. I found other aspects of the walk to be very Peruvian, from the footpaths through Eucalyptus and Cypress groves to the Andean scenery.

At the same time, the unknown road ahead instilled me with a sense of excitement and adventure. The nude hills that lay ahead looked much less intimidating than the secret-riddled and densely forested terrain behind me. It was as though the road had nothing to hide and everything to share; California wanted me to revel in its natural wealth.

3/3

In the a.m. I relocated to a campground eight miles south that Google proclaimed as “Redwoods Campground 2.” Such a generic title would have led a more cautious traveler to reexamine or reconsider, but I pulled my naivety close and rode on. The decision to stop over here was no question of convenience. In fact, this was a mildly inconvenient move that would add an extra day to the campaign to SF, but it was a real no-brainer considering multiple recent reports of Evening Grosbeak. Now this bird had eluded me before, but I just could not resist the shot at adding this guy to the year’s trophy case.

Another tidbit of good tidings came from David, the birder that I had conversed with the day before. He mentioned Salmon Creek Road as a reliable Saw-whet Owl spot and that there was a campground of sorts in the area. The only thing he failed to mention was the apparent ISIS base nearby...

eBird and Google Maps confirmed his assertions, so my path was set. Off to the hills I rode.

Finding the campsite proved difficult as I advanced deeper into the hills along very minor roads. Eventually I realized that a posted area with some fire rings that I had passed was the refuge that I sought after but that I must have just approached from the wrong side of Salmon Creek.

In my continuing effort to make my living honestly in order to avoid unnecessary conflict, I crossed the creek and began my search for a campground steward somewhere behind the rolling, forested hills that abutted the creek.

It wasn’t long before I gained the attention of some seriously agitated dogs and their owner. Amid the raucous ramblings of the dogs in the yard, I settled my camping dues, which amounted to $30 despite a more typical $50 rate for these basic campsites. Like I said earlier, everything had become more expensive.

My Campground was "The Bomb"

I set up camp and strolled back down to the town of Bodega, adding two yearbirds  in the unparalleled scenery: Band-tailed Pigeon and a surprise Red-naped Sapsucker. The Sapsucker ended up being my best find of the trip, and numerous local birders were successful in relocating the bird.

After a memorable dinner in the little town, I eased back to camp in the dark. The channels of my mind flipped between Slenderman, the Revenant, and the Blair Witch Project. Every tree looked like a gargoyle. I simply couldn’t shake horrific images in the deepening night, though I tried to will my mind to drift off on a tangent inspired by the vocalizing Wild Turkeys or Great Horned Owls.

Of course I did make it back to camp to retire without any sort of supernatural episode befalling my vulnerable state that night.

3/4

So I did not encounter any inkling of the presence of Evening Grosbeaks yesterday, despite birding where they were reported, and my attempt on the way out of town was equally as unsuccessful. I was forced to swallow the nemesis pill once again and head for the highway. Stinging Nettle bade me farewell from the pristine creek valley.

Despite the letdown of a failed chase, I was grateful for the detour from the highway and a real retreat to peaceful nature.

Highway 1 was a black ribbon that rode like glass. It was as smooth as silk. In Tomales, I stopped for lunch and was gifted a $10 bill by a nice lady was some surfer kids.

The remainder of the day’s ride felt very long and hilly. Although the hills weren’t major obstacles independently, the constant up-and-down action got to me. After each knee-shattering downhill, I’d be thrown mercilessly into another climb.

I’d make it to Samuel Taylor State Park just in time to set up camp for $7 in the fading daylight. There ended up being one other cycle tourist in the hiker/biker section, although I didn’t interact much with her. I spent my evening trying to chase down owls and foxes in the haunting Redwoods.

3/5

Week 9 would end symbolically at the gates of the City by the Bay, leaving a fresh week to be defined by the city’s exceptional adventures.

In the morning, I reached springtime in suburbia. In pushing closer to Suasalito, I was transported to a crisp spring morning on Kennesaw Mountain. This approximation of sensation rapidly morphed to an Italian villa before settling on a futuristic civilization. There were so many electric cars and bicycles. California was throwing me through a sort of culture shock that I didn’t really expect. What could I do but relish in the new experiences and surprises that the state was doling out?

Eventually I addressed the reality of the situation and stopped at a deli for some lunch. The share of food that I consumed that day would weigh in at two pounds, a generous and worthy serving after a few days of roughing it.

Urbanity confronted my engorged and dazed self in a way that I was not prepared for. In short order I was grounded, turned around, and forced to walk practically to the foot of the famous bridge.

It was pretty late when I broke on through to the scenic Marin Headlands. I wised for more time to explore this surprisingly quiet and remote-feeling expanse just a stone’s throw away from bustling San Francisco. The hostel that somehow became my destination was unreal. It doesn’t even belong in the same conversation as the Seaside Hostel that I stayed at in Oregon.

I settled in in a state of blank exhaustion that must have been revealed to the fellow youth according to my fractured conversation and forgetfulness in adding detergent to my laundry load.

I’d need a good rest before taking on the city.

Week 8: Under the Republic Sky

Did you think I had given up on the cause? Of course not! It means too much to me.

2/20

Last we left off, I had just committed to a major upgrade to the program: camping. Along with initiating the slew of random occasions where I would find myself cracking up reminiscing about camping trips with my buddies, camping would also gift me with ease. On the night of my first, and very controlled, camping test run, I slept like a rock. A full night’s sleep on Northern California earth was all I needed to declare the experiment a success and embrace the low-profile life.

I took care to pack up the rig thoughtfully, knowing that I’d make modifications to the gear placement as those improvements revealed themselves to me with the passage of the miles. A creature of habit, I returned to the road feeling sleek and mean.

Just like that I had eliminated a major limitation: lodging. The last wall to my separation from nature was just that: four walls. Now it was broken down. I’m really living the full experience.

It was immediately apparent to me that the “freedom” that I had been feeling was only the tip of the iceberg. I was only free by day to ride like the wind. And even then I was shackled by a chronic nagging thought: find somewhere to sleep. The botched approach to Trinidad a few days prior was a serious wakeup call: a nasty experience that I had no intention of reenacting.

So now I was free by day and night. The realization was intoxicating, thrusting my psyche to a state of invincibility: I was unstoppable. The impending challenges of California folded before me like a blackjack player with a crappy hand. The horizon only spoke of promise and opportunity, its fowl and sinister alter ego called doubt had faded by the wayside, merely a speck in hindsight and a battle scar representing a lesson learned.

Drunk on my freshly acquired sense of control, I entered Eureka but experienced its antonym. Small lapses in concentration caused me to lose track of which direction those little green bike signs were telling me to go. I became lost in the one-way streets of this Californian Crete, rapidly encountering Minotaurs in the form of headstrong drivers. The hostility of these locals registered quickly as I found myself being forced into a nonexistent median along the main four-lane drag. I was clearly off the cycling route. It was time for a lunch break.

That taken care of, I meandered back the to the route, running into an interesting and friendly character named Scott. Hey Scott!

My journey south continued to shittinize, as the cycling gods sought to restore humility to my camping-inflated ego.

Between several unexpected steep hills and the lack of signage, I was lucky to rejoin 101, I guess. It had achieved interstate proportions, and I really didn’t enjoy much riding alongside the alphas of the road world.

So I was relived when it was my time to divert for some country roads and make my way down to Humboldt Bay NWR. I had really booked a lot for myself on this day.

I approached the NWR like I was dealing with a tactical assignment. Get in, get the Tundra Swans, and get out. It was just that simple. Although I would make my getaway on an attention-grabbing one-wheeled contraption, not a special ops helicopter.

Fortunately for me, large white birds have a hard time concealing themselves, and I was able to nab mediocre looks at the majestic fowl and have time to explore the other regulars at the NWR, a bustling mecca for waterfowl.

As the day grew tired and prepared for its intermission, I tackled the final stretch to Ferndale, a small cyclist hamlet indicated by my AdventureCycling map. Two Pileated Woodpeckers and miles of really bumpy road later and I arrived, possessing a shadow of the morning’s optimism.

$12 later and I was setting up camp at a fairgrounds, surrounded by an exorbitant amount of feral cats.

2/21

My alarm on this Friday morning was living, breathing, and hacking up a lung. I guess a portion of the 12 dollars gets you an unsolicited wakeup call in the form of a phlegm-riddled campground host.

It actually got down to 37 degrees last night, pushing the limit of my 35 degree sleeping bag. But I slept like a bear, perhaps a product of my continued comfort in lodging security.

I headed for town on foot for a legitimate breakfast and found Ferndale to be a surprisingly charming little Hallmark town, located comfortably enough away from the freeway to feel peaceful yet still relevant. It felt like the 18th, 19th, and 21st centuries were mosaicked into one small town. The post office appeared to be snatched directly out of an old western town. It was nestled alongside stores that bore signs signaling “blacksmith” and “millenary.” I practically needed an old english dictionary just to understand what services these places were offering. The town is known for its Victorian architecture, and it showed in Rococo-scale exuberance and color. I’m surprised they weren’t playing Norah Jones over loudspeakers in the streets 24/7. It was a little utopia.

After breakfast, I packed up and took off. Spring was all around me, from the warm temps, to the Violet-green Swallow flyover, to the Willow bud break, to the pollen dusting the faces of the curious and eager songbirds, to the scores of unfamiliar plants springing up along the roadside.

I had a pretty good backwoods ride to River Dell, where an incredibly kind lady bought me as much food as I could stomach at the local burger joint. She had been the beneficiary of acts of kindness on a cycling tour of her own many years ago.

101 returned into my life like a persistent migraine, strongly foiling the spectacular scenery of my new friend, the Eel River. Fortunately my sentence with the concrete river was truncated by the appearance of a true gift from God: the famed Avenue of the Giants. This oft-mentioned attraction exceeded my expectations and made for great unicycle riding. The Redwoods experience put into perspective the grueling reality of my introduction to the ecosystem back on 101 south of Crescent City.

I blazed through the patient beauties like a banshee, surpassing the 40 mile mark on the day before settling in Myers Flat. I would have almost rather have donated an organ than pay the $40 at the private campground, but backtracking 3 miles to the public campground felt like a greater challenge than the 40 that I had just tackled. So I sucked it up and enjoyed the lesson in cycle economics and a refreshing shower. California is really bumming me out with these omnipresent feral cats.

2/22

Last night’s campsite wasn’t dominated by floodlights as the previous two night’s, and I was grateful for the nod to circadian rhythms.

This morning I reflected on the ever growing sense of patriotism that the Redwoods experience has instilled in me. You all know the line: “From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters.” Naturally the tune monopolized my mind, initially conjuring previously-held mixed opinions with a hint of cynicism. In the past, the hymn exuded hints of imperialism and manifest destiny to me. I couldn’t help but mourn the loss of possession of those that were here before Columbus’ arrival. Like this land was made for the white man all along.

But America’s dark past has nothing to do with this song. The song is about equality and diversity-inspired unity on a grand scale. It’s about what makes this nation incredible, not why its flawed. Hell, literally everything is imperfect. Adopting a critical mentality for that reason is just a worthless slippery slope. It’s best to embrace the good. I hope that kids still learn that song in school.

On the road, the overcast morning gave way to stunning sun, and I enjoyed the remainder of the Avenue of the Giants. Encountering a friendly couple snapping photos under the canopy, I seized the opportunity to get some photos where I was actually in them. By the time the lady had airdropped the photos to my phone, they had already been edited.

The moment that I returned to 101, the landscape changed drastically. Everything went dry, and the hills were now scrubby with chaparral. This was the land of Acorn Woodpeckers and California Quail.

In Redway, I stopped for lunch and made the mistake of downing a vanilla milkshake before tackling the climb to Garberville in the afternoon heat. I may as well have taken a laxative.

I raced to check-in to a motel, afraid of the imminent intestinal detonation within. Of course the first motel operator was away until later. Luckily, the second one was nearby and had someone around. I held it together as we went through the check-in process.

Out on the Lone Pine, I'm Gonna Make you Mine

The afternoon was so beautiful; I just had to make the most of it. My best bet seemed to be a park down the road, or so it appeared on the map. I ended up descending a winding road into a valley on foot to arrive at the hotspot. Southern Humboldt Community Park offered the opportunity of six yearbirds, and I was able to cash in on three of these: Acorn Woodpecker, Western Bluebird, and California Towhee.

The landscape recalled my SoCal experience. But I also kept flashing back to my time in the Sacred Valley in the Andes of Peru. The dry heat, hilly/mountainous terrain, scrub, and rock-strewn rivers took me back. Several times I  thought I even heard Andean Swifts but must have been projecting.

The late afternoon sun felt delightful, and I was assured with a strong sense of satisfaction that I had earned the right to bask in this sunshine after weeks of torturous battery in the PNW rains. The warming rays invited an outdoor nap, and I only wished that I had mastered the Cusquenan face-down ground siesta that I had witnessed so often in downtown Cusco.

Back in town, I craved a return to my camping lifestyle as a Hobbit marathon consumed my evening and I consumed some fish tacos.

2/23

The 23rd was a tough one for me. The road life is both literally and figuratively a life of ups and downs. I was feeling drained right of the bat, but pushed on through it, having no alternative that suited me. At least I could take my time and rest whenever I felt like it, a strategy that netted me another yearbird as White-throated Swifts commanded the sky above me. In that moment I realized that I hadn’t been so immersed in Latin American memories to the point of hallucinating southern hemispherical avifauna. Those “Andean Swift” sounds that I had been hearing were in fact these North American beauties!

Spring continued to advance upon me with this sighting. The nature of my year additions revealed a strange truth to my routing. I was conducting a sort of reverse-migration, encountering northbound birds head on as they invaded in their annual northward campaign.

My swift viewing experience was complemented by an opportunity to observe a hitch-hiker in the act. I spectated conscientiously as a dude wandered up to the roadside to commence his hitch-hiking regime. I got comfortable as I initiated my stopwatch, fully anticipating this to be a drawn-out process. But to my surprise this dude had a ride within 10 minutes of sticking his thumb up. Ten minutes. Can it really be that easy?

I continued onwards on my last miles of 101. But it was far from a victory lap. After the road was demoted from freeway status, it reverse-metamorphosed into a two lane road with plenty of tourist traffic. A long climb and two somewhat harrowing bridge crossings later, and I was a human running a footrace alongside mechanical cheetahs. I had to be on my A-game among my speeding adversaries, some of which were snapping photos of me as they cornered the tight turns.

When I finally stopped, I realized that I had been running on pure adrenaline, and the past few minutes could not be clarified past a blur. My memory was functioning on low resolution, but gradually shots from the ride came back to me like an action sequence.

I elected to walk the majority of my relatively short last stretch to the campground at Standish-Hickey State Park. And no, that’s not a typo. This place was really called Standish-Hickey. I gladly fed the fee box my $5 rate and rejoiced my return to the woods. With an expense registering at only 10% of my Myers Flat rate, I settled into the hiker-biker area, where I was yet again the sole occupant.

How simple has this modification been, the camping one. And yet it has improved the enjoyment of my trip immensely and immeasurably.

I walked across the road to grab a bite at the conveniently located restaurant/ native plant nursery, store.

You Go Cali!

2/24

It’s been eight days since I’ve seen rain, and I ain’t complaining. I would need the good conditions for the taxing 29 mile day that demanded the crossing of the coastal range to reunite with the beloved Pacific. I’d been warned about this one.

From the get-go I headed into a construction zone. I was told to ride behind traffic so that “I did not fall and get run-over.” I missed my first window, perhaps as a result of the poor words of encouragement. But I damn sure nailed it on the second window, beaming with pride as I made safe passage through the rockslide cleanup.

Soon I was cruising down the quiet beginnings of the legendary Highway 1, feeling no pangs of longing in leaving behind the cold and uncaring 101. I rapidly encountered the long 2000’ climb, where I dismounted for a drawn-out stroll. I probably enjoyed the passage more than any cyclist, who I imagined would be cursing the grade.

I took the time to seriously consider the benefits of distance traveling on a unicycle. My abstract responses to this ubiquitous question never seem to please the questioners. So I mentally assembled a short list of the pros of riding the uni versus a bike:

-Visibility
-Pushability
-Simplicity
-Inability to carry crap
-Comparatively limited phone usage

The top of my head must be six feet off of the road’s surface as I make my way along atop a 36” unicycle. This stature improves my visibility against traffic, but does make for a more frightening prospect of crashing from the height. Like falling off of a horse I guess. The rig is also extremely pushable, as I can situate my entire body behind it as I trudge onward, whereas pushing a bike requires an awkward side-by-side waltz. Of course the whole deal is so simple that it’s enviable. Mechanically, increasing complexity spells for an increasing probability of malfunction (think Range Rover). With the uni, I am assured in its simplicity and dependability.

Linked to this simplicity is the gear load. The unicycle just has so precious little frame space to carry crap. Also, more weight interferes with balance, so it’s only natural to cut down on the weight. Traveling via unicycles strips living down to its essential components, and provides a general air of freedom from material minutiae.

The phone point lost some significance to me upon entering urban areas, where routing details exceeded my capability to memorize the turns. But even so, the stability of a bike, especially when combined with a nifty phone holder, can encourage phone usage. On the contrary, every second passed glimpsing at the screen of a phone could spell disaster on the uni.

Before long I was at the summit, disappointed not to encounter any vista as recompense for my energy expenditure.

I began to blaze downhill as if I were a rollercoaster just rounding the highest point of the tracks. What began as a fun relief quickly amounted to a grueling taxation on the knees.

I Johnny-looped down to the valley, where Trilliums screamed spring from under the Redwoods.

Trillium ovatum

One more 800’ ridge crossing later and I was met with the ocean’s lovely breath. Inhaling it was like a dopamine hit to the head.

Low on supplies, I opted for the slightly more expensive private camping option close to the town of Newport.

Random Selfie

2/25

After a night of glamping in a comfortable RV park with impressive bandwidth, I awoke to a new day. I’m pretty sure my first realization was the tightness in my back. Clearly I had tweaked it at some point, more than likely on one of my final mounts close to camp.

I made a bird round in the campground and to the beach to try to loosen up a bit as my Mendocino County list expanded.

In packing up camp, I was confronted with an overwhelming sense of purpose. These tasks are routine but not mundane. I must repeat my actions of preparation: my well-being depends on it. There is something so meaningful about taking care of tasks yourself and not delegating. We are draining the purpose from our daily lives by removing the effort from our occupations. Ease imparts complacency and laziness. And, most importantly, it completely sucks the meaning from existence. What of a result achieved without significant effort?

Embracing these unglamorous acts has caused me to feel a level of contentment that is almost unfamiliar to me. And it’s not because of some quick fix or substance but because of a total change in lifestyle that prioritizes two things: pursuit and self-sufficiency.

I took my purpose down the road, passing through Newport, a town that reminds me of the cursed town from Atlantis 2 of all things. The cemetery, small-scale, and maritime feel and architecture of the place combine with the sea to produce this effect.

For the second morning in a row, I headed straight into a construction zone, but this time I was stove-up as hell.

Fort Bragg could not have arrived sooner as a relief to the soreness in my back.

2/26

After sleeping in at a motel in town and laying around for a bit, I picked up a sandwich and made my way to the ocean for lunch. I wandered up to Noyo Headlands Park and sat down to enjoy the scene and my food. If you were a black-colored bird, this was the place to be. Turkey Vultures, Brewer’s Blackbirds, Red-winged Blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbirds, European Starlings, Common Ravens, cormorants, and Black Oystercatchers covered all the bases. Inquisitive Western Gulls were the white sheep of the crowd.

It was nice to have a moment to share with my one mainstay friend of the trip so far. The Pacific is starting to take on a pelagic hue, kind of like it appears on those Galapagos documentaries. The mantles of the Western Gulls are beginning to darken as I head south. Hell, even I’m getting a tan.

The crew of Common Ravens surrounded me as I sat down to dine. Clearly they’ve been trained by the scores of wildlife-feeding park goers. From the perspective of these begging black birds, my visit would not be beneficial, as I would not give them any of my human food. But in reality, I was giving them something far more valuable: self-reliance. I was also giving the area’s seabirds a bit of an easier time by not fueling the fire of black scavengers that must descend upon their nest sites every spring.

I took the rare moment to appreciate the Ravens up close and personal. It was tough to believe that these intelligent individuals were approaching within arm’s length. I’m accustomed to seeing them very distantly and very unsatisfactorily back home. They are very difficult to locate in Georgia, and they never seem to be very confiding. But here they were more trusting and bold than a Dodo. It’s amazing how drastic the differences in the behavior of a species can be throughout its range.

It surprised me that the more numerous Ravens were subservient to the gulls in the pecking order, although the gulls are slightly larger. I watched one Raven back down in the face of an agitated Western Gull. Really, the Ravens didn’t seem all that large up close, even though I sometimes mistaken them for raptors in the air.

These curious corvids were like children: they did things just because they wanted to and because they had nothing else to do. It appeared that the frequent handouts made their lives a bit easier, and the search for sustenance had been replaced by leisure. I watched as they pulled at plants, picked up rocks, and tugged at and peered into a sandbag. They were inspecting me very closely and watching my every movement, hoping to benefit in some way from my presence.

I left the brainy black beauties to continue their 21st century ways as I slowly crept back to the room.

Back in the room, I was being responsible and resting my back for the afternoon. But I couldn’t resist the temptation to head back towards the beach to do a route in the hopes of adding Barn Owl. Shortly after my arrival at Glass Beach, I noticed a fellow birder approaching with a scope, a sighting about as rare as any other for me these days. So I pounced like an ambush predator to strike up a conversation.

The dude’s name was Vince. He didn’t seem much older than myself, and I found out that he was living the traveling field tech lifestyle, working on numerous bird projects, including a Spotted Owl one that he just took.

We chatted away the remainder of the daylight, and I was impressed to learn about his somewhat unplanned and impromptu 2019 ABA Big Year, in which he ticked over 500 species without really birding east of Minnesota.

Of course we were careful to devote some attention to our surroundings, occasionally scanning for anything of interest. This nonchalant approach rewarded us with Sooty Shearwater and Barn Owl, two nice birds for the year list. The former was even a life bird for this pelagic-deprived birder.

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Hope y'all are staying well, active, and wise! And that these accounts offer a little hope as to what we'll get back to soon enough.

Well, That’s All Folks

Coronavirus has

I have come to the extremely painful and unfortunate late resort of prematurely ending my Big Year in light of the Coronavirus-inspired public health crisis. Several sleepless nights and restless waking hours of painful deliberation have led me to this point. I’ve just run out of options. Distance unicycling is already a very difficult and complicated undertaking in the best of times. I have found that it becomes next to impossible to carry out in a state of emergency. The closure of California State Park campgrounds was really the final blow. With camping and homestays removed from my toolbox, hotels are pretty much the only remaining option. But the reality of hotel rates along the road ahead in Southern California is impractical. Not to mention the increasingly complicated and unreliable food situation and limitations on activities. 

The virus has changed the way that we operate as a society. Reliance on people, especially in LA, was a massive component of my progress. As self-reliant as I’d like to think the adventure was making me, I simply could not advance without the help of kind folks. Without the generosity of the people that I encountered along the way, I would not have even made it out of Olympia.

A unicycle Big Year is a dream for the best of times, a luxury in times of stability. In a scenario where non-essential businesses are forcibly closed and nonessential practices are discouraged, my lifestyle does not merit special treatment. Everyone is suffering from this crisis, and calling it quits on this journey, as much as it hurts my heart, is a sacrifice that ought to be made. 

I am eternally grateful for the blessings along the road during these eleven weeks. I’ve met incredible people and have been privileged to see the west coast in a unique and unusual way. It’s been a blast, and I’m not stretching when I say that I’ve had the time of my life. It’s incredibly bitter to go out after setting a respectable pace of 209 species and 1000+ miles in less than 80 days. But I suppose there are worse ways to go out on a long-distance cycle tour.

Y’all have been an incredible support group. I drew so much on your great vibes to cover the ground that I did cover. For that, I cannot thank you enough. 

As for how I proceed? I’m not sure. I mean nobody knows where we’ll be heading from here. All we have is hope, which is a great substitute for direction. I’ll definitely get around to posting about the past couple of weeks, as they were some of the most exciting and enjoyable days of my trip. 

In the meantime, I hope that everyone stays hopeful and healthy. It ain’t nothing but a hiccup in the grand scheme. Cherish time together and continue to support each other; love, hope, and patience will pull us through.

Week 7: California Delirium

Those California tourism ads finally got to me. My time in Oregon was up, and the Golden State was calling. I think I had seen a total of 7 cycle tourists in my time leading up to Cali. It was definitely under ten. I had high hopes for the cycling lifestyle in California.

2/13

The week would start off true to the post’s title. At 5:30 am I awoke to hear my hosts getting a pretty early start to their day. For the next hour or two I lay in a state of exhausted confusion, trying to let Neil Young lull me back to sleep with a little Harvest Moon.

Finally I did resign myself to the day’s beginning and got to my preparations. Following a breakfast with my hosts, I got my stuff together and prepared to put Oregon behind me. Before taking off, Jim showed me his handcrafted fishing vessel, a true embodiment of craftsmanship. I left my Oregon bike route map with the Clark’s, knowing that it would do me no good in my next step. I had just conquered the 358 miles of Highway 101 in Oregon. To put my next challenge into perspective, the California crossing would require me to cover somewhere around two times that mileage. The flip side of that coin is that those hundreds of miles would be varied, owing to California’s incredible diversity of habitats. And habitat diversity directly translates to bird diversity, which excites me big time.

I arrived at the gateway to this birder’s mecca before 10 am. For the majority of the commuters on the road, it was just another routine border crossing on a 45 degree and overcast Thursday morning. The drivers rolling by hardly even acknowledged the change. But for me, it was a monumental moment. I had just crossed through the entirety of a state, from border to border, completely under my own power. I mean I’ve never even been in a car in the state of Oregon! I’m still in denial.

Still, the much awaited moment was a bit underwhelming, probably due to the morning’s mere 5 mile ride and the fact that I was the only one celebrating. That is until two synchronous Pacific Wrens sounded off as I completed my first pedal turns in the Golden State. They would stamp their fate as the first California bird for me on the year.

It has been nearly five years since I’d been in California, having only visited LA in the summer of ‘15 when my sister worked out there. Entering into this part of the state was quite different. I had always had this idea that California was basically overcrowded, but I was entering into a pretty rural region, even more so that the sleepy stretches of Oregon that I was leaving. The sparseness of civilization in this part of the state would offer its own challenges during my first few weeks in the state.

I rode onwards, as there was no suitable space to stop and enjoy my Californian arrival. The agricultural inspection station didn’t look particularly inviting.

I did not expect much of a change from crossing an artificially designated boundary, but the transition was more abrupt than I expected. The shoulder was cluttered and not nearly as well maintained as it was in Oregon. Agriculture spanned out before me in a non-stimulating panorama, the stench compensating for the sensory letdown. Turning off the highway to follow a detour, I heard Spanish being spoken openly for the first time in a while. I was a bit conflicted right off the bat. Already I missed Oregon, but I was also excited for this brave new land. By some interpretations, I had just left the Pacific Northwest by entering into California. By others, I was still in Cascadia and therefore still in the PNW. By all means I was in a whirlwind of in-betweens.

En route to my Warmshowers stay in Crescent City, the landscape changed abruptly form extensive pastureland to neighborhoods framed by young Redwoods. What a privilege the residents of this town have to live their lives alongside such remarkable beings.

Gerry and Trudy met me like true hosting veterans, and they encouraged me to do whatever I needed to while they went about their business. I fought off the real opportunity to rest and seized the day, striking off on a bird run in the last few fading hours of daylight. It’s one of the things that I appreciate most about this lifestyle: I may be comfortable in another’s home, but it is, after all, their home. If faced with an alternative, I opt to go explore.

I backtracked to the agricultural expanse on the uni and then set off on an ambitious bird walk. My wandering feet took me to the Alexandre Farm, where I hoped to add something from the recently reported selection of interesting species. I arrived to the dairy proper to find clouds of blackbirds and ducks astir in a state of chaos. Out of this confusion appeared my number one target for the outing: a Ferruginous Hawk. It was as if I had wished this pristine being into existence. It felt like it appeared out of thin air.

The next few minutes were like a dream sequence as the bird provided 360 degree low-level views before landing for extended study. I was blown away by the incredible lifer looks, and this moment registers very high on my lifer moments. I watched as his majesty relocated to a distant treetop, ousting a Peregrine Falcon from its throne and revealing the raptor hierarchy.

I was probably still drooling from the experience when a younger dude pulled up in a truck and asked what I was looking at. He gave me a card, began a friendly conversation, and revealed himself as a man in charge, this being his family’s farm. His name was Christian, and he grew up on this veritable wildlife wonderland in what seemed like a sort of Hallmark existence. I was instantly impressed by the sense of stewardship and regard that he and his family had for the land. I’ve snatched their mission statement from their website:

“We believe our God-given talents are to be stewards of the land. We dedicate ourselves to operating a profitable sustaining business by our commitment to holistic farming practices, lush green pastures, animal welfare and environmental stewardship. Our unique approach is unlike other farms and our cool, coastal climate and pastures cannot be matched. The result is nutrient dense milk, meat and eggs.”

I really dig their spiritual and environmentally-aware approach to running a viable business. They have a philosophy that guides their way of doing things, and it really shows in the integrity of the whole. Plus they are more than happy to share in their great fortune, which may be the most admirable part of the operation. Christian was very welcoming to me personally and told me that they enjoy seeing birders around and hearing the latest sightings. I’m a self-proclaimed birder and have no problem admitting that we have a lot of baggage and sometimes cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed. This firsthand experience leads me to appreciate their open-door, transparent ways even more. Their website even has a hyperlink to the farm’s eBird hotspot. We need more businesses like this in the world!

At some point in the conversation, White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, GA came up. I was shocked to hear Christian describe this renowned Bald Eagle sanctuary and organic farm operation as a sort of east coast equivalent to the Alexandre Family Farm. Success stories truly stick out in this small world.

So thanks for the life bird Alexandre Family, and thank you for being stewards of the land who gladly share in your bounty!

Darkness set in fast as I made my way back towards the suburbs with three new yearbirds under my belt. I had just seen more bird species in one place than I had previously seen in all of California.

The evening brought an energizing vegetarian meal and an overdue Pink Floyd listening session.

2/14

Valentine’s Day began as a cool and crisp morning. Under brisk conditions, I made my way out of town, aware of the daunting uphill that lay ahead. Before long I was on foot, appreciating the transition from mixed Douglas Fir woods to Redwoods in a much more intimate way than that of the motorists whizzing by.

Although 101’s steady traffic did not exactly compliment the Redwood viewing experience, I was nonetheless blown away by these towering behemoths. For whatever reason seeing these trees is expletive-evoking. It’s like the only words that come to mind in response to being in their company are curse words that carry weight. I’m pretty sure even a nun would let some cuss words slip in these circumstances.

Although being in the Redwoods is quite the unique and fortunate experience, one must not forget the remarkable nature of all living things. Practically everyone has access to little miracles of the natural world in their backyards, even if they don’t happen to be among the world’s largest organisms.

So these trees are an incredible natural wonder, but in the words of my cycling friend Brian Squire, “beauty is all around.” So get out in the world in take it in! You don’t have to be at a national monument to make amazing discoveries. And often times the most impactful sightings and experiences are found in unassuming places, when your expectations are low and the experience is not overly hyped-up by the fanfare of others.

The trees that I was viewing in particular are Coast Redwoods. They represent the only extant species in their genus, and their range is entirely confined to the Northern California (and southern Oregon) coast. They are incredibly long-lived, and specimens of these species do constitute some of the tallest trees on our planet. They are truly remarkable, which makes me less surprised that they are also endangered. It seems like people often have a tendency to mismanage exceptional things. One key threat to their continued existence is fire suppression. Like other communities dominated by conifers, the Coastal Redwood forest evolved with frequent fire, a natural force that limits competition and prepares the soil’s surface for regeneration of Redwood seedlings.

I wanted to use this account as a learning opportunity to get a handle on the Redwoods and their related species, as I was unclear on how many species the term “Redwood” referred to and what the distributions of the species look like. I was surprised to find the answer to be pretty simple. There are only two other “Redwoods”: the Giant Sequoia and the Dawn Redwood. Giant Sequoias are confined to the western slope of the Cascade mountain range in California and are noted as being the most massive trees on Earth. Like their coastal cousins, these guys are highly fire adapted and in danger of extinction. The Dawn Redwood, although a cosmopolitan species at one time in Earth’s history, is presently confined to just a few groves in China. Interestingly enough, it was initially described as a fossil and only later discovered to exist in the present day, making it a Lazarus species. It’s history is not unlike the Ginkgo, which despite existing in widespread plantings, was only recently discovered in native habitat.

After hiking up to the apex of this Redwood dome, it was time to descend a 6-7% grade that also happened to be an active work-zone with steady traffic. Amid this harrowing experience that required extreme focus, some bros offered me a brewski. Like a noob I refused with the typical weight excuse and rode on, pushing against the fatigue of six back-to-back moving days that was falling upon me like a lead blanket.

I rolled into Klamath delirious and starving. My only resolution lay in rest and food.

2/15

I continued my stay in the charming Ravenwood Motel in Klamath. Although not much was going on in town, I was really content to spend an off day in this little alcove of human population. Despite featuring a casino as a main attraction, Klamath felt clean and idyllic, with a nice main drag, bike lanes, and parks occupied by energetic kids.

2/16

I was in for it on this one. A pretty shitty day from the start. I just had to choose a rainy day for a moving day. Apparently I’d gotten too comfortable and complacent with this glamorous weather, so the return of the rain hit hard. I was forgetting the reality of my undertaking, of less-than-ideal weather and discomfort, but today would offer a bit of a refresher.

I was on foot a good bit to begin, which was a real blow to the energy reserves when combined with the sullen gloom that drizzled around me.

I did get to ride through some more impressive Redwoods before the road spit me out to Orick. In looking at the map, I had planned to stay at a motel in town, but the motel owner in Klamath had seriously advised me not to stay there. The Google reviews were another strike against the option.

Seeing the place in person was the final straw, and I walked off thinking hell to the nah nah. Frankly this town was just downright scary and dirty, which was a surprising feeling for what has been otherwise pleasant stretch of road.

So begrudgingly I moved on, burdened by the feeling of having plans that were unsettled. I had hoped to use Orick as a base from which to bird Humboldt Lagoons State Park, but was now forced to incorporate a drive-by visit to this hotspot in route to a refuge for the night.

The drizzling rain continued as I diverted from 101 to try for the bird of interest here: Evening Grosbeak. My birder sense was telling me that I had a low probability of crossing paths with this one, so I grabbed a quick snack as I planned my next move in the parking lot.

It wasn’t until later that I saw on eBird that there was also a highly desirable Yellow-billed Loon hanging out in one of the lagoons. Although the probability of actually finding that arctic bird, had I known about it, was low, it was still kind of a bitter feeling. In hindsight, camping gear would have been very helpful in this situation. I have since outfitted my rig with camping equipment, and it has totally revolutionized my operation.

Anyway, back to the account of my day from hell. In studying the map, I realized that a thin sand spit connected the State Park to the town of Big Lagoon further south. I could just walk along this beach and bypass a bit of 101, which I was struggling riding anyway.

People eyed me as I made my way with the uni out to the beach. Their puzzled looks should have been red flags to my decision, but I continued on, headstrong as ever. What I had not noticed on Google Maps was a rock outcropping that butted up against the ocean and guarded the sand spit destination. Some dudes advised that I could make it through if I really hurried; the tide was rushing in quick.

My brilliant idea quickly became real as I scrambled through a rockfield amid an angrily approaching tide. I had to make separate trips to carry my uni and pack across the obstacle. Waves mercilessly crashed upon myself and my gear as my head projected terrible visions of deadly sneaker waves whisking me out to sea.

It was a dicey move, but I did survive the pinch-point gauntlet. My taillight, however, did not fare so well. The rest of the way to my return to roads was about as I expected: sandy and slow-going. It was after 4 by the time I ruefully laid eyes on 101 once more.

I made it to Patrick’s Point and put the pedal down, driven by a desire to find a place to stay at the rapidly ending day.

I stuck with it for the five miles into Trinidad. It’s hard to downplay the difference between arriving triumphant on the wheel and walking in dejected, defeated, and demoralized. Riding in on the uni does wonders to boost my morale.

At the motel that I settled upon, a search for a water hose ensued. The unplanned second baptism of the uni mandated a hosing-off.

2/17

I continued my ride on the poorly-maintained Patrick’s Point road. It was great offroading practice. I enjoyed the technicality, favoring these short-term challenges with rapid gratification as opposed to the more permanent challenges of long distance unicycling.

Today’s destination was Arcata. The approach was made amid crowds of people enjoying the nice president’s day weather on their local bike paths.

A cooperative White-tailed Kite provided lifer views as it hovered compulsively over someone’s yard. The adrenaline from the lifer was still flowing when I descended to a river valley and spotted something that would cause me to question my understanding of North American birdlife. A frenzy of medium sized birds caught my attention from the corner of my eye. As I dug through my backpack to fish out my binoculars, I tried to figure out what species the image conjured. Birders become pretty good at interpreting the parts of a scene to reach the epitome that is identification. We rapidly digest visual and auditory clues, drawing on the size/shape/color of the bird, location, and habitat to produce a likely culprit. But with these birds in question, my mind’s output was essentially blank. The possibilities of Ibis, exotic birds, or free-range poultry were unsatisfactory.

So when the moment came that my binoculars magnified the image and brought some clarification to the mystery at hand, I was left perplexed. I could instantly see that these birds were Long-billed Curlews, a ridiculous shorebird with an insect-like proboscis and penchant for remote terrain. One of those birds that gave me hell in Seaside, Oregon was a member of this species. Now 132 of these meticulous marvels occupied a normal looking field in a foraging frenzy. They were working through the field like blackbirds. My world was turned upside down. My only experience with this species was just months ago in coastal Georgia where it is practically a necessity to take a boat trip to a remote sandbar to get views at one.

I managed to collect myself enough to ride onwards in a state of minor shock. It wasn’t long before I rode past Humboldt State and into Arcata. After checking into a motel, I had a burger at a retro joint. This town has a real Athens feel: cool and collegey.

I made the most of the afternoon by birding the renowned Arcata Marsh and adding ten more yearbirds.

2/18

My stomach was killing me all day, but I needed this day in Arcata to be productive. I headed on foot to an eBird hotspot out of town in the agricultural expanse that stretched out towards the ocean. Among several new yearbirds encountered here was a Prairie Falcon, a real score and compensation for another failed Northern Shrike attempt.

In the afternoon, I finally made the decisive move to purchase camping gear in town.

2/19

The first thing that I had to take care of this morning was a visit to the post office. In order to make space for my camping gear addition, I had to mail my scope off for repairs and an additional package of crap home.

Gear I dropped:

Gear I picked up:

I figured it would be a good idea to relocate just a few miles south of town to a campsite that appeared on my adventurecycling map for a camping trail run. That way I could familiarize myself with the equipment under good conditions and remain within rideable distance of town if something was amiss. Instantly I noticed that the new rig was lighter and easier to mount. My modifications had resulted in a net loss to weight.

That night I was camping!

//

Hey it’s my first post of the month! Sorry for the delay, but I’m just coming off of a multi-day birding frenzy with bike birding aficionado Dorian Anderson in San Francisco, if you can believe that.

Week 6: Moonset over the Murres

We’ll start off with a little link to a video that Steve Holzman shot of me when he, Rachel, and I were out chasing birds around:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzh7EZcApmA&feature=youtu.be

2/6 

Last night I employed the old curtain blanket trick, and I actually slept pretty well. The rain had hardly ceased, but I had a rendezvous to honor. The plan was to meet up with Anne Pelletier, a Georgia birder who I know from Georgia Ornithological Society meetings, a few miles south to do a little birding. To quote Anne, “the GA team rules!” She’s right; we look out for each other.

The same day I’d be heading to Reedsport, so I took all my gear with me. It was a tough commitment, to relocate and to bird, but I had the whole day to accomplish both objectives.

So first it was to the Siltcoos River hotspots. It was more or less a toss-up for seeing yearbirds, but it was a convenient enough spot to meet up and scour. The conditions were less than ideal, but it was all that we had. My inflexibility grounded us, so we were going to do what we could. We began by birding the Waxmyrtle Trail. There were some songbirds about, but hardly anything to get excited about. My binos were fogging up with the moisture, and I had a gloomy feeling about our prospects.

But we kept with it, clinging to the birding virtue that is perseverance. Sticking with it led us to the beach on the south side of the estuary. A couple of cooperative Wrentits in the dunes suggested a change in the birding tide.

Once on the beach, we waded through droves of Snowy Plovers that provided stellar views. I must have passed through the invisible Snowy Plover boundary, as I’d been on the coast all year but was just starting to see them as of yesterday. According to Rebecca and Walt, seeing a wintering Snowy in Oregon used to be unheard of about a decade ago, and now it’s possible to see dozens at certain locales.

We enjoyed our lucky status to be able to appreciate this recent phenomenon and pushed closer to the estuary. Anne suddenly cued in on an odd gull flying ahead of us. It was a freaking Black-legged Kittiwake! Out of the blue! Or should I say out of the gray?

I was instantly on cloud 9. There’s nothing like a Kittiwake to propel a routine birding venture into one worthy of storage in the vault of birding memories. Upon closer inspection, we picked out two birds frolicking in the estuary, though one quickly peeled out. The other, however, remained for an incredible prolonged viewing experience. We gawked as the bird repeated a regimented process of flying upriver, landing on the river outflow, floating to sea, bathing, preening, and repeating. It was a true Jonathan Livingston among posers.

Eventually it settled on the north spit with the other gulls. Birding is a real-life lottery, and we had just hit the jackpot by playing against the odds.

After birding the wetlands back by the car and adding some other passerines, we broke for a picnic lunch that Anne provided. We talked and talked until it was time to hit the road. I bid Anne adieu and thanks as she headed back north.

For me, it was the continued push south. It started off enjoyably enough until a long haul of an incline appeared. I was not aware of the full scale of this climb and just dove in head first, hoping that it would end. A couple hundred yards in and I had to call it quits, my legs quivering and my chest on the verge of exploding.

When I arrived at the top of the hill on foot, darkness was looming. I was feeling pretty weak and having trouble mounting. It got to the point where I considered leaving some of this confounded gear on the mountain. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized I had inadvertently done just that, leaving my wrist mirror for some lucky cyclist or future archaeologist to turn up and make sense of. (By the way, do not worry about these struggles-I’ve since made some adjustments and lightened the load).

Fog was closing in as I hit the downhill, and the Oregon woods were getting dark fast. My passage into the different microclimate of the valley was marked by ear popping and warm air. When I finally broke through to Gardiner, the sky opened up, providing the remnants of twilight’s glow.

It was under these conditions that I booked it into Reedsport.

I checked into a motel room and celebrated the thought of resolving my desperate need for a warm shower. However, upon turning the water on, I realized how bad the drainage was, and I was not about to shower in a moat of the filth of myself and countless others. My first response was to fashion a makeshift blockage remover from a coffee straw, but the severity of the situation superseded a DIY approach.

So I called in the manager, who provided access to the adjoining room, where the shower drained properly. A Sandy Komito would have milked the hell out of this process and found a way to stay for free. I was too much resigned to the situation to contest.

2/7

I woke up to a different Reedsport. I found that my conception of the town had been misinformed by the night’s withholding hand. The town was brighter than I had surmised, and I was pleased with the scheduled layover day. So I followed through with laying over, administration, and planning.

2/8

I’m done pussyfooting around. Today begins a new chapter of my trek through Oregon. And that’s to put the pedal down until I glance up to see California’s promise ahead. And don’t you think that by doing this I’m compromising my intent to live without haste. This is a different kind of haste than that which demands the frittering away of the day and living like a taskmaster. My haste is a longterm one. The days are still lived appropriately and in their own time, but I have adopted an awareness of progress that is centered around mileage. Time is there too; it’s in the peripheries. I’ve set waypoints in the context of time, but that hardly affects my daily experience.

I begin my new chapter of flight with, appropriately enough, a bit of a wait. Following the passage of an ephemeral shower, I take to the road once more. After passing Winchester Bay, I walk uphill and ride down to Umpqua State Park to take a shot at a little birding. I keep it quick and do not note anything spectacular at the jetties. A special thanks and shoutout to Meegan and Ron for letting me stash my stuff in the office. There’s nothing quite like strolling through a park with the peace of mind that some scavenger is not extracting my life support from the shrubs to scrap it for a buck. And believe me, there are plenty of scavengers about.

I rode the next 15-20 miles without stopping. Rain and sleet were intermittent, and it would be the last that I would really experience in Oregon. In this last dosage of nastiness, I walked the bridges into North Bend. To get to my Warmshowers hosts in Coos Bay, I did a bit of walking and a bit of riding to round out the day. An incredible full moon welcomed me to Oregon’s bay cities.

Daniel and Margaret greeted me warmly and walked me down to get some Mexican food. That night we played a round of the card game Five Crowns, and I had the most fun ever! There’s nothing like a little strategy and fellowship to recenter the mind after the trials of the road. It was the perfect thing for my hosts to offer. Really, I had forgotten how fun games can be and appreciated the hell out of this one.

2/9

Up in due time, Daniel prepared a yummy avocado bagel. He made the bagels himself, and I can no longer tolerate a hotel continental breakfast bagel. I have officially been spoiled.

After chatting cycling for a while and strategizing my next moves with a veteran of the road, Daniel and I mounted up and headed into town on a gorgeous morning. He led me through backstreets (minus the boyz) on his reconstructed 50’s chrome bike. I’m sure we looked like quite the team. We checked out the community bike shop, an impressive space for tinkering on pedaled means of locomotion.

From there, Daniel led me through town to access 101 and return to my highway calling. It felt so good to ride with a buddy again, even if it was just for a short stint. To Margaret and Daniel: y’all are the bomb! Thanks for a great stay!

Following Daniel’s suggestion, I stuck to highway 101 instead of taking the 7 Devils Road detour as called for in the bike route. The ride was pleasant from the get-go. As usual, and as Daniel observed, there’s always a hill to conquer upon leaving town first thing in the morning. I laid into the hill and took it for as long as I could before I had to take to my feet.

Once I figured to be the “top,” I mounted up and rode on. Cutover plots provided windows for spectacular mountain views; the visibility seemed infinite. I inspected the cut areas as I passed slowly by. Logging in Oregon is an insane industry. Check out this satellite image of the Oregon woods.

Do you notice the checkerboard pattern on the landscape? It’s an amazing bird’s eye perspective. Our activities have created an orderly repetitive sequence across what would otherwise be an unbroken blanket of green.

From the ground, I’m dumbfounded that all of these trees could be removed from this rugged terrain. The aftermath seems to suggest that somebody took a razor to the mountain’s face and then hauled off its whiskers with helicopters. Seeing this process in realtime must be a sight to behold: an operation coordinated with caution. I know that I could turn on Discovery Channel and for some reason see the process unfolding, but I’ll pass. Call me crazy, but I don’t fancy watching and listening to a virtual slaughter of forestland. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the harvesting of trees. I’m no Greenpeace operative. But I don’t really like the whole glorification of exploitation business.

I continued on to another incline, a truth which didn’t seem possible. Still, this was one of those doable climbs. There seems to be some perfect grade for riding unicycles uphill. An angle just slightly less severe than this golden grade becomes a bit harder, as does an increase in incline. It’s a phenomenon that I used to experience on the House of Dreams Road climb at Berry. Some gentle inclines would feel excruciating, while a slightly steeper stretch would be just right. It’s a true Goldilocks situation, and it must have something to do with the physics or mechanics of unicycling. I guess the angle of the road forces an optimal lean and pedal action to work up the hill.

Considering the mysterious magic of uphill unicycling, I was motoring along just fine. While getting into the second verse of Ventura Highway, I noticed a loud and guttural moan approaching from behind- the engine braking of a large semi. Just moments later, a truck loaded down with hay bales zoomed by and delivered an immense pressure wave that would have taken a kite to the air. What a sensation while on a unicycle.

Just like any hill climb, I was left with a lot of potential energy (especially due to my gear load) and downhill to cover. The downhill grade registered at 6% in some spots, and this brought its own challenges. I was forced to rely on the brake to save my knees. It’s tough gripping a brake on such a long downhill. You’ve got to focus on the road surface, try to keep an even application of pressure on the brake, and trust. Just like with anything, exerting pressure on one spot for a while quickly causes discomfort, and my hand was feeling that.

By the time the hair-raising descent had reached its denouement, my turnoff for a stakeout Burrowing Owl had arrived. So I ditched 101 and found myself on 7 Devils Road, the recommended cycling route. After seeing the condition of this road, I was happy not to have taken the detour. It rode like 7 devils had harassed the construction crew that built it. I misremembered the actual sequence of turns to get to the Burrowing Owl spot and got a bit turned around.

One unanticipated dirt road later and I was in high society. You see, this Burrowing Owl happened to make his home in a hole on a golf course, which seemed appropriate for this lead character of Hoot. And by hole I don’t mean the hole on the green, it was just some random hole on a mound off in the rough. Steve Holzman had alerted me to this bird, and it was not too far out of the way from my ride to Bandon.

I instantly felt out of place among the Mercedes G-Wagons, Audis, and BMW X3’s as I wandered through the country club with my high visibility garments and gaudy unicycle. It was no use trying to blend in, so I just sat in the parking lot to enjoy a lunch alongside the Audubon’s Warblers.

Using very precise instructions from a guy named Norm, I was able to spot the Owl’s head just above the ground’s surface. Although I tried to get better looks from multiple angles, the best that I could do was to see the plumage on the top of the head. I wasn’t about to press my luck and get any closer, so I accepted the mediocre looks at this yearbird and moved along.

En route to Bandon, I passed a suspicious flock of wild-looking Wild Turkeys, but decided not to count them because they were in someone’s yard next to a free-range chicken farm. The situation was too suggestive to check off that bird, and I know that I’ll turn them up later.

I rolled into the Oregon Islands NWR at Bandon just in time for an incredible sunset viewing over the Pacific. Rarely do I get to actually sit down and appreciate a sunset; I mean it’s kind of hard to do in the thickly forested southeast. But watching this one left me incredulous that this happens every single night and that it costs nothing but a few moments to view. Gulls streamed in for their evening roost, and I elected to appreciate the scene intrinsically, not from an observer or lister standpoint.

Birding can be a superficial pursuit. Although we’re after an experience in nature, it’s all too easy to get caught up in tabulating numbers, targeting birds, and looking at the damn eBird app on your phone the whole time you are out in the field. Far too often we birders are “seeing” but not seeing. I took this rare moment to just enjoy nature for what it was, and that is a mindset easer imagined than achieved for me.

2/10

After last night’s musing on getting too caught up in the bird chasing and listing, I couldn’t have been more surprised to be dealt a bitch-slap for letting my guard down in a moment of innocent nature appreciation. It wasn’t that I had actually missed anything dire, but the magnitude of this morning’s sighting served as a warning for future episodes of just appreciating the big picture.

I find it hard to believe that what I would witness first thing in the morning was not visible during my carefree sunset-gazing evening.

It all started last night when I checked into an oceanfront motel. I gave my obligatory explanation for my one-wheeled shenanigans to the concierge and mentioned the search for birds. She asked if I had seen Murres. Following my response that I had not yet but was on the lookout for them, she revealed that they had been swarming the rocks off the shore for the past couple of mornings, those same rocks that I had been admiring just an hour previous. I asked if this was in fact a recent sighting, knowing this to be the case in the summer during breeding, but she was adamant.

As usual, I took the info with a grain of salt and politely broke away and headed to my room for the night. After all, nothing of that magnitude had appeared on eBird recently, and eBird knows all.

Well, it was now 7:30 am, and I was back in the lobby for a rare continental breakfast. I decided to indulge myself and glance through the motel’s scope. I panned to one of the rocks off the shore and stood in amazement. The surface of the outcrop was absolutely covered in hilarious penguin wannabes- Common Murres!!! As my friend Mac would say, any day with a lifer is a good day. I would go further and say any day that starts with a lifer is a spectacular day. Needless to say I was giddy eating those bran flakes.

Jeremy Wade was right when he stated that the best intel is local intel. I’ve been reliant on eBird as a birder for years now, but being in unfamiliar terrain to start off this Big Year, I have been essentially dependent upon its user-generated sightings to know where to stop. And yet this infallible approach had just been taken to school by an unassuming receptionist.

I hurriedly finished breakfast to set off on a bird run, incorporating a Murre viewing into my pre-planned outing. I took in the full spectacle at a wayside viewing area just down the road. The full magnitude of the phenomenon quickly became apparent: I was looking at anywhere between 3-5,000 Murres stacked on the rocks, in the water, and in the air. These guys are driven by an ancient instinct to amass here, and love must have been on their minds.

I studied their quirky ways as the moon set over their pop-up colony. The outermost birds took the aerial plunge off the rocks in bombs-away fashion. Special care must be taken not to end up like a foolish base-jumper who failed to clear a rock shelf below. The birds were packed in extremely tightly on the rocks that protruded so far above the ocean waves. I guess the last birds to arrive in the evening were the first to leave in the morning, being forced to take a space near the edge of the prominence.

Birders often talk about the “when it rains, it pours” lifer moment, meaning that you spot a bird repeatedly after the lifer moment, despite having tried so hard and not having turned up the species until that particular moment. I was feeling that to the next level. It was my first ever sighting of a Murre, and there were literally thousands before my eyes. After a month on the Oregon coast, looking at dozens of sea stacks, I was now seeing one painted with an amazing bird. What the hell was I looking at last night?

The original item on the morning’s itinerary was a Shrike hunt. Leaving behind the Murres, who looked like ants on an inundated mound, I continued south for a few miles on my unloaded uni to reach the China Creek Beach access. This was the site of a Northern Shrike sighting just a week or so prior. I read about the bird on the Oregon birding listerv and contacted the poster for more information. I meandered down the beach, picking out every bird-shaped piece of driftwood and feeling false excitement as Black Phoebes sallied out from their dune perches. The Shrike would end up being a miss, but I nabbed an Osprey as it cruised right over my head.

The Osprey sighting was significant not just for its positive impact on my year list. It was another sign that I was making real progress on my unicycle. I was actually moving through the limits of bird’s ranges, having entered the range of Wrentit, Mourning Dove, and now, Osprey, from the north. It was a very encouraging feeling.

I channeled the southern tidings of the Fish Hawk and headed back to the motel, packed up, and hit the road. A north wind and great weather prodded me along. I even saw a butterfly, a first of the year.

Before reaching Langlois, a town that is apparently world famous for hot dogs and mustard, I had a first. I had a stare-down with a dog that did not react to me speeding by. Clearly it wasn’t blind; it tracked me as I pedaled by. Was it mute? I’m still perplexed by this lack of reaction.

Langlois was my midway point for the day, and I chowed down at the store off the highway.  I also picked up my first Turkey Vulture of the year, my second raptor yearbird of the day. It was another sign of my southern progress.

The miles to Port Orford were simply exquisite, and I surpassed the 300-mile mark on my Oregon stint. I liked the port area of Port Orford. It felt like one of those one-lane wild west town sets had been placed on the coast.

2/11

I started my day at a diner, tackling a formidable All-Star type meal. That’s not to say that it had anything on an actual All-Star. I just used that modifier to give an idea of the scale and components of the breakfast dish, not to comment on its quality. After all, there simply is no substitute for Waffle House, and the withdrawals never do seem to ease up. I think that’s cause it’s an actual addiction.

After struggling to get all of that food down, I took to the road like a gorged vulture struggles to get airborne. The Wrentits delivered their ping-pong ball chorus as I rode on by in the sunshine. As I headed into the “climb out of town,” I began to think about how much nicer it is to climb a clean road shoulder than one strewn with debris. It makes a massive difference not having to dodge trash and pedal uphill at the same time. Gone are the days when I toss orange peels and apple cores out the window. I have never in my life valued a clean road surface so much.

Soon I was darting through the shaded and congested, yet beautiful, valley of Humbug Mountain and entering a slow climb.  I told myself that I would only be hurting myself later for not getting used to these climbs, so I kept with it.

I’m finally getting to the point where I can appreciate the scenery. Between my getting in shape, the great weather, and the dearth of traffic, I can actually take it in from the uni. Previously my observations were limited to “Oh, it’s raining,” “There’s a pothole,” or “Here comes another hill.” I’ve come a long way.

I stopped at a scenic spot overlooking the Pacific. I admired the crashing of the Hawaiian Punch Berry Blue Typhoon colored water on the wet concrete beach as I ate my protein wrap. Lunch consisted of peanut butter and avocado nestled in a leftover pancake roll. It was so gooey that it took ages to eat. Who cared? All I had was time.

I then blazed into Wedderburn. (It’s kind of funny that I feel inclined to use these verbs-I haven’t gone over 15 mph in six weeks, but I sure feel like I’m flying sometimes) I made a stop to try for a Northern Mockingbird just cause it was on the way, but turned up nothing new. While I waited, a lady named Kay wandered over and started up a conversation. We hit it off over our shared disdain for feral cat colonies. She had noticed declines in California Quail numbers in the neighborhood after the official construction of a feral cat colony at the jetty. And when I say construction, I mean construction:

Kay has been in the area for over five decades, and noted that only bad things have happened regarding the existence of that colony. I’m not sure what world I’m living in anymore when a feral cat colony is recognized on Google Maps. Remember folks, CATS BELONG INDOORS! They are the official leading cause of bird deaths worldwide, not to mention their immeasurable effects on reptiles, amphibians, insects, and small mammals.

I did make my way on over the bridge to Gold Beach afterwards. While shopping at a grocery store, Jimmy Buffet’s Changes in Latitude spoke to me on a level that it never had before.

The state line is within striking distance!

2/12

I set a new record for my longest ride today: 38 miles. Cape Sebastian was a brutal start to the day. I did get to enjoy the songs of Brown Creepers, Golden-crowned Kinglets, and Pacific Wrens along the way, all three of which are rare auditory treats for this southern boy.

Weather was sheer perfection, and it has become clear that Oregon is trying its best to convince me to stay after its moody treatment in the early days, but I’ve got my mind set on the next frontier.

I did have to do a good bit of walking on the day. Stretches that would have been thrilling on a motorcycle were simply too difficult for the uni. I did have the privilege of riding over the Thomas Creek Bridge, a structure with the notable designation as the highest bridge in Oregon. At 345 feet, it’s nearly 150’ higher than the intimidating Astoria-Megler Bridge and 125’ higher than the Golden Gate Bridge. I managed a quick glimpse below, and that was enough. I rode on, forgoing the photo opportunities offered below. But fortunately this is an oft-photographed bridge, so it’s easy to find images:

http://www.highestbridges.com/wiki/index.php?title=Thomas_Creek_Bridge

I sped into Brookings, fueled by the exhilaration of riding into a city. In town, I stopped for lunch at a promising spot, the Black Trumpet Bistro.

I devoured a killer BBQ sandwich and a very fresh-tasting salad. My server Rob covered the meal after hearing about my undertaking. Thank you so much for the amazing meal, Rob!!! You made my week!

I continued south, coming as close as a mile to the titillating crossing of the border before turning off on a backroad to reach my WarmShowers host for the night. It was my favorite stretch of riding on the long day. Winchuck River Road was a beautiful winding road through pastures, forested hills, and the scenic Winchuck River. Who could ask for more?

Karen, Jim, and their two dogs greeted me warmly before welcoming me into their house in paradise. The three of us dined on Karen’s yummy mac and cheese while we watched cycling touring videos.

And so concludes my last week in Oregon...