day 23 -- manchester beach to redding

up early since I still harbored notions of making portland that day, but not surprisingly the coast road didn't straighten out much and I gave up on that fairly quickly. SR1 finally petered out and merged with US101. this was an opportunity to make up some time, but fortunately I'd chucked the schedule at that point and detoured on the redwood-scenic 'avenue of the giants,' which twined around US101 and twisted through the forest more intimately on ground level. 101 was where the tacky 50s roadside attractions restarted after the sedate and reserved new england-style SR1...the difference akin to atlantic city and acadia. trees you can drive through and immortal trees and chainsaw sculptures and 'confusion hill' and more trees you can drive through and 1800-year-old trees. the avenue was a lot quieter, with run-down hippie towns like Phillipsville, where I stopped for a snack before heading into the trees. a general store and post office, behind which at riverside were trailers and shanties. a couple kids somehow peeled into a gravel parking spot across from the picnic table I was occupying in a rusty civic that one admitted 'isn't really legit.' while one bought cigarettes, the other discussed living there...'a few tweakers' but generally a quiet place, unlike towns more convenient to 101 (according to him). the avenue winds among the trees carefully, with towering specimens guiding where the road can go and marked with reflectors, clearly more for drivers' safety than for the trees, which are surely indestructible. I won't try too hard to describe the forest or the trees, and photos can't capture it. it's all about disorienting scale and cool darkness and ferny groundcover. towering and majestic and whatever conventional adjective certainly apply, but they're inadequate in the end. the big mossy silence was entrancing, though, and I wished I had time to stop right there and find an out of the way campsite for the night.

but back onto a windy 101 and finally a cut west toward the mountains on a road through slowly climbing farmland that turned into national forest and again those tortuous not-quite-switchback roads. these mountains were a lot less straightforward than the sierras farther south...I climbed and descended and climbed and descended without ever apparently reaching the top. exhausting. I stopped for a roadside nap in a turnout and continued on, finally after some imperceptible crest arriving on a much gentler and straighter ride down into the head of the central valley at ghost-town shasta and then redding. I was looking forward all day to a cool (not cold) mountain campsite in the ponderosas in the shadow of mt shasta, but with the sun on the way down and mind and body tired from a full day of rolling the bike left and right, discretion (and an empty stomach) suggested a motel night in redding. initially I regretted this when the sun looked not so far down as I thought -- and later when I saw the campground was perched under some notable spires -- but the windy interstate miles plus fatigue probably didn't add up very well. I wandered around a sunday-evening-dead town for a while looking for a greasy pizza joint (rebelling against the exquisite food by the bay?) and failed miserably. after making it back to the center city budget inn I headed out again on the bike and ended up at another burrito place that was the only establishment open past 9pm. this was a lucky stroke, actually, even though I had passed it up on the first pedestrian pass-by. first of all it sits on the edge of a sprawling complex of 1950s vintage motels, at least four of which take up a square of four blocks...with a few stragglers (like mine) just down the main drag. I-5 sweeps past redding now, but this was the old US99, some of which was signposted straight through shasta college on sidewalks where the drag ended on its south end. the motels were mostly empty, but each one featured at least one stand of posturing sentinels in wife-beaters calling down to others working on muscle cars in the parking area. the restaurant was quiet as well, but the mostly out-of-town patrons were interesting, esp a young couple with baby and mother(-in-law). unspoken friction, irritation flashing in eyes. mostly I read the local paper while downing a 'diablo' shrimp quesadilla (super-good). the nps had closed the trail to the peak of the lassen volcano for trail improvements -- namely dropping helicopter loads of stone steps -- closing for a month the possibility of moonlight hikes. the transportation editor responded at length to a letter complaining that CHiPs only issue speeding tickets on sunny spring days and that they don't do enough to penalize people who drive slow in the fast lane. and debate on Modoc county's money-draining hospital. once upon a time this only-hospital-in-the-county was a 'source of pride,' but that was before people got hoppin' mad about paying for healthcare that should apparently be provided for free, without government interference. in the last decade the hospital has on its own dragged the county to the brink of bankruptcy, primarily because the commissioners have played shell games with money earmarked for other services in order to keep the hospital afloat. reactions ranged from an ex-cop who cited the lives the hospital has saved (when roads to more distant hospotals are closed by snow, for example) and was mounting a campaign to raise taxes to pay for it to a rancher who flatly declared that he didn't want to pay for something he'd rather not use. gotta love the foresight there...wonder if cowboy joe will demand an ambulance to sacramento next time he suffers a heart attack.