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.

day 22 -- san francisco to manchester beach

but it was onto the great northwest. the california coast was required reading, and I spent all day winding winding winding along the low cliffs of marin and sonoma. since I'd waited around for the street food festival to get underway I was riding in a swamp of saturday daytrippers on the approach and across the golden gate bridge, but past marin and the shuttle parking for muir woods the traffic thinned progressively. slightly harrowing descent on an absurdly twisty road from the marin headland to the beaches, but then just moderately tedious winding stretches. striking there is the essentially-desert abutting the ocean, though this desert is covered in dry brown grass and cattle and the occasional vineyard that has escaped the valleys. scenic scenic, especially the stretch between elk and mendocino, but it seemed that I was always twisting around to get a better vantage on the coastline I'd just passed. and that's how it always is, right? what's in the rearview always looks better than what's ahead. seriously, not just in conditions that sun angles and clouds explain...but all the time. rearviews must have some fancy polarizing feature. that or what's ahead inevitably looks boring in comparison to the glimpses behind. anyway. winding winding roads sometimes disappearing over the first line of hills but in every case back to the coast and always one shelf up from bottom-of-the-cliff beaches. oysters on high tables outside a marinaside joint, then some unexpected 'texas-style' barbeque in the artsy town of gualala. I'd only made it some 150 miles on this afternoon, but curvy roads demand some focus and work on the motorcycle, so I was borderline bleary-eyed and wobbly-kneed. I had set a beach beyond ft bragg as a destination, but settled on a nicely undeveloped beach near manchester with some open campsites. breezy and chilly (I was already cold from the bike despite layers), it was perfect for the norcal coast. I wandered out to the dunes with herds of mulies, listened to crashing surf and all that, and turned in early after I'd more seriously staked down the tent. no stars that night, just cold damp breezes and a layer of dew on everything that I hadn't stored in the tent.

day 21 -- idling by the bay

I didn't need the reminder, but san francisco made it clear just what I miss out on in dayton-cincinnati. vibrant neighborhoods where people walk for reasons other than exercise. street food. comforting urban chaos. clutches of migrant workers...and a gaggle of homeless migrant workers who have given up on the dream. placards and postings for every sort of activism, from the inane (no wind farms here) to the irrelevant (californians protesting the 'show me your papers' state to the east) to the poignant (sexism spreads AIDS). baseball and a produce market and ethnic enclaves. a city with urban problems like any other but enough civic spirit to attempt solutions other than putting more people in prison. some of this is a function of population size, but much more than that it's an attitude...what shocked me this time was the extent to which any of this was surprising, that I've slipped into accepting midwestern malaise and dullness as the norm.

but jt is living a real san francisco life, not an affected contrivance or an asetheticized simulacrum -- no forced identities here -- just the life this sort of place can afford. I like to remind people that jt and I were close before birth since our parents shared our mostly overlapping in utero time. professional parents with rural mid-atlantic roots (the renowned lititz, no less), the iconic pennsylvania postsecondary experience in happy valley, but then a move north to toronto and eventually to the left coast. all this to say that jt is not a hipster radical or bohemian but a small town kid who can embrace a real city. so after I straggled in and cleaned up we set out for soul food near dogpatch. superb cajun blackened catfish and sublime mac-and-cheese and the like in a legit soul kitchen...run by koreans (or vietnamese). only in san francisco. caught up on eight years passed (but not without intermittent contact in this case) in the easy way childhood friends can do. love and death and family dynamics and work and aging and one particularly nasty motorbike accident. I'm fancy-free on a motorcycle with that dissertation looming at home, jt is a brand new father with a seamless marriage and a long stretch of home-rehab in the rearview.

jogged some hills in the morning and set out for the mission for some mexican pastries and philz coffee (brewed one cup at a time), inappropriately dressed in a t-shirt and plaid shorts and flipflops. I knew it was still chilly in the morning, but only a couple of days removed from las vegas I was counting on an afternoon warming trend. but this is san francisco, and there wasn't a single soul wearing shorts anywhere, let alone fratboy plaid. not that it mattered...I settled in at philz after wandering up and down past brightly colored taquerias and a 'mexica-tessen' and pastry shops and bodegas selling phone cards and coffee shops and watched the parade. not nearly so much hipster quotient there in the absence of the desperate midwesterner's need to stand out. just authentic difference in person. the kid with the gold-plated, low-rider bicycle. zoot-suited oldsters. parents with kids in every manner of conveyance, from plastic-wheeled stroller to jogstroller to sling. back to alabama street for some exquisite but unpretentious home-cooking and wine with a couple who had cooked their way through a recipe book that required lots and lots of foie gras. see above for opportunities seized. and again conversation that didn't dwell on idle reminiscence but mutual experiences beyond hershey.

and in the morning another run followed by a perfectly timed street food festival that was predictably amazing. I had some sort of african beef-on-a-stick and some goat curry, and for jt and mr some hickory smoked pork shoulder with apple slaw and a cuban skewer. and unsampled ramen and pho and kebabs and veggies, just a touch different than endless variations on bratwurst and goetta and limburger. not that I'm complaining about cinti fare on that score at least.