Trees and roads

Trees and Roads

Off the boat and south by train, from Seattle Washington to Salem Oregon. And the next morning onward for four days by road to the Californian Redwoods and back. There’s not really any other way of doing it, distances are big and public transport very sparse. That will change of course, but no forecast for when.

After a couple of days in the rented car I got the air about right. There are too many controls! It’s still hot outside, mid 30s every day and into

the night. After 3 days I found the Grateful Dead radio and Bob Marley radio stations, which take away the loneliness of solo driving. They lighten an audiobook diet of Peter Oborne’s history of islamophobia. Though that’s pretty good too. Andrew Rigby is one of my remote guides to this trip, he has sent me a tips on driving which I thought was the height of condescension, but I’m now turning right when the traffic light is red and there’s no other traffic, and I know what to do at a junction with no lights and stop signs for everyone (first come first goes).

There is a haze over much of the landscape from forest fire smoke that disperses over the region. Route 101 follows the Pacific coast, with endless beaches empty except for driftwood, and huge offshore rocks poking a finger at the waves. My first night’s stop was supposed to be at a motel in Crescent City but they had no power in the town since a fire has got close to an electricity station, so I carried on an

hour to Arcata. That gave me the time to spend the next morning in Eureka.

It’s a quirky town with boats, street art and independent shops. Eureka - ‘I found it!’ – because ‘an expedition found’ a sheltered bay there to use to transport minerals and logs. This is recent, 1849.

A town museum has piles of furniture from the 19th century, accounts of shipwrecks, a room full of old guns that Josh the director offered to let me handle if I wanted to. It has a lot of memorabilia from ‘Spanish War Veterans’. Not the Spanish Civil War, but the US interventions in Cuba and the Philippines in 1898.

There is a large room about Native Americans in the area. Unlike the modern museum rooms taken up with glowing accounts of indigenous

culture and art, this one includes an apologetic account of the massacres of the Wiyot tribe that a few years before had welcomed and rescued the explorers from starvation, as settlers took over the land. The massacres were lamented at the time, but no-one was charged. Lawyers had taken part. ‘Unfortunately the area maintained its national reputation of aggressive racism for many decades’. There was also a display of intricate patterned indigenous basketry based on a business that a settler had run from the later Indian Reservations. I left more angry than from any other account, and surer of the need to remedy injustices, so was that a good result?

Up the road was a Native American Art and Gift Shop, selling very similar baskets for around $1,000 each to collectors. The shop is run by Native Americans. A weird spiral of history to the same trading relationship.

Route 101 goes inland, and for 30 miles there is a parallel road ‘the Avenue of the Giants’, with places to stop and marked trails through the Redwoods. Few people were getting out of their cars to walk so it felt like I was alone a lot of the time. It's quiet, few bird sounds, no movement, broad trees hard to see the top of, young trees 6 inches

across their stem but already 60 foot high and solid as concrete, rough red bark, fallen trees of all sizes slowly giving life to other things. Just look at the photos! My feelings were a mix…: Partly: this is monumental soul-filling, a welling up of goodwill to all trees. Partly: I have a lot of questions about nature and time and rotting. And partly: well, once you’ve seen a hundred haven’t you seen them all?

There has been so much forest clear-cutting, that dense forest over a large area is rare. But the road that Andrew suggested Legget to Fort Bragg is 5-star, all redwoods too, and then gets to big Pacific views.

That was a long day, and driving in the dark is not good when you only see through one eye and there are no streetlights. I make it to Andrew and Carol’s empty house in Willits at 10pm, too late to raise Laura the neighbour. Animal turds on the mat, no key under the mat,

but the door is open. There's a light on which is good because in the USA light switches are a different culture that I don’t understand. I am grateful I didn’t see Laura until I was leaving: she tells me about a rattlesnake as thick as your wrist living in the rocks in Carol's garden. I was so pleased to leave!

I’ve been with Jeff and Barbara and Quetzali in Salem for 3 days. I spent Friday helping Jeff in the Hood-to-Coast 200-mile team relay run from Mount Hood to the Pacific. It’s a day and a night non-stop relay, with over 1000 teams of twelve, each member running 3 legs of about 6 miles each. Some teams are fundraising, it's a chaotic challenge for all. We were at one of the hand-over hubs Several runners I saw hadn't trained for 6 miles in 35 degree heat. Two ambulances were called, one person was taken away with heat stroke. Serious stuff. On the way back we stopped for an iced coffee at a rare single-arch McDonalds, well it was more of a pudding really, with cream and chocolate.

I’ve not seen Barbara and Jeff since 1986 when they were filming solidarity technical volunteers in Nicaragua in 1986 and I was one of the volunteers. I’ve come back with the short film they did including

clips of me and of friends I remember fondly. We talked about Nicaragua then and Nicaragua now – the goodies and baddies are not so clear as they had been.

They keep up some acres of land like Richard and Betty on Vashon Island, with a big market garden, fruit including melons, and all the salad. I can see how my blueberries and asparagus should be in 20 years. Jeff continued to make films, Quetzali is waiting to get performance dance jobs that she's finished training for, and I didn't meet Camilo who's in Seattle selling apartment space, Barbara is the one who wrote to me for 20 years before they has the children. I am so lucky to have such good friends at each stage of this trip.

Next stop, Chicago and its socialist literature festival run by Haymarket Books. The trip will be by train again, but I think I'll give the trains a chapter of their own.