Inner-City Blues

  The Camper Coral was located just outside of Klamath, near the Trees of Mystery, where an oversized Paul Bunyan and Babe, his giant blue ox, welcome visitors to the world’s largest collection of redwood carvings. Albert awoke to a light-ocean mist that looked about ready to burn-off. Heading south for a few miles, with barely time to warm up and prepare for the day’s ride, Albert was confronted by the first of many climbs.

   This climb had a double summit, the first at five-hundred feet, the second reaching a whopping one-thousand, five-hundred. It sure was an early morning wake-up call. From the top it was one fast ride down, but unlike yesterday’s descent, the morning mist had been replaced by bright sunshine, the road surface was smooth, and Albert’s visibility was good.

   About thirty miles into the day’s ride, Albert passed the town of Orick and getting close to the ocean, the blue skies were replaced by coastal mist. Just passed Big Lagoon, Albert reached the Pacific, and exiting Highway 101, took Patrick’s Point Drive, and soon pulled up for lunch on the high cliffs over-looking the small town of Trinidad. Patrick’s Point Drive was a narrow road that hugged the Trinidad cliffs and was at times a single-lane due to winter wash-outs. The view from on top, of the beach and surf below, due to a pocket of blue sky and sunshine, was simply spectacular.

   Returning to 101, cycling up and down many a hill, Albert made his way to the college town of Arcata. He found his way to the town square, a hub of retail commerce, cafes, and restaurants, that was chock-full with the hustle and bustle and comings and goings of shoppers. On the grassy plaza, in the center of the town square, loitered and lounged quite a few of what appeared to be, free-spirited hobos, looking for hand-outs. Albert encountered one of these characters, who claimed to be a young ‘fixie’ cyclist traveling from Victoria, British Columbia, to his home town of San Diego. Albert felt that he was being befriended under false pretences and that the lad (a little sketchy) had actually, while Albert was arranging for a cup of tea, been scoping out his bike for a snatch and run. Albert, with a pocket full of street-smarts and the J-Bird’s ever-present, maternal keen eye, never really felt overly threatened and he hoped that his instincts and impression of the lad were wrong.

   From Arcata, under Gray skies, Albert passed through the city of Eureka – his first major city since Vancouver. Passing through the center of town, Albert immediately noticed the huge differences between cycling in an urban setting from cycling in the country. From the traffic congestion and the loud inner-city noises, to the manufactured processed smells of industrialization, and the vulgar images of blight. This in comparison to the open space of the road, the sweet sounds of nature: the wind, the rivers, and oceans, the birds, the insects, and the animals, to the earthy scents coming from the trees, the plants, and the flowers, and the natural visual beauty of the land, the mountain, and the seascapes. Albert being raised a city boy, knew that (in most) towns and cities, along with their packaged conformity and materialist consumerism, there could be found wonderful, creative, and interesting places, and that his noted thoughts were merely from a cycling point of view.

    With a touch of the 'Inner-city Blues', Albert, pleased to be departing Eureka, headed back out to the countryside where within thirty minutes, he once again found himself riding down quiet country lanes, surrounded by livestock, where the earthy smells and the sounds of nature immediately replaced his short inner-city experience and raised his spirits. Albert found his yarn tighten up as he reached the small attractive Victorian town of Ferndale, eighty-three miles from Klamath.