After two months of cycling from the Arctic Ocean at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, I crossed into Northern California’s redwood country with some trepidation. This was where I’d been robbed 10 years prior on my first trans-American cycling tour. I was sleeping in a church nursery with my bike stowed safely in their garage, but someone broke in through a window and took everything: bike, panniers, clothes, tent, stranded in a flash. At the time it felt quite traumatic, having made it so far yet to suddenly be in need of a shirt, socks, or just a way to get around. Many kind friends and strangers came to the rescue, as they so often do in life, but I had to take a bus south to San Francisco thus missing this choice prize of coastal riding, scenic redwood byways to the PCH through Muir Woods and beyond.
Having initially planned on avoiding Crescent City at all costs this time around, I eventually decided that revisiting the church could make for a funny kind of exorcism, transforming an initial spore of trauma into something more positive. I called the parishioner in charge, now in her 80’s, who met me there just the same as before. We sat for a while to catch up, laughing at whether lightning could strike twice. I slept with the bike this time though, like a dog, like a baby, to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
Next came Avenue of the Giants, the cyclist’s dream I’d looked forward to for so long. Densely dripping pads of marine layer fog were skewered by towering redwoods titanic in proportions, canopies alive and spotlit with ambered spikes of sunlight. I coasted through misty serpentine detours from grove to beach past mammoth trunks coated in moss and clover, living breathing cascades of regenerative ecosystems. Cheers to chasing our demons off to the grave, their grave, our grave, all graves the same.
by donivanberube