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wise and still.
Aug. 6th, 2021 04:15 pmStill an emotional basketcase, but will try to journal about my trip as best I can.
...
Was able to get to the redwoods finally. I think I may have seen some of them at some point earlier in my life, but just did not appreciate them? I don't remember.
The drive was really awful. I headed down I5 south and as soon as I hit Salem the smoke became thick and dense and even though I replaced my air filters, I could smell it through my vents. By the time I hit Roseburg it was suffocating, and Grants Pass was even worse.
It's a horrible feeling, being in smoky air for hours on end. My body does not respond with a lot of old holdover instinctual drives, but there is a flee mechanism that kicks in when I am in smoky air that is extremely difficult to tolerate. My entire body tenses and screams at me to head the opposite direction. It takes everything I have to fight it, so all I can think about is the smoke. I cry periodically. I try not to think about what is burning, so many miles away. But I can smell the burning bodies of the trees and plants and animals and sometimes the toxicity of the burning houses and vehicles and manufactured things, too. (That was prevalent in last year's fires, that acrid toxic scent.)
The smoke did not clear when I hit the redwood highway. it did not clear when i hit California. it did not clear when I started to wind into the woods. It only finally began to dissipate as I headed west. finally, I crept under the marine layer that held it at bay, and blue sky peeked through the filtered yellowish clouds. The smoke really didn't clear completely, ever, but it got a lot better and the scent went away.
I got to the campground somewhat late but there was someone in the office and I got my firewood (I paid for 3 bundles but they only ever gave me one, oh well) and found my spot. It was crowded and noisy and right next to the highway but whatever. I guess everyone loves the showers at this place but I never took one, oh well. Not the greatest but I had a place to sit by a fire and sleep.
The dampness of the redwood forest makes camp fires feel very safe. it's actually really hard to get one started and to keep it burning because the air is so damp. everything is damp. it's very comforting after so much dry heat in our region, this year.
I put my tent under the trees and was disappointed when a giant flood light came on at night directly overhead, but what can you do. I covered my rain fly with a blanket to try to block the light. the highway noise was aggressive and campers were drunk, high, and loud until midnight, but after some audiobooks I passed out pretty easily.
Slept in the next morning and made my coffee and relaxed by the fire before heading out to check out the forest. The road into the Jedediah park is unlike any other road in existence. It's such a magnificent area full of the most incredible trees.
The feeling of witnessing the northern coastal redwoods is not the sort of thing that can be communicated with photos or words. They look prehistoric. I suppose they kind of are, many of them. Some of these trees are thousands of years old. The difference between these and our old growth forests in Oregon reminded me of the difference between dolphins and whales. There's a size and presence to these trees that is so much more massive and ancient, wise and still.
hiking through these trees, it becomes obvious that they are not just individuals. the root system is massive and long and tangled. they are all holding hands, underfoot. I pondered that maybe this is how they are able to survive even after being logged. A lot of this area, inside and outside of the park, has parcels that have been logged (including my campground and all of crescent city which is its own sort of stumptown on steroids, which leads to a very strange sensation of people living on dead things and they seem to be living in a state of apathy and indulgence in destruction and raping the earth of natural resources that bleeds out into their politics), and there are places where massive new growth is flourishing out of the stumps. Not nearly as massive as the original stump but still, how do you get chopped down to the foundation and keep growing? I think because other trees are sharing nutrients with you underground. A few of the trees along the Boy Scout Tree trail had been struck by lightning and charred, and while some do not survive, others do, or sprout new growth from the remains. It's very comforting to witness their resilience. Due to the perpetually foggy, damp weather here, I think this will be one of the last forests to ever burn.
I slowly got to know the feeling of the trees, and took my time with them. They insisted I go slow. It was very humbling and calming. I hiked every trail that was open, but the Grove of the Titans has suffered too much damage from people going off trail to see the largest tree on earth by volume, so the entire Mill Creek trail was closed while they build platforms to keep from further damaging the forest. This is a good thing, but I was sad to miss it. I will be back, though. It's not so far away. Now that I know how to get there and what the park is like, it will be easy to go back. I could even do dispersed camping if I like, it's pretty mellow, there, and there is a backpacking camp just outside of the park, if I want to hike a few miles before I sleep.
I was in a great deal of physical pain the 2nd day, but I still managed to rally and get some faery photos and videos taken in Stout Grove at the end of the evening. It ended up being my best captures, that last half hour of light - the next day I spent 3 hours on the boy scout trail but didn't get anything nearly as good. the stout grove trees are just a lot bigger. This area was used for many scenes in Return of the Jedi. I sent a photo to tyler jokingly titled, "I'm on Endor!"
It will take me a while to edit the photos and videos but I have time. I look like such a wee faery next to the trees, it makes me really happy.
...
The second night of camping was a bit louder, I was woken up a couple of times by loud trucks or loud neighbors, but it was okay. I was very grateful that I had stuck my tent under the trees, because it misted lightly but all of my stuff stayed dry. It would have anyway, inside, but it was nice that I didn't have to dry out the outside. the only thing that got wet was my camping chair.
It was fun startling people on the trail in full faery, barefoot and sparkling. tourists looked so confused, lol.
I will have to do that again, one day.
I'm glad I went when I did. It was a hard drive but it was worth it and I needed to get away, this week.
I felt very happy Thursday morning, very very happy. For a short while. And happy for a short while when I got home last night.
I stopped in Bandon but wasn't able to hook up with Natasha. Next time. I took the much longer drive home up the coastal highway, 101, and it was much less smoky.
It's still a little hazy here but not too bad. I have a mild headache and mild depression, but some of that is from other things, like not being able to skate or do silks.
sigh.
...
i listened to a few chapters of a really wonderful audiobook called The Practicing Mind, and I think it might help me with all of this emotional junk. It's about developing skills but it is also about getting out of worry ruts, which are not constructive and block energy from being used productively. I am such a worrier. It makes me so tired. I have to figure out how to stop. Or at least control it somewhat. Allow myself x amount of time per day or something to ruminate, and otherwise, get out of those toxic thought patterns and into something that if not useful, if at least not harmful. (that's what the silks and skating was doing for me, before.)
...
heard some stuff on the news that has me fairly convinced that the vaccines don't work at all against the delta variant of covid. even if they do, another variant will come around that they won't work for. i am so tired of the push and pull. i wish we could find a stable ground instead of things constantly changing moment to moment. this constant adapting to a post-pandemic world is really exhausting. this is the new normal, and i am just going to have to come to to terms with it. there will always be this anxi-vax, anti-mask fight. everyone will always be angry about something when it comes to other people's behavior. we just have to decide, day to day, what we feel comfortable with and what we don't. there is a super weird epidemic right now of the cold virus as well (another coronavirus), a spike in children normally not seen until winter that's "very concerning" to health care managers. wtf. why is it suddenly cold season for kids, who are still masking and distancing for the most part? i have a feeling i will never really understand what is going on with public health. it is all the more reason to keep focusing on building an online presence.
ugh so exhausted, today. just going to lie down for a little bit, even though I've done nothing but computer work, today. i'm so tired.
...
Was able to get to the redwoods finally. I think I may have seen some of them at some point earlier in my life, but just did not appreciate them? I don't remember.
The drive was really awful. I headed down I5 south and as soon as I hit Salem the smoke became thick and dense and even though I replaced my air filters, I could smell it through my vents. By the time I hit Roseburg it was suffocating, and Grants Pass was even worse.
It's a horrible feeling, being in smoky air for hours on end. My body does not respond with a lot of old holdover instinctual drives, but there is a flee mechanism that kicks in when I am in smoky air that is extremely difficult to tolerate. My entire body tenses and screams at me to head the opposite direction. It takes everything I have to fight it, so all I can think about is the smoke. I cry periodically. I try not to think about what is burning, so many miles away. But I can smell the burning bodies of the trees and plants and animals and sometimes the toxicity of the burning houses and vehicles and manufactured things, too. (That was prevalent in last year's fires, that acrid toxic scent.)
The smoke did not clear when I hit the redwood highway. it did not clear when i hit California. it did not clear when I started to wind into the woods. It only finally began to dissipate as I headed west. finally, I crept under the marine layer that held it at bay, and blue sky peeked through the filtered yellowish clouds. The smoke really didn't clear completely, ever, but it got a lot better and the scent went away.
I got to the campground somewhat late but there was someone in the office and I got my firewood (I paid for 3 bundles but they only ever gave me one, oh well) and found my spot. It was crowded and noisy and right next to the highway but whatever. I guess everyone loves the showers at this place but I never took one, oh well. Not the greatest but I had a place to sit by a fire and sleep.
The dampness of the redwood forest makes camp fires feel very safe. it's actually really hard to get one started and to keep it burning because the air is so damp. everything is damp. it's very comforting after so much dry heat in our region, this year.
I put my tent under the trees and was disappointed when a giant flood light came on at night directly overhead, but what can you do. I covered my rain fly with a blanket to try to block the light. the highway noise was aggressive and campers were drunk, high, and loud until midnight, but after some audiobooks I passed out pretty easily.
Slept in the next morning and made my coffee and relaxed by the fire before heading out to check out the forest. The road into the Jedediah park is unlike any other road in existence. It's such a magnificent area full of the most incredible trees.
The feeling of witnessing the northern coastal redwoods is not the sort of thing that can be communicated with photos or words. They look prehistoric. I suppose they kind of are, many of them. Some of these trees are thousands of years old. The difference between these and our old growth forests in Oregon reminded me of the difference between dolphins and whales. There's a size and presence to these trees that is so much more massive and ancient, wise and still.
hiking through these trees, it becomes obvious that they are not just individuals. the root system is massive and long and tangled. they are all holding hands, underfoot. I pondered that maybe this is how they are able to survive even after being logged. A lot of this area, inside and outside of the park, has parcels that have been logged (including my campground and all of crescent city which is its own sort of stumptown on steroids, which leads to a very strange sensation of people living on dead things and they seem to be living in a state of apathy and indulgence in destruction and raping the earth of natural resources that bleeds out into their politics), and there are places where massive new growth is flourishing out of the stumps. Not nearly as massive as the original stump but still, how do you get chopped down to the foundation and keep growing? I think because other trees are sharing nutrients with you underground. A few of the trees along the Boy Scout Tree trail had been struck by lightning and charred, and while some do not survive, others do, or sprout new growth from the remains. It's very comforting to witness their resilience. Due to the perpetually foggy, damp weather here, I think this will be one of the last forests to ever burn.
I slowly got to know the feeling of the trees, and took my time with them. They insisted I go slow. It was very humbling and calming. I hiked every trail that was open, but the Grove of the Titans has suffered too much damage from people going off trail to see the largest tree on earth by volume, so the entire Mill Creek trail was closed while they build platforms to keep from further damaging the forest. This is a good thing, but I was sad to miss it. I will be back, though. It's not so far away. Now that I know how to get there and what the park is like, it will be easy to go back. I could even do dispersed camping if I like, it's pretty mellow, there, and there is a backpacking camp just outside of the park, if I want to hike a few miles before I sleep.
I was in a great deal of physical pain the 2nd day, but I still managed to rally and get some faery photos and videos taken in Stout Grove at the end of the evening. It ended up being my best captures, that last half hour of light - the next day I spent 3 hours on the boy scout trail but didn't get anything nearly as good. the stout grove trees are just a lot bigger. This area was used for many scenes in Return of the Jedi. I sent a photo to tyler jokingly titled, "I'm on Endor!"
It will take me a while to edit the photos and videos but I have time. I look like such a wee faery next to the trees, it makes me really happy.
...
The second night of camping was a bit louder, I was woken up a couple of times by loud trucks or loud neighbors, but it was okay. I was very grateful that I had stuck my tent under the trees, because it misted lightly but all of my stuff stayed dry. It would have anyway, inside, but it was nice that I didn't have to dry out the outside. the only thing that got wet was my camping chair.
It was fun startling people on the trail in full faery, barefoot and sparkling. tourists looked so confused, lol.
I will have to do that again, one day.
I'm glad I went when I did. It was a hard drive but it was worth it and I needed to get away, this week.
I felt very happy Thursday morning, very very happy. For a short while. And happy for a short while when I got home last night.
I stopped in Bandon but wasn't able to hook up with Natasha. Next time. I took the much longer drive home up the coastal highway, 101, and it was much less smoky.
It's still a little hazy here but not too bad. I have a mild headache and mild depression, but some of that is from other things, like not being able to skate or do silks.
sigh.
...
i listened to a few chapters of a really wonderful audiobook called The Practicing Mind, and I think it might help me with all of this emotional junk. It's about developing skills but it is also about getting out of worry ruts, which are not constructive and block energy from being used productively. I am such a worrier. It makes me so tired. I have to figure out how to stop. Or at least control it somewhat. Allow myself x amount of time per day or something to ruminate, and otherwise, get out of those toxic thought patterns and into something that if not useful, if at least not harmful. (that's what the silks and skating was doing for me, before.)
...
heard some stuff on the news that has me fairly convinced that the vaccines don't work at all against the delta variant of covid. even if they do, another variant will come around that they won't work for. i am so tired of the push and pull. i wish we could find a stable ground instead of things constantly changing moment to moment. this constant adapting to a post-pandemic world is really exhausting. this is the new normal, and i am just going to have to come to to terms with it. there will always be this anxi-vax, anti-mask fight. everyone will always be angry about something when it comes to other people's behavior. we just have to decide, day to day, what we feel comfortable with and what we don't. there is a super weird epidemic right now of the cold virus as well (another coronavirus), a spike in children normally not seen until winter that's "very concerning" to health care managers. wtf. why is it suddenly cold season for kids, who are still masking and distancing for the most part? i have a feeling i will never really understand what is going on with public health. it is all the more reason to keep focusing on building an online presence.
ugh so exhausted, today. just going to lie down for a little bit, even though I've done nothing but computer work, today. i'm so tired.
