the last week:

i left the coffee shop where my last entry was written and went to hangout with ryan and teri. i showed up with a preponderance of food, what we call 'roadkill', from my last gig; laid out a few bins and a big ass cooler on the sidewalk and invited roommates and neighbors to pillage the mountain of assorted goods.

hiked a short jaunt through the hsu campus forest with the melo kids. the place is without doubt magical. ancient, virgin woods rife with the chaos of nature - a sacred place for earth-worshipers. i journeyed deep into the spirit world and once again discover the interconnectedness of all things.

a drive around town depositing my last parcels of food amongst a few freight-train riding hobo kids who had just gotten into town... they were grateful for every last thing (including 5 dozen uncooked eggs) even though they had nothing to cook on or with.

again, northward bound. headed right up to the spot where the moon of endor was filmed. running a bit late for work, but then i get the call, my boss is even more late than i am... (SCORE!) so i have time to smoke one then take a few pics of the herd of elk on the side of the highway.

roll into camp, and make a quick dinner - stuffed portobello. we go through some paperwork for the week's job, then are off for the night..

beers cracked and doobers fired.

as the last bits of sunlight are snuffed out, i light my firestaff and let rip with a tribute to darkness. some local hippies camped down a small hill behind us lay down a drumbeat to liven up the whole show.

i dance for a while longer, then decide it's time to meet these mysterious drummers, so i grab my staff and fuel can and start off down the hill... i can see the hippies, they're about 30 feet away. none of my co-workers are down to make friends with the neighbors, so i'm off on my own.

thing is... the forest is super dense and there is no trail down this hill. vines pull my feet back, ferns slap my face. the hippies see i'm coming and jump up to spotlight me with all their flashlights since i wasn't smart enough to bring my own lightsource. after fighting the forest gods to get to the base of the hill, there is a medium sized creek standing between me and the hippies. they're encouraging me, i'm laughing at how dumb i was just to take off into the dense foliage with no light or clue what i was doing. finally i just walk through the water, up into their campsite to be greeted with dank beer and bongrips.

they play music and i spin fire for a while until a couple on vacation from texas come to say hello from a neighboring campsite.

"so.... are you guys.... hippies?" asks the middle aged lady.

"yes, ma'am"

"ooooh that's soooo cool" she replies.

her b/f works for an airline and gets free flights so he is showing her all the coolest places in the country... she had never been outside of texas before meeting him.

they heard the music and wanted to know if they could come see what it was all about. they drank some beer and took their first bongrips. grooving to the drums and entranced by the firedancing. they left and came back with wine which we passed around the campfire, per usual.
she was positive that as soon as she got back to texas, she wanted them to pack up and move to arcata so she could become a hippie.

the night wore down, i got tired and headed back to camp for a bit of stargazing before drifting to sleep.

wake up, grab some coffee and grub and hit the trail.

a half mile away from camp, we see a stream that we want to inspect just off of the trail. we climb atop a downed redwood which was between the trail and the shore of the stream, and as i'm coming down off of it, my foot catches on the gnarled bark. i trip and fall forward, coming down a few feet off the tree directly onto my knee that i just had massive surgery on last year.

i miss landing directly on rocks by about 4 inches and luck out by landing on wet sand.

nothing hurts when i land.

but when i get up, i can't put any weight on my leg. it's immediatly swollen and i can barely walk.

i hobble back to the road, a coworker goes to get my car and i drive myself back to camp. i put a 5-pound block of ice on my knee and keep it there until there is nothing left in the bag.

the next day, leg's still bad and my bosses tell me i have to go get checked out at the nearest doctor. turns out the first place i can find is an hour drive away in eureka.

after 6 hours in the urgent care clinic, i'm the last person there for the day... finally my xrays come back - probably not broken, but it could be. they say i need to be seen by someone else who knows what my mangled knee should really look like. they give me pain pills and send me on my way.

drive back out to camp and crash out for the night.

the next day, i have some breakfast and go up to the payphone to make a call to the bosses, let them know i'm not supposed to work for the rest of the week.

i see some more elk and go take some pictures of them.

while i'm shooting, i meet an timer, john hamilton, who has just retired from a life of being a brick layer and has taken up his boyhood passion of being a photographer. he is travelling the country in his RV, taking scenic nature photography and doing his own printing, matting, and framing and selling his work at festivals and fairs.

we get to talking, i tell him about an amazing area nearby that unfortunatly his RV wont be able to get to because of the sketchy road. he seems nice enough, so i offer him a ride with me, as i'm headed down there as soon as i pack up my campsite, before i head home.

we spent most of the day exploring from my car and taking pictures... got about 5 feet away from a massive elk... went to fern canyon, one of the most beautiful places i've ever been.

finally it's getting late, i take john back to his RV where he prints out a number of my pictures for me. it's great, i've never printed pictures... i always just look at them from a moniter, but i'm glad i have these. i'd like to frame them and maybe start printing more,

finally, i was on the road, headed southbound, for sacramento.
just north of willits, i see two cute hippie girls hitchhiking and am compelled to pull over for them.

they're fun, similar interests in life, on their way to a permaculture farm. we swap hitch hiking stories and smoke bowls... form a good connection.

they invite me to stay with them out on their farm, at least for the night.

it's been getting late, i've had 4 hours on the road plus my whole day's adventure with john, so i take them up on the offer and drive them straight to their house.

which is, of course, a big hippie commune farm- we are greeted with open arms, a quick quote from a book by a noted anarchist author, a polyamorous cuddle puddle and delicious tea. a little one on one quality time snuggled on the couch with a cutie and finally i'm asleep.

i wake up early, as normal, and everyone still sleeping. i leave a short good bye note and take off while their still slumbering.

i liked the girl, we had a great connection. we didn't swap contact information and i dont even remember her name, but it was perfect.

make it back to sac. see a doc, who says my leg is not broken, or the surgery screwed up, it's just a bad bruise... and now i'm ready to be back at work with "light" duty.

two more weeks left.

who knows what adventure the summer will bring?

2 weeks back:

The grand LA experience last friday, LA indian powwow on saturday morning, a quick drive to sacramento led to art and music saturday night with old friends. sunday was mother's day so i took mom up to reno to have lunch. monday was a day of mending... fixed my car, some clothes, and my laptop (thanks again mike.

tuesday morning was a drive up the norcal coast along highway 1. (probably the most beautiful drive i've ever done) to camp at Salt Point, a rural place right on the coast. a little forested peninsula jutting into the ocean was where we made base camp. i set up a kitchen and made sushi for our crew.

gale force winds greeted us wednesday morning, but nothing to disrupt the kids' adventure. tide pooling, and a pygmy forest were highlights for the week. the kids went wild for machette juggling and fire dancing... as usual. i made homemade donuts for the campfire because it was a jewish group and i couldn't find kosher marshmallows anywhere.

most of my coworkers this week were new to the company, and i enjoyed getting to know them. ..

woke up at 6am, started work at 6:10... worked until 4, then finally, i'm off (for 26 whole hours! in which i have to drive 300 miles, and hopefully sleep) so, i'm headed to Humboldt County. =)

the rest of the drive along the 1 was equally beautiful, perhaps a bit moreso due to the random find of the North Coast Brewery in Ft. Bragg. North Coast brews what is just about my favourite beer, Old Rasputin Imperial Stout, so i slammed on the breaks and pulled into the parking lot.

i made a call to my coworkers who were on the road behind me, and they decided to stop for a dank beer with me.

a few beers and a few barroom friends later, and it was back on the road, a few miles up the road we all pulled over at an amazine beach to watch the sunset, puff one down, and do some yoga.

again on the road to finish the drive to Arcata (6 hours on the road total), where i heard some friends were playing a gig with their Elvis cover band.

FREE BEERS for being cool

dancing ladies.

and fucking elvis.

incredible night, felt like i was home with family.

we retreated to a hippie castle tucked away in the ancient redwood forests.
hit the rope swing in the morning, talked about rainbow gatherings past and future...

then a run down to the farmer's market, of course, running into more old friends. jugglers and dancers seem to go hand in hand. shared laughs about good old times, and we split ways... i found myself drawn to coffee from the famous Muddy Waters coffeehouse, where again, i've been overrun with faces from the past.

old friends have kids that are big, but the coffee hasn't changed.

i have a couple hours left in town, hoping to see as many people as possible before i have to make my way to our campsite tonight. work starts up again in a couple hours, and there's still so much i want to do!!!

so, life is keeping me busy. cramming in adventure as much as possible.

there'll be plenty of sleep when i'm dead.

the days are short, but our adventure's huge.

Clients shipped out, it took us way too long to pack up, finally a little poolside time at our luxury resort, then I was finally on my way for LA. I was going to visit old friends and live it up on the town.

picked up a buddy from the train station. made a stop by the liquor store for whiskey and stout, then by the speakeasy to with The Skipper a happy birthday. A surprise drop-in then we whisked off to Roscoe's Chicken and Motherfuckin Waffles. After a dinner of the dankness, i took off with 2 of the crew to go spot sweet Graff in LA. We found the famous Ninjas and Chickens.

As we were thinking about heading home, we saw the Griffith Observatory on the hillside and figured we'd better check it out. A run up to the big telescope and a view of Saturn, then we were off again, back to the speakeasy.

quite a few people showed up for The Skipper's party throughout the night. Bran blessed us with some music, whiskey and stout finished the trick.

woke up early and got my stuff together. drove Hays to the train station, but decided we should stop and get a coffee first. found some more sweet graff, but the first place we saw to get a cop of joe turned out to be - the LA Pow Wow.

We explored the festivities and picked up a few cool books. dropped off hays, and hit the road...