Pacific Coast Highway, July 22, more Day 17

---

What's hot: Redwood Forests

What's also hot: Scott gets a 392-point Scrabble play

What's not: The temperatures--56 degrees at Eureka, CA

The road: 101 miles of intense high mountain curves--Paul gets the driving prize.

Travel lesson of the day: In search of beauty, you get some truth.

from Kathy:

The journey is the destination ... Advertising has ruined so many good phrases.

This daily pursuit of new landscapes is a destination in itself, now at the halfway point for us. Inside our little bubble of four people, we carry out the rituals of lazy-rising, diner breakfasts, looking at the signs and people, noticing the little stuff, laughing or shaking our heads, or disagreeing, or putting up with each other, or agreeing, or just driving quietly together, putting together hotel room dinners, watching TV shows, going to sleep. We are surprisingly tired for a group of people who sit all day.

The boys make some I-wanna-go-home noises, particularly JJ, ambivalent about spending this much time with the 'rents. The cell phone text messages wear a virtual pathway from our car to Old Saybrook.

The

Redwoods

In Humboldt County, CA, I learn why people hug trees and why these mountains of redwoods make national news. Redwood forests are like nothing I've ever seen, and I've made a lifetime practice of visiting forests. The atmosphere and feeling among redwoods is like no other forest. This is seemingly due to the conditions they create through their unique system of hydration and respiration. It is also due to their height--they are so tall that light is admitted in a way I've never seen before. On the forest floor beneath them are unique plant forms and communities.

But on another level, these trees sing a surreal spiritual note unlike any tree song I've ever herad. They form a forest apart, a forest that really does seem to speak. I think of films I've seen: redwood-harvest protesters hugging the trees, reporting on the emotions of the trees. Now I understand.

And just as you absorb the surprise of their size, you realize why they are so economically valuable. Ther represent thousands and thousands of unbroken board feet of beautiful wood soaked with natural tannins that assure some of the longest lasting wood products known. What lumber company wouldn't want to add some of these to the line?

Ouch--I am pinched by that nasty, contradictory interface between nature and economics. We have seen it every inch of this long road. We go in search of beauty, but truth lives right next door.

Scott's scrabble word: quizzical (blank tile for second "z")

---

Photos

A Different Kind of Forest
Redwood Highway CA Rt. 128

Gratitude
For many miles, handmade signs large and small thank the firefighters for their work

Beauty, Habitat, or Board-feet?
The question has raged since the early 1900s.

Under the Chandelier Tree
JJ can't believe it.

Floonian Roadster Drives Thru
Paul and I recall pictures of this tree from our childhood textbooks.

Tree Pose
Kathy takes time for a little yogic imitation of nature.

Extreme Driving
For 2.5 hours, Paul takes the curves of the Pacific Coast Highway. If breathtaking views really took your breath away, we'd all be gone!

Comments

[Susan]

I'm MORE than impressed!
392 POINTS!!!! I bow to you, Scott! You are the Bobby Fischer of the scrabble world. I hereby impart to you some of the secrets of the scrabble elite -- AA, MM, QAT, AI AND AE are all words. May the words be with you, young master.

[Connolly US Road Trip]

Scrabble
Scott has missed about half of the vacation in pursuit of those points!