We have made plans to meet up with our buddies from Oklahoma, Willy and Mary Webb. They are flying into San Francisco, renting a one-way car to Ukiah, and will join us in the bus for the 200 + mile drive north to see their son Matt. Matt has secured us a house overlooking the ocean so luxury awaits. (We have mixed feelings…after five weeks we‘re warming to our camp life…we may sleep on the floor next to our bed, or maybe under the porch?)
For now our job in Ukiah is to find fun lodging for the four of us before we all jump off north for the mighty hippy bus ride. After stressful groping around town, we found nothing really neat, so we made a reservation at a cool little place we passed on the way in [See Bus Stop #21, The Lodge at Blue Lake]. This we did in time to drive on west to hunt a camp on the coast for the next two nights, while we wait for Willy & Mary.
This late day trip from Hwy 101, west across the Coastal Range of mountains, to Hwy 1, did nothing to reduce stress. The bus seemed to be running crappy as we climbed and climbed to the top. Then, the way down the ocean side of the range was super steep and curvy, and it was dark! Yes!. It was dark in the late afternoon, as we traveled through a dense forest of spruce, redwood and fern. The road was troubled by chuck holes and poorly patched grade separations where the earth had slipped under the pavement. Our front springs are too weak (are they broken?) and it seemed we couldn’t go slow enough to prevent the un-nerving, loud hammer of our bus body slamming to the bottom on its suspension - over and over again.
As the monster trees looked on in the beautiful doom, the sum total of these issues made us feel small and enfeebled - like a wayward mechanized insect adrift from its comfortable ground.
Finally the light began to return on a smoother, flattening road, and with it, great joy in this vision through Madison’s sun glasses - our first sighting of the Pacific!
It felt like a scene from Tolkien, Frodo and Samwise emerging from dark into light on their quest, in this case to get the bus to the coast - to the Pacific Ocean for god’s sake!!! Look at Deb’s face - this was just so cool.
The first coastal park was full, but the second had five spots left with camp site shoppers driving ahead of us to pick out the best of the lot. We find the best (most remote and private) and rush back to the office to sign it up. It’s all by itself on the side of the mountain in heavy forest and fern. And best of all, the distant crashing ocean sound abides like a lacy audible curtain.
That night sitting at our fire, Deb sounds a silent but urgent alarm to me: a skunk, making his campsite rounds, lingers under my chair, nosing my feet. Loath as I am to be fooled into panic by the made-up tales of a fellow camper, I resolve to call her on this little joke by showing, in mighty shout, my lack of fear…when, wait a minute, what‘s that look? Is she serious?
And so the both of sit, stony vessels of fear, while the little fellow completes his rounds. Deb only thought of quarters during the event - our shower at the park requires quarters and she just can’t imagine where we’d get enough to wash off that much smell. A passing car’s lights finally distracted Mr. Smelly, and off he sauntered as casually as he had come.
Rich colors everywhere. Our table was adorned with roadside flowers and even the big banana slugs showed richly yellow in the dim forest light. We spent two lovely, and fairly lazy, days and nights here, soaking up new sights, sounds and smells. Tomorrow, we’ll head back across the range to dryer wine country and our meeting with Willy and Mary, but this has been a great a great “first touch” for us and Madison’s Bus.
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