the sea rocks looked like slumped buffalo stampeding up the coast. It was rainy, a slow light rain that I could walk in without really getting wet.
I decided to stay in Arcata today, the result of being in love with this room. So i went out to the beach north of town and found a pocketful of agates.
Imagine me comically avoiding the surge of water over colored gravel, with a couple of ravens there and heavy mist. Sometimes I stoop over and put a stone in my pocket. It's a completely useless activity.
After that I drove through my old mushroom picking territory.
It's about 1500 feet up on the ridge. At that altitude, the rain was more like being inside a cloud. Steady drip, low visibilty.
I knew what I would see, because the last time I was up there, one of those sultry afternoons in late october, I found the yellow tape foresters use to mark the path where the road will be punched in. Of course I playfully took all the tape but they knew where the road was going anyway.
There were a lot of big doug fir in there and a few small redwood. It had been logged over 100 years ago, some of the fist redwood country ever to be logged.
It's the head of Jacoby Creek. The mouth of the creek is just south of Arcata. That's where the mill was.
I used to find chanterelles in there by the basket load at certain times. They loved the heavy leafmold that had built up. If there hadn't been so many big old stumps among the trees, you might have thought it was virgin forest.
Well, now it's kind of a muddy farce. They took a lot of big old tanoaks out as well as the fir. When those two species grow together, you find chanterelles.
On the side of the road that hadn't been logged, I found carpets of calypso orchides.
They're only about four inches tall at the biggest, with delicate purple blossoms. They grow in the leafmold where you'll find mushrooms.
Other things grow in the logged-out side, not mushrooms and orchids. Mostly ceanothus, to be precise.
I drove around the road that circles from Arcata to Eureka in the woods. It was wet and damp all the way.
It finally stopped raining but I'm sitting in the motel thinking.
Update: 11:44 pm
Kilt lifter is actually a rather strong species of Scottish Ale.
I'd recommend it to anyone considering inebriation.
The bars in Arcata consist of 4 places side-by-side on a street facing the Plaza.
After drinking, the place to go is Don's Donuts.
I've had many thoughts tonight while drinking kilt lifter and standing in front of the bars of Arcata.
A great many gutter muffins stand in front of the bars with the middle class students who come to get drunk and trade bodies.
It's a place, as Lew Welch said, that makes a man understand why the Bible is the way it is.
I decided to stay in Arcata today, the result of being in love with this room. So i went out to the beach north of town and found a pocketful of agates.
Imagine me comically avoiding the surge of water over colored gravel, with a couple of ravens there and heavy mist. Sometimes I stoop over and put a stone in my pocket. It's a completely useless activity.
After that I drove through my old mushroom picking territory.
It's about 1500 feet up on the ridge. At that altitude, the rain was more like being inside a cloud. Steady drip, low visibilty.
I knew what I would see, because the last time I was up there, one of those sultry afternoons in late october, I found the yellow tape foresters use to mark the path where the road will be punched in. Of course I playfully took all the tape but they knew where the road was going anyway.
There were a lot of big doug fir in there and a few small redwood. It had been logged over 100 years ago, some of the fist redwood country ever to be logged.
It's the head of Jacoby Creek. The mouth of the creek is just south of Arcata. That's where the mill was.
I used to find chanterelles in there by the basket load at certain times. They loved the heavy leafmold that had built up. If there hadn't been so many big old stumps among the trees, you might have thought it was virgin forest.
Well, now it's kind of a muddy farce. They took a lot of big old tanoaks out as well as the fir. When those two species grow together, you find chanterelles.
On the side of the road that hadn't been logged, I found carpets of calypso orchides.
They're only about four inches tall at the biggest, with delicate purple blossoms. They grow in the leafmold where you'll find mushrooms.
Other things grow in the logged-out side, not mushrooms and orchids. Mostly ceanothus, to be precise.
I drove around the road that circles from Arcata to Eureka in the woods. It was wet and damp all the way.
It finally stopped raining but I'm sitting in the motel thinking.
Update: 11:44 pm
Kilt lifter is actually a rather strong species of Scottish Ale.
I'd recommend it to anyone considering inebriation.
The bars in Arcata consist of 4 places side-by-side on a street facing the Plaza.
After drinking, the place to go is Don's Donuts.
I've had many thoughts tonight while drinking kilt lifter and standing in front of the bars of Arcata.
A great many gutter muffins stand in front of the bars with the middle class students who come to get drunk and trade bodies.
It's a place, as Lew Welch said, that makes a man understand why the Bible is the way it is.
One of my longest friendships and best lives in Arcata. I almost moved there with him once. I know the feel of the place from 17 years ago and a little how it is now. And I know the feel of the woods, though we have no redwood here, we do have logging. Makes me think, too.
Sometimes - thinking of your Eureka journal- it is good to go back to places. Some very good things often get forgotten along the way.