Trinity River Corridor

Today we will be home after nine and a half months of veggie voyaging. We are filled with nostalgia and anticipation, not knowing what to feel other than appreciation.
Michael just pumped in more veggie from what he processed yesterday in Arcata while we had lunch and he thanked me for the approximately 1100 meals I have made on the journey. I remain his biggest fan as I believe this loop perhaps has not been done before on straight veggie oil nor will it probably be possible in the future as energy resources are recognized (and further exploited) for their value.
We are sitting under the same oak we sat under the afternoon after we left home in July, near the Whiskeytown Reservoir, one of the holding areas for water generated in the Trinity Alps and directed to San Joaquin agribusiness.
We’ve just driven the winding Hwy. 299 from the coast. We stopped last night with old friends near Willow Creek in the Bigfoot Country of Douglas Fir, madrone, and manzanita above the Trinity River.
Susan and I were study partners in nursing school and graduated together in 1974 from Humboldt State, a program she remembers as “eating its young.” All I remember is the cat dissection, which was a problematic and daunting task for me as a young vegetarian. Now she and Robert are living a good rural lifestyle complete with long commutes and slaughtering their own pigs. Susan even made the bricks around the raised beds in the garden.
They are amazing people. Susan pointed out a small orchid growing from the forest floor on our morning walk this morning. Somehow friends are like that. Special and tenacious and beautiful as well as too seldom seen and far too fragile to take for granted.
I think I will keep the blog going awhile longer, see how the rolling stones find their rock, welcoming, beckoning, settling and hopefully, not bonked.
Happy May Day to you. May your work lead you to an appreciation of yourself.