coasting

We left Chico in stocky grey with a hint of orange. The fires in Butte County had filled the skies with the sickening odor and unhealthy appearance of dullness…things seemed still and lifeless.
Our plan was to cut through to Covelo but the Round Valley Rd. was closed, as were two other back country routes. This ugly Glenn Co image reflects an indignity that’s been in a state of comparing itself to other indignities (eroded and trashed redwoods, Styrofoam packing pellets scattered along the roadway over the mouth of the Gualala River…)
It took us 8 hours to get to my birthday dinner in Elk. Buddhas and bright flowers greeted us at the coast with sweet cool air and we spent our first night on a deserted road above Alder Creek.
The next day we went to the beach north of Point Arena which was littered with festive bladder kelp. There the sculpture was more to our sensibilities.
The second night we camped on a gravel bar on the Gualala River where humans have badly eroded and trashed the unprotected redwood groves between the road and the river. Today we got some more beach time in before we came back through Mendocino fires to a slightly improved home air quality and a grateful appreciation of home again.