Sailing Tarka: The Rest of the West (almost)

Hello again. With so much to write about where do we start? How about just a good 'ol fashion, chronologically organized, general update.

The last time you heard from us, we had made our way up through Santa Cruz and the Bay Area, stopping to visit friends along the way. We left the culturally extroverted Southern California for the more contemplative Northern California whose mighty and ancient Red Wood Forests made us feel young and naive. Visiting more friends that we had met previously, we explored the mountain sides by foot and the rivers by raft.

We pushed on toward the token college town of Humboldt county, Arcata, where our dear friend Jorge lives. You may remember him from our previous Joshua Tree blog where we referred to him as "the campground social butterfly". His social networks extended deep into the Arcata community where we reaped the benefits of being in the "in" crowd while there.

Although our time in Arcata was far too short to fit everything in, we did manage to play an intense game of chess using the most beautiful playing pieces; hand forged by Jorge's roommate. And on April 20th, which is something of a holiday for Arcata folk, a week of rain gave way to generous amounts of sunshine and we were able to climb on the beach at one of Jorge's favorite spots. Climbing proved rather unproductive, though, as we spent a great deal of time and energy trying to convince roving bands of transient beach stoners that, despite what their pot-addled senses seemed to be telling them, rock climbing is dangerous and gravity will win.

Leaving Arcata behind, it was a full day's drive to Portland. Portland was one of those towns that we had high expectations for because of how liberal, bike friendly, and cool it's always portrayed to be. In these respects, Portland's a great place to visit. Unfortunately, we were unaware that leaving our bikes on our truck outside overnight was the same as asking someone with bolt cutters to graciously take them off our hands, thank you very much. Luckily we found a new use for the bike rack in the mean time. But the show must go on, and Seattle is the next pin point on our map.