From: "Angie Eng" <angie_eng@hotmail.com>
To: mailing list
Subject: THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND, THIS LAND IS MY LAND
Date: Tues, Oct.16th

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND, THIS LAND IS MY LAND

‘S P E C I A L O N ¼ LB B E E F’
P E A N U T B U T T E R P A R F A I T
G O D B L E S S A M E R I C A ! !’

-marquee along highway 1

San Francisco, California.

Mid September, the kids back in school, fall setting in, the souped up RVs heading down toward the Mojave; it was a perfect time for a road trip to the Pacific Northwest.

In preparation for the short jaunt through timberland, I felt like Wile-E-Coyote bringing out a chest loaded with enough equipment to blow up the world in order to kill one roadrunner. When you have an entire empty trunk, there’s always the thought, its better to have more than less. Without a10lb capacity rucksack to control my weight, I tossed a mini REI store in the boot of the car for 12 days on the road.

Once I was past Point Arenas, far beyond the outskirts of the Bay Area where city slickers and the sophisticated New Age reside. I was now in the region of stone-washed overalls, four ton pickups, crystal meth maniacs, descendents of gold fever miners and the occasional roaming Deadhead hitchhiking to the Redwoods. I arrived at one of the most beautiful places, yet the most politically conservative regions in America.

What comes to mind for the average person when they think of California? Pamela Anderson jogging along Santa Monica Boulevard? Reaganites retired on a Santa Barbara Ranch? Gays and Lesbians cross-dressed on Pride day passing out rainbow stickers on Castro Street? When I picture California, I imagine the northern countryside dotted with small towns population 162 surrounded with Redwoods and Ponderosa Pine covered mountains. But, I am romanticizing. The quaintness and permanence of places you imagine in your youth end up being figments of an exaggerated imagination. And the reality-well, it’s just reality. Here you can still see both.

With over eighty Native American tribes once inhabiting California for hundreds of years, today the land and her people seem to have maintained a wild natural simplicity handed down from the likes of the Pomo, Wappo, Washo and the Achomawi tribes. Names of places such as, ‘BuckHorn Mountain’, ‘Big Bar, ‘Mad River’, ‘Hayfork’ and ‘Ball Rock’ are typical. Her neighbors in Oregon State prove to be similar with a touch of poeticism. Further north you will come across names such as: ‘Pollywog Butte’, ‘Big Craggies’, ‘Pistol River’ and ‘Devil’s Elbow.’

Today, (especially after September 11th) California is rife with Americana. Yanks can be as nationalistic as they appear to the foreigner’s eyes. Old Glory waived in front of homes, stores and automobiles. She could be seen stuck, taped and painted on every window and door. Citizens walked the streets decked out in stars and stripes printed on hats, shirts, socks, ties and bandanas. The red, white and blue peeked out of every corner making it a challenge to locate the post office, usually designated by an American flag out front. Every store, school and church marquee made scheduled announcements followed by All-American slogans: ‘W i m p y ’s B u r g e r s – A m e r i c a S t a y S t r o n g !’, ‘G r e a s e M o n k e y – G o d B l e s s A m e r i c a !’, ‘J e s u s L o v e s Y o u – L e t F r e e d o m R i n g !’, ‘O p e n H o u s e T u e s d a y – U n i t e d W e S t a n d!’

Here, you would expect Yosemite Sam, sporting a new tattoo reading ‘God Bless America!’ inked underneath a bald eagle, to come hauling up in his ’62 Ranchero, racked 30odd6 rifle and park outside the edge of the woods to wait for deer season to open. And by the way, ‘Jesus loves you’, so they remind you again and again on signs posted along the road.

I spent the night camping along the Mendocino Coast. If I had arrived 2 months later, I might have been lucky enough to spot a Gray Whale migrating south. Blue Whales, Orcas, Humpbacks and Grays make their way from Alaska to Baja from July to September each year. One can also spot sea lions, seals, dolphins and otters along the rocky shore. This year, an estimated 28,000 Gray whales will migrate to the top of the Sea of Cortez.

At Westport Beach, I had shared an entire campground with an overweight, retired couple collapsed in lawn chairs outside their Winabago. Along the steep cliffs you could spot fresh landslides. I poked around, hopped the barrier to follow a path leading to the edge of the bluff where other campers had pitched their tents. This was my home for the evening- in front of the sun setting on the Pacific.

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading about Bill Bryson trekking the Appalatian trail. Half way into his trip, he decided to hike the rest of the trail by driving his car to his next point of departure, hiking all day and then driving back home every night to sleep. Each morning he would get in his car and return to the point where he had left off to continue his trek. This lasted months. In the end he didn’t finish the entire trail, but he did cover nearly 2000 miles on foot and got a bestseller out of it. I, on the other hand, drove for 12 days and in the end I accrued nearly 2000 miles on my odometer and wrote a three-page email about it.

I entered Humbolt County, home of the largest Redwood and Sequoias in the world. The largest Coast Redwood tree has been documented at 368 feet tall and over 2000 years old! At one time hunters and gatherers called the Sinkyone-Lolangkok could be seen running in and out of the forest cutting down trees to build their houses and canoes. Thousands of years later at the turn of the century, local conservationists foresaw the decimation of the forest by modern man. By 1927 the State Park system was established to save some of the ancient trees from future logging. Today, Environmental groups combined with the dwindling supply of resources have forced the region to seek tourism as an alternative source of income.

I stopped by ‘Doug’s Dog House of Burl Carving’ to make a phone call. Carved from one of those majestic Sequoias was a sixty-foot tall Paul Bunyan standing beside Babe the Blue Ox. Bernadette, the woman working at the snack shack wore a baseball cap with a tree embroidered in the front and a jeans jacket clad with a collection of animal pins. Special of the day was a corndog with a free coke. On sale was gigantic wood carved Smokey The Bear holding a sign, ‘ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES.’

I spent the following night at my second cousins’, Alison and John Wrigley, in Arcada. I got a taste of a lumber town in the midst of transformation. Arcada is a bustling country/suburb with strip mall, the usual chain stores and fast food restaurants, budding up to the edge of the forest. A native San Franciscan, Ali was gradually acclimatizing to the pace of ‘country’ living with her husband, a native Arcadan. It had been 4 years since they left the city. She was not the only one. Many educated, ‘well-to-do’ careerists have recently escaped the hustle and bustle of city life choosing greener pastures. Arcada is not such a bad town. Afterall, they do have one of the most welcoming homestead programs in America; one only has to be homeless for 30 days before receiving monthly cash subsidies of $400. ‘And if you come in the summer when its not cold, it would be easy.’ said my cousin, matter of factly. And living in a small town? ‘You can’t say fuck off to someone on the street and get away with it. You are bound to run into them again.’ This was the drawback. She was right; Towns such as these were void of anonymity. Raymond Carver lives next door and Tobias Wolf grew up here.

I zipped up the Oregon Coast, an undiscovered wonderland. City officials early on were keen conservationists and decided to establish public access to the entire coastline. For miles and miles you can drive and watch plunging gray waves breaking to their deaths. Sonic booms clash when the waves hit against the rocks sending a surge of water 30feet against the headlands. In spite of this local surfers in training aren’t intimidated.

You can get lost in the Oregon wilderness for a very long time. She doesn’t cease to amaze most nature buffs. Her landscape varies from foggy oceanfronts, snow-peaked mountains, high desert gorges to Juniper forests. The land so diverse, yet the people so homogenous. Portland is the most White city in America. With 96% Caucasian, she is a stark contrast from California which is now 51% ‘people of color’.

On day five, I arrived at Grunge capital, Seattle Washington. This place is well equipped for endless rainy days. Young and casually hip, First Avenue is lined with cappuccinos, lattes and bookstores galore.

I met my oldest sister, Tanya for lunch. I had recently missed her wedding by two weeks. In Sumatra I received an email from her with details of a first date. By the time I returned from the jungle two weeks later, she was engaged to be married to Robert Schoen, a native Oregonian. I emailed her one month prior to let her know I was coming to meet her new husband and to drag them both up Mt. Ranier. (We didn’t make it to the summit, on the contrary we walked around the base and took lots of pictures.)

After driving 900 miles, my body was due for a walk in the woods. We chose Mount St. Helens, AKA ‘The Keeper of the Fire’ or Louwala-Clough. It was not exactly the woods; St. Helens, after 10,000 earthquake tremors, erupted in 1980 sending volcanic ash around the entire state. The woods were transformed into a cemetery of trees. Four billion tree trunks lay like Pickup Sticks for miles around the crater base. Hundreds of years will pass before regeneration. Logging is not all to blame for the uprooting of trees. Most of America’s 65 active volcanoes are in Alaska, so we don’t worry too much here in the Pacific Northwest.

After four days in Seattle I hit the road with 1000 miles to go.

Highway 87 along the Columbia River Gorge is yet another amazing drive with a forest on one side and the river on the other. I passed literally through Meltnoma Falls situated against the highway. I wound around Mount Hood and landed in the high desert. Cattle ranches and wheat fields passed me by. I crossed several bridges over grand canyons. Purple mountains made perfect backdrops to the sage bush. Coyotes sang on Warm Springs Reservation.

Walker Hollenbeck relocated from San Francisco to Bend, Oregon with his young gal, Eli Marchand. The whole time I knew Walker, he had been working at Cafe Trieste in Little Italy, known for its literary clientele. A rarity these days, he lived as a despondent Hemmingway-light. Walker grew up in Turkey, Pakistan and Morroco. As an adult he is a true Casanova with an old love for the bottle. A drifter, he is both off and on the road. Now, he found a country cabin, a dog-Duffy, a pickup, a sweetheart to join and a horse ranch to work on. ‘Congratulations,’ I told him when we said our good-byes.

Mountains in the distance serve as perfect destination marks. Driving around a bend, all of the sudden their face is right in front of your eyes. When she disappeared behind me, there was not too much else in the distance. I descended upon the valley. Golden hills rolled and farmland persisted despite the inundation of suburban tract homes and automotive dealers. When I approached Sacramento, my childhood town, I noticed nothing. But, I realized that outside her perimeter for hundreds of miles was country I held close to me and regarded as some of the most beautiful places I know.

I listened to Kurt sing, ‘Come As You Are’ for the 125th time. I picked up a Burrito Supreme to go and hoped that my last gallon would take me all the way ‘home’.