This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

Redwoods

Posted by ehren

Humboldt State University, part of the Cal State system (Chico, S.L.O., etc), is a liberal equivalent of Bob Jones University. I admit that I would probably be completely creeped out by BJU's campus, constantly on alert for Christian fundamentalist bodysnatchers; Therefore, I shouldn't begrudge a Young Republican who might wander onto HSU's plaza only to run screaming for the hills. Imagine South Park's Cartmann tossing and turning in fitful sleep, pursued in nightmarish dreams by "Hippies... hippies everywhere.... they say they want to save the world but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad..."

Both schools are extreme educational extensions of certain political and philosophical ideas, and both need unique and fairly homogenous environments in order to survive as is. Both are supported by wider national nets of like-mindedness eager to prove that, in fact, their ideas are correct because they have produced viable functioning communities. Both schools have their share of zealots and fanatics. I vote for the Democrats, so far, but my main problem with both distant ends of the political spectrum is that they neglect to consult SCIENCE when coming to policy conclusions. Insisting on creation in schools, a divine-right foreign policy, and shackling stem cell research? Dumb. But so is any structure built on a foundation of Earth-mother spiritualism, invisible flows of willful energy, and technological primitivism. It's fine if 5% of the population wants to live off the land in idealistic communes, but if everybody tried to do that tens of millions would die in the first winter.

The area's main industry is logging, so in addition to a traditional Townie Vs. Student gripe one sees evidence of a larger clash of worlds. Eureka, according to the few Arcata residents I talked to, is a logging community whose core is decaying due to heroin and chrystal meth; a downward spiral aided by a conspicuous lack of unprotected old growth forest in the area. Marijuana production apparently also has an enormous impact on the economy of the area, leaving H.S.U. a distant third in clout. Our barstool friends John and Megan shared a few anecdotes about that strange world under the town. The growers are aided by the impossible terrain, but fight a constant battle against detection. Aircraft carrying infrared cameras have driven the major efforts literally underground in the rocky soil, but of late it seemed to John that enforcement had slipped. At least, harvest time flyovers seem more rare.

We relocated the bus a half mile from downtown (the far light-industrial outskirts, on the edge of a marsh) for dinner. Miro walked back in around 8:30, and I worked for an hour before trying to find him. He was busy sharing pastry recipies with one of the dredlocked street dwellers, and I talked to a few others in the group in the meantime. Perhaps half of them were lucid. A quarter of the rest were high on something, pupils wide and black, and the other quarter were burnt minds, on an everlasting trip.

We made our way to the only bar in town with a cover ($4) and enjoyed the two and a half sets of a jam band from Santa Cruz. There were a tight group, and would have had a much bigger crowd, but exams start on Monday. Miro chatted up John and Megan, who both write software for the import/export business and live in Oakland. John was reticent about implementing a system with RFID tags that would replace 90% of the shipyard clerks. I asked him what the union thought about that, and he said it would probably be an exciting summer.

After leaving the first place fairly late we popped in to a few of the other, more heavily undergraduate bars. It's here where my memory gets a bit fuzzy, but I do remember talking to a guy with an MIT sweatshirt and an odd corduroy hat:

Me: "Hey, where'd you get the sweatshirt?"
Dude: "I got it on eBay. I like MIT."
Me: "Did you go there?"
Dude: "No, I just like it. I like CalTech too. Have you heard of that school?"
Me: "Yeah, I have. So what do you like about them?"
Dude: "I like physics."
Me: "Do you study physics here?"
Dude: "No, I used to, for a couple years. I've...come to my own understanding of the universe, I think. I got to a point where I liked the way I thought about physics, so I stopped there."
Me: "I see. I guess I can understand that."
Dude: "Hey, do you know about computer chips?"
Me: "Yeah, I know some stuff about them."
Dude: "At the lowest level, do you know how they work?"
Me: "Well at the lowest levels usually they're made up of some kind of semiconductor gate made out of silicon. At least, that's what I remember. Why do you ask?"
Dude: "Oh, I knew that. I just wanted to see if you knew that."
Me: "Gotcha...Are you at Humboldt now?"
Dude: "Well, right now I'm in fashion school in L.A."
Me: "That's a big change."
Dude: "Yeah. I'm going to call my clothing line 'Space.' I'll put all the stuff I like about space and science into it.
Me: "Are you going to put stuff like fiber optics and LEDs and wearable computer devices into your clothes?"
Dude: "Yeah, exactly. I mean, once I get money to do it with. Space is really awesome."
Me: "It sure is."

In the morning I finally got a hold of Client S.P.E.C.T.R.E., we grabbed a little more internet, and drove north into redwood country. We stopped in Redwood National Park at the visitor's center, parked the bus down a trailhead spur, and hiked up 2 miles along the road to the Lady Bird Johnson Grove. The bus was of no use on the 17 degree grade (!!!). The trees were really, really big. Very large...As you would expect. Every time I looked at them I was surprised at how astonishingly huge they were. It's like trying to describe the Himalayas ("They're very tall. And covered in snow and sharp rocks.") or the Mississippi ("It's very wide. And brown. Sometimes there are barges"). I wonder if the first explorer to enter the area thought he was shrinking, with nothing to compare himself to aside from the trees and giant ferns and giant milkweed plants.

Miro and I shared the misanthropic hope that one of the trees would fall down while we were there, because it would be very exciting, but nothing like that happened. On the walk down the road we noticed no fewer than 4 cars, broken and bent in the roadside chasms.

We drove to an adjacent state park to camp. I backed the bus into a tree stump and crushed the front wheels of both our bicycles. After 5,000 miles of accident-free driving, starting over at 0. The site didn't come with an electrical hookup and we were too far from the hose spigot, so during the evening the batteries finally ran dead after 6 days of consistent use and travel. The alternator does what it can to recharge the batteries, but fights a losing battle.

We invited the adjacent campers over to get out of the rain (they had a tent but at the time were taking shelter in their Toyota). They're beginning a 3 month tour of the country, so we traded tips; They told us about Washington and British Columbia and Alberta, and we returned the favor for California and New Mexico.

We watched "10 Things I Hate About You" (continuing in the vein of teen movies culled from a stack of CDs given to us by Wexler, whose cinematic tastes are now considered to be quite suspect), and Miro started watching Starship Troopers until his laptop battery ran out while I went for a walk in the dark mist before thinking too often of bears and mountain lions.

Today I finished "Cherokee Trail" by Louis L'Amour, started "Assembling California" by John McPhee, went for a run through the redwoods, made lunch, worked for an hour, wrote letters, rescued a swallow that flew in and was trapped next to the windshield, and I'm now noticing it's 5 already.