Going Home

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
---William Henry Davies, “Leisure”

There have been longer trips. There have been trips more challenging. There have been few that have been as peaceful and fun. La Coachasita provided some moments of concern but returns in good shape with only small wounds to remind me of this northwest adventure.

I saw old friends, old places, and new places, met new characters, had excellent weather and except for the one storm, it remained warm until the end… As I left the Redwood Coast on Wednesday there was frost on the ground and the cold weather was clearly coming. The wind that had been suspiciously absent most of the trip was up, and it felt colder than it probably really was.

It was time to move south. My last stop was in the Santa Yenez Mountains behind Santa Barbara for three nights. It is a favorite place where at migratory birds from eagles hawks, ducks on the lake, and song birds to numerous to catalogue or name can be seen this time of year. The weather turned warm on the last day as the clocks changed and it seemed a good time to go home.

The trip plan, as the poet said, was to find a place I liked “to stand and stare.” It is good for the body and the soul, something we should all do now and then. I have seen television once in six weeks, read two newspapers and generally turned down the cacophony of the appliances of the world to find the serenity that can come with such silence. It would seem I missed little except the continuing saga the news reports of things there when I left and some boy who was and then wasn’t in a balloon somewhere in the Midwest and two Continental Airline pilots-- now former pilots-- who forgot they were en route to Minneapolis.

It is nice to have such wonderful weather to end the trip. Surprising this large and now green park due to the six inches of rain last week is quiet. The fishermen are at the lake for the day, but the campground is largely unused.

There are exceptions. An LA flock of four thirty somethings in a motor home and a trailer arrived on Friday, unloaded two mountain bikes, four bicycles, a remote control plane and a kite of vast proportions. They are affable bunches who yet wear their wireless phone devices even while kite flying. I am not sure have ever seen so many toys come with four people who have spent the last two days either sitting and laughing, or sitting and eating. I was fully prepared for more noise than I thought I would find necessary but so far they have collapsed into the arms of Morpheus early and remained there late. I will no doubt wake them all when I pull out tomorrow from across the wide road here.

The only other constant companions until today was a man and wife who, so far as I could tell, never uttered a word while in camp, insisted on parking in the space next to me (there were many others available) and were actually in the park and awake or out doors for perhaps six hours in two days. At about one today, I came back from the lake and found they had gone. This is not the sort of place that attracts those who park and go off to see the sights. This is the sight they come to see usually as it is miles from any town. While here and out, he wore a sweatshirt advertising a tattoo parlor, a straw hat and smoked a large cigar. When they arrived, she remained in the truck until trailer had been parked and arranged. When it was done, she ambled in and an hour later they left and returned around midnight.

Somehow, this seems all the confirmation I need that I am back in Southern California.

Home will be a good place to be tomorrow. Thank you all for coming on this rather short—for me at least—trip of 2200 miles. I have enjoyed your company, your e-mails and posts on the blog. Spring is the next significant trip with a book to publish between now and then. I will be going I am certain, where is yet a question. North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains have only been cursorily explored and that is in my mind now.

But much will happen between now and then, so we shall see.

There will be pictures later and perhaps some words over the winter. I hope you all stay well and stay in touch.

THE FAIRY TALE ENDS

The will be no championship in Anahiem this year. The Los Angeles Angels of Anahiem lost the American League Championship to the New York Yankees in the sixth game in the first hour of this morning Eastern Daylight Time.

The Angels had won two of the three games played in California and nearly forced a seventh and deciding game in New York. Shortly after huge clock in the outfield struck midnight and while over 50,000 people in the stadium held their collective breath, Gary Matthews Jr., the son of a former major leaguer, took one last mighty swing.

He missed.

"This was a special group," Mike Scioscia their manager said after it was over, "but they were the better team. " Mike reflected on a reporters question about the long season and said that he will not soon forget this group, what they had fought through this remarkable season full of injuries, losing streaks, and a tragedy most had never experienced in their young lives that was so much larger than the game these men play. They are gone now, this team that carried Nick Adenhart's memory and his jersey forward every day and wherever they went all year. Many will leave for other teams and more money, others will be traded, some will retire, and some will come back. As a group, as of today, it no longer exists and will never be together again.

That's baseball.

Eight months ago, in Tempe Arizona, in the warm sun of late February, more than 100 men and boys came together in their odd three-quarter length pants. Scioscia's immediate task was to fashion a team of 25 of them that would stay together through the next eight months as a team and win. There were questions. There was not enough pitching.The remarkable first baseman from last year was gone. The wondrous right fielder with the improbable Russian and Latino name of Vladamir Guerrero, now older and more than a step slower still wanted to play everyday. The gentlemanly left fielder, Garret Anderson, the soul of the franchise in the view of many fans was gone, traded in his last years because he too was now more hitter than fielder. This is the way of baseball. The ebb and flow, the kids and the veterans, the greats, the nearly greats, and the never will be either one, who come to the valley every year. It is up to the Scioscia and the coaches on this team as it is on all the teams there and in Florida to sift through them and decide who stays an who goes and who plays and who sits. A team's complex mixture of chemistry, mental toughness.,and physical ability is an erector set that must be constructed in these busy early days of spring in the desert. It is done in the talented minds of the coaches, instructors, scouts, and ultimately the manager.

When they came away in late March, there were still troubling issues for Scioscia and his staff. There were questions that could only now be answered during the season in the sometimes grim grind of the 164 game schedule in six months before them. The pundits said that the Texas Rangers were good enough to beat this team and win the Division this year. The sardonic Scioscia, as highly respected a manager as there is in the league, gave the stock answer, "We'll see. That's why we play the games."

The bad things came early. Injury plagued the regulars, Scioscia struggled to find others to fill the holes and give them a chance to keep winning while the others healed. He found the answers in odd places. The rookie fist baseman did all he was asked to and more making last years loss of Mark Teixeria (ironically to the Yankees) seem less problematic. Young Erick Aybar became an outstanding shortstop. Pitchers who had been ordinary, became very good. John Lackey took the ball every fifth day and won or kept them in the game. He became the definition of what baseball calls a "stopper," a pitcher who does not let a two game losing streak become three. Then Nick Adenhart was lost to a tragedy so unlikely the team first spiraled and then made him their inspiration for the rest of the year. After his death the team lost a lot until reminded by Scioscia, in an emotional team meeting, that Nick would have expecteded more of them. They apparently agreed and won 23 of their next 30 games and kept going, with Nick's jersey with them always, even doused with champagne when they won the Western Division.Tori Hunter, the young, strong, and remarkable center fielder and team spokesman who had helped Nick acclimate to the major leagues, now made it his personal goal to win the World Series so that Nick's family would have a championship ring.

Yet on this chilled night in New York, eight months and 171 games after they began their quest, they came up short, because they met a team that was better, that had its own inspiration, chemistry, superb pitching, and better hitting to defeat them. There is no shame in that.

They were a special group with a special goal and tried as hard as their talent would allow to reach it. That they failed is not the point. That they tried, and came that close is what should make them proud. They had banished the Boston Red Sox in three straight games to get here. They came within two victories of doing with lesser talent but perhaps greater emotion, what they set out to do when they had gathered those many months before in the Valley of the Sun and were molded into this group that lived, laughed and cried together for the past eight months.

They are gone now. The locker where Nick Adenhart's uniform and baseball cleats resided these last 171 games is gone too. Next year, Mike Scioscia will find a new group waiting for him in Arizona. From them, some from this year, some from trades, some from free agent signings, and others from the minor leagues, he must put the right pieces in the right places once again. It will be a new group, with new talents and new chemistry. He and his staff will mold them, motivate them to overcome the shortcomings of this year and try again to somehow reach that which eluded this year's "special" group by so small a margin.

That's why they play the games.



Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.


From"Casey at the Bat"--- by Ernest Thayer, June 3, 1888, The San Francisco Chronicle

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT


The days and nights spent in the cathedral of the trees and in proximity to the crashing surf, the song birds and the boxing matches among the voles and squirrels are done on the magnificent coast. It is time to move on to new, different things . There was one more memorable morning of fog that lay on the water allowing the rocks to peek above it into the bright sun above. It is a beautiful sight, spiritual in its way and a good way to remember the serenity I have enjoyed.




When Monday arrived it was time to move inland. In order to do that one goes south back to California and the Northeast up U.S. 199 to Grants Pass through groves of Redwoods in the Jedediah Smith National Forest. It was a lovely day once one left the overcast of the coast. As the road winds upward, the weather cools even in the brightening sun. Fall colors are everywhere. The leaves are red and yellow and the rivers one crosses are teeming with salmon . It is time for the fall spawning run. It is an amazing sight. The crystal clear deep pools hold the fish until they are ready to go up the next rapids. One supposes they rest.




After lunch at the side of the road in a park placed here for contemplation of these sights, the ever valiant La Coachasita takes us into Grants Pass and we are suddenly confronted with strip malls, civilization, cars, and people, far more cars than I have seen in awhile. While the life on the coast has hardly been monkish, everyone here seems to be in a hurry. For nearly two weeks, there hasn't been anything to hurry about and now I hurry just to get out of their way.




Once at Grants Pass, it is a short ride down the highway to the Valley of the Rogue State Park. It is a delightful open park like place with fall color all about and plentiful wildlife. The Rouge River runs through it. The Coho Salmon climb the rapids near the campsite and one could probably stand there all day and watch them. I am puzzled by the absence of predators, yet realize the houses nearby and the proximity to the Interstate probably make other areas more desirable, There is a grazing area that draws deer in the evening just before dusk.




My lack of plans are often as much an enemy as a friend especially in area I have covered often before. It leads to thoughts of the trip south and which way to go. I spend the first morning pouring over maps and campsite information looking for a new way, give up after I get an idea where I will be through the weekend, and decide it is too nice a day to spend doing this and go out. My nearest neighbors are nearly always walking. They are accompanied by three dachshunds, all related, the youngest of which is 12. The dogs seem to have parade training as they always seem to be walking in step. They all live just north of Yosemite now that they are retired and are pleasant companions who point out they best vantage points along the river and the best places to see the deer that come down to feed.

This is a different world and I will be here but a while and then back to the Redwood Coast for a few days before going east again and then south. The weather will stay clear if cooler until then.

That's fine. It will give my rain suit time to dry out.