this trip was something of an experiment. I wanted to test the workabiliy of essentially walking in a direction, trying impromptu forms of transit and accomodation and see how many things I could see on a budget. I wanted to move slow enough to wittness the culture, geography, and weather shift. I wanted a little to see if the spirit of karoack was still alive.
on a scale of realistic to romantic id have to admit that the experiment fell on the grounded side, and that ground would've been better traversed with an automobile.

walking: you will either be on the unpleasant shoulder of a highway or abandoned drearily to long miles through unpopulated wilderness and wasteland.

hitchhiking: died off some time after Karoack did. if your time is worth literally nothing you might like this method, and though I met a couple locals this way- a rarity in the rest of my trip- it really got me almost nowhere in a long time.

busses: pretty affordable in the states. certainly close to what you would pay for gas in your own car. I rode greyhound, amtrak and bolt. the cheapest runs are the longhauls betwwn cities, so tbe nature of it is tbat you miss lots of interesting in the mean.

train: loved the train. same issue as the bus in that you skip stuff seen better by car, but the view from a train can exceed the highway by a long shot and they are immensely more comfortable than a bus, plane and even most automobiles. have a drink. take a walk. enjoy.

local transit: time consuming to navigate but often the best way to see a city. I found San francisco to be the easiest network, though it might have lacked the glitz of a light rail- which it seems some cities only put in so they can say they have one.

Venice beach wittnessed the formation of the doors as well as the emergence ofJanes Addiction- but that was some time ago now, and I'm not sure if that is really even supposed to mean much to me.
Its a nice beach, sure enough.
But it doesn't seem to inspire me. I don't "want to be in LA", Beverly Hills is not "where I want to be" and I don't wish that all of them "were california girls"- whatever that meant.
They comb the beach in the morning to sweep up the garbage off the beach... I'm glad it gets so much use, but I sure am glad I knoww of some beaches which never need to be raked.

Tat sleeves, lanky, a well-kept black mohawk: a metro punk. That's my initial profile. Well spoken, intelligent, kind: upon his opening a conversation with me. As I began to return his niceties with questions, I illicited information about his past career which far outstripped mine in interest.
Anton had grown up with a Greek (and Greek Orthodox) Motheer who had migrated from Qubec, and with a father, who I took to be Italian, (and Roman Catholic) in Sanfrancisco;s Little Italy- a stone throw from Chinatown. Thus he had political dual citizenship, religious dual schismship (if you see what I just did there) and was naturally aware of cultural diversity.
When I told him where I Hailed from he told me he loved it, that if he were to live in another city on basis of its own merits, that victoria would top the list. Considerable, esspecially considering he;d been around.
Anton received his masters of divinity from a Roman Catholic institution in New orleans before beccoming a monk in a monestary in Athos for what he said was "many years", though this confused me, because he didn't look so much older than me. In time he decided to study eastern traditions by living at their monestaries, and as an ambassador on behalf of his tradition. Now he was a lay monk, living back in his home city of San Francisco- a place I wonder if he;d ever left in spirit.
He was my tourguide through his old backyard of chinatown, and as he took me into, first a bhuddist, and then a dowist shrine (forgive me if that's the wrong term) he revealed that his immerrsion to an understanding of these traditions dated to his childhood there. He would never leave San Francisco for Victoria on basis of its own merit, not while this was his home- I could tell that. For me Anton will personify what I liked best about his city.
That night he called out spanish names in a impromptu game of bingo in the pub next to the hostel. And as he did I heard him laugh to his friend, the bartender, how there was something absurd about someone, with his mdiv, repeating mispronounced spanish phrases.
like a trained parrot, in a game of bingo, for a few people, in some hole in the city's
many walls. And yet, he came back, continuing his aside a few minutes later.
"And yet this is actually one of my favorite things to do!"
I Wish I knew more of Antons story. I wish i could ask him questions for hours, but San Francisco itself, those answers would not be rendered for a mere passer-through.
Yes, you may see the smile genuine on my face, but you may not know why I smile.
a beauty of diversity. no gloss. no charms.
a trueness to joy, to self as a gift for others joy.to be the part of a mosaic. its ok to go home if that feeds you, for perhaps that is what defines it in large part- even the simplest and the smallest of joys.

Sure, I had been fortunate to find the trail at all, but at least I was getting off the beaten path.
My pack is extraordinarily heavy. I must find a way to lighten it without throwing e?xtra items into the old growth forest- that wouldn't seem right. 900 feet above sea level and the trail is still flooded. How?!
When I find the bivoaks in the woods I resign to a lonely and dreary night in the misty ancient forage, that is until Adam and Tina show up, all californian and sprightly. Just thought we would hike in and see the lighthouse on our way up the coast. Ok Ill join you. Only a few more strides down the trail takes us to a creepy old barred doorway. Adam insists we must find a way inside, which we do, to my initial dismay. Once inside, Adam turns to me to shake my hand, introduces himself. Just in case we are about to die, he explains.
70 years ago this was a ww2 radar station, we will learn later. Its interesting to consider, that along with the war sites and retired equipment in museums or turned into tour stops, there are also those like this, which are slowly and surely. being taken back by the forest. Maybe 70 more years from now it will be forgotten, but those lucky few who find it as a relic will not forget it.
Adam and Tina drifted back up the path they came from so as to get back to their car before dark. But a few minutes later Adam came back and handed me his email and phone number, in case I was in his neighbourhood.
While memories fade, Impressions leave tracers, to find our way back, with new ones.

On a road between forlorn brick industrial shops, beside an old railway track, under a new overpass and scattered about by the odd street tent, lies an otherwise ignored road. So ignored, in fact, that the last time it was paved it was done without thinking that the cobblestone underneath the new overlay wasn't worth seeing again.
And yet, the pavement upgrade has now worn away by the years of hard use and revealed the cobble shining clean and uncompromising beneath. The remaining makeover now simply imitates sand being washed helplessly over sea-side-sapphire, before being washed back into the greatness of time.

I'm reading a book from a guest lecturer I had last year in one of my classes. His book is called "the small heart of things" and in it he suggests that

Place has a profound bearing upon our lives, from the countries we are born into, or end up inhabiting, to the light, landscape, and weather peculiar to our home regions. Each has a say in shaping our cultures and our souls

He quotes from artist Alan Gussow:

The catalyst that converts any physical location-any environment if you will- into a place, is a process of experiencing deeply. A place is a piece of a whole environment that has been claimed by feelings. Viewed simply as a life support system, the earth viewed as a resource that sustains our humanity, the earth is a collection of places

The concept of self-determination as a value and thereby our pro-view to borders defining nationhoods, plays into our politically correct neurosis that some geography belongs to the ethnicity which has the longer or stronger claim to it. The very reality that the longer culture is attached to where they call home, has validity for the very fact that for them it likely feels more like home. But does it hold that someone else might approach that geography and find something of themselves in it from a different relationship?

Everyone wants to be an initiate. And home is an important idea.

But the pavement rubs away, and Identities shift like tectonic plates. Earthquakes come and remind us we are moments, lucky to witness a re-ordering. Nature, and humans, adapt. And something about that is strangely comforting. That this story goes on. And maybe we play a valuable part.

"Want one?" asks Brian, the tenacious 5 year old standing, duck-dynasty backpack laden- next to his quietly smiling mother at the bus stop. He offers me a chip.
"Can I have some water?" he asks when he discovers the bottle hanging off a caribeaner on my backpack. His mother nods, and I try to teach him how a caribeaner works to get the bottle off.
"How old are you?" he asks accusingly.
"How old do you think I am, I answer predictably.
"I don't know" he return squeakily. Then marks out my height with 8 inch intervals of his hand, counting them off.
"one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine... You're NINE years old?!" he half asks, half declares.

On the bus to Tilamook Brian apologizes needlessly to the bus driver for eating chips on the bus. In the back a drawling roadworn pilgrim named John calls out "Yeah, you BETTER stop eating on the bus, or else we gonna THROW you off at da next STOP."
Brian glares at him through the seat divisions, finally cracking under a few more teases.
"No!" he yells, "And if you say that one more time, I'll throw YOU off the bus."
"Oh meen, I'M sorry. I didn't mean nothin by it. I'm just jokin but I'll stop now. Don't throw ME off the bus."
"Well I'm not joiking either" Brian continues, "Go ahead and see what happens!"
This was escalating nicely! Unfortunately the altercation was interupted when a former street kid from LA got on the bus next to John and noticed the tree schulptures John was making from copper wire as he travelled.
"That's really cool" comments LA Streets. "I;'ve seen this kind of stuff before. You're really good at it." LA Streets pauses, "Can you make scorpions"

In a small town enroute a girl gets on the bus, no more than 40, she is by far the most attractive person on the bus now. She moves to sit beside LA Streets. I'm sorry, you can't sit there" Streets flirts unsuccessfully. An awkward exchange later Streets realizes that his city charm and humour has failed him.
"I was just kidding" He surrenders.
"you can sit here."
They proceed to chat. John gets talking to me again. Brian is pacified by chips he managed to hustle off another bus-rider.
And the road goes on.

First people I get talking to at the Portland Hostel ask me where I'm from- this is after we were pleased to find some common ground over humor and music. Imagine the commonality of travelers otherwise far flung! When I said, Victoria, she said, Victoria Canada? When I said yes, they said, oh, us too. Same university in fact. Same Friggin classrooms. A few days later I stumble out of a long and isolated hike into the beautiful Oregon Tourist destination of Cannon Beach. I find a burger joint fast, order, and sit down next to someone who was not only from my city, my university, and my same field of study, but obviously knew a couple of my good friends.
Somehow its comforting that I'm still at one degree of separation.

Getting out the door can be the hard part. The door, in my case, being my own neighborhood- a vicinity I'm not sure I've yet perforated. I spent two days on a gulf island, playing disk golf and mucking around in the rain. The plan was to cross back into Sidney to take the ferry to Anacortes- camp in a park there, etc. I realized, after hanging around the decrepit and abandoned terminal long enough, that the ferry wasn't running. Only runs seasonally i discovered. About turn. I grew up in this town, watching the ferry come and go (forming a fantasy that someday I'd escape on it). Instead I found myself mucking through a flooded trail as I took a detour on the way to Schwartz bay again. Everything was screaming abandonment before I even left the blindly familiar. Like a bad dream where i can't get out. A part of me wants to wake up in my bed with the revived ability to choose to leave and then not choose to. Such is the nature of some dreamers. And I am something of one. But I made the ferry and escaped my shire. I've been spinning the tires. Time to pop the clutch.