Hey Marcus. I guess I haven't done this in a while because after I got the new password from you, I went to the wrong email address. It still let me log in, but it informed me that I didn't have a blog (Oh how right they are). However, after going through all of your emails since March I finally figured it out. You'll get a response from me soon, but I'm spending Father's Day with my dad today. Gotta start mustering up the courage to drive out of Kern County so I can be there before 4. I figured I should post this for your readers, because it serves as a great update on your travels. Hooray, you've actually traveled now. Now I must travel too.

Houston

Houston,

Glad to be back in touch with you.  I wasn't sure whether perhaps your hermitage had become permanent this time.

Yes, I am approaching the end of my first trimester.  Time in the chrysalis is moving slowly.  The first week of travels - before my time in Sacramento - in which I did a lot of walking down highways, seems like ages ago.  I never really wrote much about that time.  Maybe if I am on a trimester-system it will circle back around and I'll be coming up on another Walkabout shortly.  

Since leaving Sacramento almost four weeks ago, I've been with people for most of my waking hours.  I've done a good job of being present in the moment with the people I find myself in the company of.  The conundrum of this is that it goes against the practice of writing to always be present in the moment.  As far as I can tell, the act of writing requires one to withdraw from the moment from time to time to reflect upon the past or to go into an alternate world of characters and situations.

Even when I have had the time, spotty internet reception along the coast and technological issues have prevented me from writing much.

However, here at my Uncle's place on Whidbey Island I have been remembering my dreams once again.  I think a lot of it has to do with just waking up alone again, for the first time since Sacramento.  I've been traveling with people since then, sharing small motel rooms or - in most cases - a bus.

Ah, the bus.  Here's how that happened:

First off:  Avenue had gotten ahold of me while I was in Sacramento to let me know she was going to San Francisco to visit a friend and that they would be traveling to Mount Shasta.  She said I could come along if I'd like.

This was just what the doctor ordered.  I'd been in Sacramento for so long, obsessing over the attempt to write about my dreams in a way that could make the reader see them in all their multi-dimensional, shape-shifting glory.  I needed someone to throw me a life-line, even though I hadn't finished that project.  

As it turned out, Avenue's friend was unable to travel.  I'd been considering re-routing my path North to the coastal route - traveling along the ocean is much easier than traveling inland via google - and Avenue's Shasta-host had to cancel, so she was down to head NW from Sacramento.

We explored the Mendocino Coast for a few days.  On one of those days, the annular eclipse occurred.  We watched it from a rocky beach near the City of Westmont that was overrun with all-terrain vehicles.  Cloud-cover kept us from seeing the moment of the moon's partial blockage of the sun, but for about an hour, the beach and the surrounding cliffs and hills were bathed in the most strange, unearthly light.  Sand, rocks, and ocean all became new shades of color that reveal themselves too rarely to be named.  Definitely a novel experience.

Avenue has been training in a method of energy healing that has some similarities to Reiki.  The night before we parted ways, she tried it out on me.  With her hands on my shoulders, she closed her eyes and opened herself up to whatever wisdom or intelligence might be in her field, and spoke of what she saw and what was communicated to and through her.  

The first thing she said was "I'm seeing a Tyrannosaurus Rex" - so I knew that this was going to be interesting.  I wish I had taken notes or something, but she reported a lot of fascinating things.  At one point, she said mentioned an uncle of mine - calling him by his name, preceded by the title of Uncle - and stated that he had "won."  I haven't contacted anyone to ask about if anything significant might have happened in his life around that time, but Avenue had no prior knowledge of me having an uncle by that name.

She also asked a lot of direct questions regarding me to whatever spirits or energies she encountered.  I was instructed to "Let go;" to "Be quiet;" to "relax."  She was told, to my surprise, that my spirit animal is a dolphin.  Later, I did some google research on animal-totems and found this:

"Native American Dolphin Legend

In a Native American legend, Dolphin was swimming in Great Mother’s sea while Grandmother Moon was weaving the tides’ rhythms. She asked him to learn her patterns so he could open his feminine nature. He began to swim with her rhythm and learned to breathe in a new manner. Dolphin entered the Dreamtime, a place that was alien to him.

Dolphin discovered new cities and learned a new language that was sound, brought by Grandmother Spider from the Great Star Nation. He returned to the sea of the Great Mother and was sad until he saw his friend, Whale, who told him that he could return to the Dreamtime whenever he wanted. Dolphin became the messenger between the dwellers of the Dreamtime and the children of the Earth so they could be one with the Great Spirit."

I can dig it.

There were so many other interesting things she saw and spoke of.  The Tyrannosaurs returned, joined by Brontosauri.  There was a scene of a tree, painted by a child, with birds and a community of people within it's branches.  Something about wolves.  A basketball game, viewed from up in the nosebleeds, then ascension up and into the big blue sky.  It was all quite dream-like.

The next morning, at 11 am, she drove South and I began to walk North on PCH.  Aside from stopping from time to time to take photographs of wildflowers, the coast, and the coastal hills and woods of Mendocino (and a brief lunch-stop at a grocery store/deli), I walked for the next nine hours.

At about 6:45 pm, PCH turned East into the Redwoods.  I'd been told by the girl who made my sandwich at my lunch stop that it was a long way to the next town, but I didn't feel like trying to brave the cold of the beach in my sleeping bag, so I decided to head into the woods and just see what would come.  I had enough water to get me through to morning if I ended up having to walk through the night.

At a little after 8 pm I passed a sign that said it was 15 miles to the next town.  I'd already walked at least a Marathon since morning, and I was thinking of just finding a meadow to crash in, and covering myself with a tarp to try to keep the mosquitos from eating me.  The walk through the woods from the coast had been a steady uphill climb.  Cars passed by rarely - every couple of minutes.  A semi-truck rolled by in the direction I was heading, and I thought to myself "A truck driver would be likely to pick me up around here if I was hitchhiking."

I'm not sure if I've told you my thoughts on hitchhiking during this trip.  It is an extension of my mantra, "relinquish control."  I've figured that to hitchhike is to assert control over an adventure that seems to unfold in more interesting ways if I stay out of the way; however, I'd take a ride if it was offered.

Anyway, about 10 minutes after that first truck, I thought I heard another one approaching.  I was starting to feel pretty dog-ass tired, and was about to stick out my thumb but then decided to stick to my guns instead.  I didn't turn around to look at the truck as it passed.

But it wasn't a truck.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a short black bus pull over.  "You want a ride?"  I looked to my right and saw a smiling young man with wavy brown hair sticking his head out the driver's side window.

"Yeah, that would be great!" I yelled back at him.  As I jogged to the back of the bus to go around to the passenger side, I gave the thing a once over.  It was what we used to call a "short bus," the kind that was known to take the special-needs kids to school.  The thing was mostly painted black, with some swirls of orange and yellow paint here and there.  There were also some large stickers with the names of snowboarding companies.  

Around on the passenger side, through some open windows, I saw another guy getting up and walking towards the front of the bus to open the doors.  The double doors opened, and out came a white, wolf-like dog.

"Pat, aqui!" Called the driver.  "Pat, back in the bus" called the other guy, as I petted Pat.

I got on the bus, thanked the guys and nodded to them, and sat in a chair in front of what looked like a full-sized orange couch running along the passenger-side from the rear of the bus.

Collin was the driver; Pierre was the guy who had let me in.  They did not work for a snowboarding company; rather they had purchased the bus from a kid who had, who they'd taught to zip-line at their former jobs as zip-lining instructors in Maine.  They'd set out from their around the Winter Solstice and had headed South along the Atlantic, then through the Southern States.  They were circling the country.  Today was Tuesday, May 22nd.  They had to be back in Maine for the wedding of Collin's brother in about a month.

They were headed for the Northwest.  Funny, that's where I was heading too.

Collin was upbeat, positive, and talkative.  A musician - trained as an upright bassist - who fell in love with Afro Cuban music and has a passionate belief in the rhythm and the way of the clave.

Pierre was quiet and watchful.  I didn't get much of a feel for his personality for several days, but could instantly appreciate the role that he played: Since Collin was the gracious and gregarious host, Pierre stayed in the background and got a feel for this new guy on the bus.  

From that moment to the end of my three weeks traveling with these two young men, I maintained a fascination with regard to their personalities and the way they found a balance as travel partners by moving to opposite ends of the spectrum.

That first night I spent "on the bus," Pierre made delicious vegetarian wraps for us to eat, with Tofurkey, onions, pesto, goat cheese, dijon mustard, broccoli and hot sauce.  Pierre had cooked up the Tofurkey and onions on a little propane stove.  The guys told me that they pretty much made all their own meals right on the bus, and that they ate vegetarian.  

The next morning, I woke up to Pierre telling Collin about an intense dream he'd had.  The two of them were at the beach, and a couple of bears came ashore from the ocean.  One bear picked up a travel partner of theirs and looked to be ready to eat him, so Pierre and Collin each ran out to a bear and jumped upon it to do battle.

Pierre was struggling with the bear, and wondered how he was going to defeat it; until he looked over at Collin, who was cleaning out the skull of the bear he had fought in the ocean.  This emboldened Pierre, who began tearing at the bears face and jaw, to rip it apart.

Collin and Pierre now had new names.  Collin Bear's Bane and Pierre Bear Slayer.  They wrapped themselves in the skins of the slain bears and adorned themselves with their teeth and bones.  This is how they would proceed for the rest of their travels.

I listened to Pierre recount his dream; awestruck.  I'd stuck to my guns, and taken the ride that was offered rather than asking for it.  I'd given in to fate, and fate had delivered me onto the bus of a couple of vegetarian dream-enthusiasts.  

I was exactly where I was supposed to be, no doubt about it.

I'd like to tell you more about my adventures with Collin and Pierre, but this is a good place to leave off for now.

Thanks for getting back in contact.  As I said, finding the time to write has been difficult, and it is always hard for me to know where to begin when so much of the story has gone untold.  But it always makes it easier to just tell it to you, since we've been pen-pals for so long now.

Oh, and yes, I did get to see the Kings game six victory, which brought them the Stanley Cup.  I watched it by myself in a bar called "Flyers" in Oak Harbor, but I felt like I was watching the whole thing with my Dad, a longtime sports writer who is now retired but who sat in the Press Box and covered the Kings for more than 20 years and has been their number one fan for most of their 45 years of existence.

Take care, Houston.

Marcus