Tales From The Fourth Corner

Tulips and Forget-Me-Nots

I just got back from a visit to my hometown. The parents are well, the beaches are still fantastic, the place looks amazingly unchanged in the 20 years since I moved away. What a contrast to the Western Washington town I live in now. In 12 years Bellingham has turned from a stinky mill town with a college and some hippies to a greenway-infested condo-sporting yuppie paradise with 10,000 new neighbors. Thankfully the progressive scene is alive and well.

Anyway, while we were away I took a few snapshots with my ailing camera.

Indian Beach trail at Trinidad. The pack is filled with Steelhead Pale Ale. Yum.

There was quite a bit of hula hooping going on.

If you’ve gone down to the Redwoods you’ve seen the Trees of Mystery. Looks like someone needs to take Paul’s axe away.

The trees are bigger than average.

I’m working in the office downtown and it’s warm enough today to crack a window. Someone out on the street has been honking their horn constantly for the past 20 minutes or so. I finally looked out the window to see what was up and there is a pickup truck with a big chocolate lab in the driver’s seat. She’s honking the horn, barking out the cracked window, and clearly whining, “Where the fuck are you, master?”

Awesome.

The master had better return soon. She’s getting pissed.

I just finished this inspiring book:

Being Caribou by Karsten Heuer.

Karsten and Leanne are the two Canadians who followed the Porcupine Caribou Herd from the Yukon to their calving grounds on the Coastal Plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and back. On foot. They decided that following the Caribou migration full circle would help them understand the effect oil and gas development will have on the herd and everything else in that web of life that is existing in the “refuge.” It was also their honeymoon.

Their 5 month odessy made for a page turning wilderness adventure narrative complete with weather, bugs, grizzlies, raging rivers, physical exhaustion, birth and death. While pushing themselves to the limit physically and mentally, they also filmed a documentary with the same title. Very cool.

They brought a mini George W. Bush “action” figure with them, which was both funny and poignant if you see the film, but W. was absent from the book.

One of the most satisfying parts of the book for me was “watching” Karsten metamorphose from an intense and grumpy person at the beginning of the trip to someone more likeable to me as a reader. It was a pleasure to see all those “extra layers” we accumulate in our modern human life melt away and watch him relax into the moment. I don’t want to give away too much, but Karsten and Leanne really did become Caribou, tapping into a higher level of conciousness that is seldom experienced.

I had put both the book and video documentary on hold at the library and the movie came in first. I recommend starting with the book, because it’s so much more complete a picture of the journey.

P.S. Dr. Monkey, I was too shy to join the spring reading blog because while I have a reading addiction, I am very afraid of writing!

Alligator:0 Burmese Python:0

From the BBC:

The Burmese Python tried to swallow its fearsome rival whole but then exploded.

The remains of the two giant reptiles were found by astonished rangers in the Everglades National Park.

There are discarded pet Burmese Pythons thriving in the Everglades. This can’t be good.