Last night we encountered several lost Garberville souls.  Some muttered to themselves.  An unsteady young man asked for money for flashlight batteries.  He accepted instead a half loaf of fresh bread.

This morning we looked around the rainy town.  It’s only a few streets wide.

We followed Locust Street past a “Dead End” sign.  The end was dead, but not as we expected.

Nothing beats a cemetery for giving us perspective.  Nothing made by humans, anyway.

But nature is the best teacher.  If geology and astronomy are too remote to keep you humble, how about redwood trees?

Here I am, sitting on a redwood burl, atop Jeffrey’s hunter’s vest so I’m easier to spot.

Redwood trees are big.  They last.  We are small.  We don’t.

We stopped to see exhibits on local ecology and history.  A featured item was the restoration of Charles Kellogg’s 1917 Travel-Log, a motor home made from a hollow redwood mounted on a 1914 Nash truck.

Rachel and Debbie work at the visitors’ center.

Jeffrey mentioned the Ride.  Rachel and Debbie knew of injustices such as sending children to immigration court without a lawyer, but didn’t know the reasons.  Now they understand.

Our new friends said that today would be relatively safe for biking because heavy rain keeps tourists off the scenic road.  They were right.  We pedaled 11 miles.  Only 3 cars and one big truck overtook us (politely and gently).

Among our few fellow travelers today were Tom and Teri from Cincinnati.

Tom is an avid cyclist.  He said Cincinnati is on the longest paved bike path in the USA: 150 miles.  Teri is an operating room nurse who took a keen interest in the x-ray on our fairing of Jeffrey’s broken leg.  They listened to Jeffrey describe Americans’ sympathy for asylum applicants who just want a fair opportunity to present their cases.  They support the goals of the IWC and of Human Rights First.

Jeffrey would have pedaled us farther, but the unrelenting rain had started to penetrate his clothes.  We motored north through flood and fog, grateful that when we had to backtrack between Redcrest and Pepperwood . . .

. . . we were under a self-propelled roof.

We met Cameo in Eureka.  She supports a generous asylum policy.

Californians lead our country in many ways: socially, politically, economically.  We should follow their example, Cameo’s example, in immigration attitudes too.