What good fortune for my visit to coincide with the Mendocino Film Festival. Only being in town for one night limited my choices somewhat but deciding to go and see the Friday Night Silents was one of the best decisions I’ve made.
A few very early George Méliès shorts (circa 1903) were followed by some longer movies including (in no particular order) Le Spectre rouge which was hand-tinted by Pathé, Buster Keaton’s first movie as director (and without Fatty Arbuckle) One Week, Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life replete with the quintessential villain and associated hissing, boos and cheers from the audience. We were also treated to the legendary Méliès masterpiece Le Voyage dans la lune and a French stop motion film called The Automatic Moving Company.
The movies were accompanied by live music from a San Francisco ensemble, who did a magnificent job. They also improvised the score for two of the shorter movies.
All-in-all it was a wonderful way to spend the evening and will without a doubt be one of the highlights of my trip.
“Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children.”
- Kenyan proverb
The sun burned through the clouds just as I took a slight detour and entered the Avenue of the Giants. The XM radio didn’t really stand a chance of breaking through the canopy so the radio got switched off. Besides, blasting out Mr. Vain by Culture Beat would have kind of taken away from the majesty of the place. I hunched over the steering wheel in order to get a better view and to try and take in the sheer scale of things.
I turned off Highway 101 and on to State Route 1 and the road changed remarkably to a narrow, winding, single-lane affair. The coastal views were stunning, as expected. It took a little longer than I planned, the road being as it is, but I eventually arrived in Mendocino in the mid-afternoon. What a truly wonderful little town. It would seem to be exclusively inhabited by artists, poets and hippies. There’s not much to do here but relax and enjoy the headlands. It’s probably one of the most anti-mobile phone towns on the planet – which is no bad thing. I swear that I didn’t know this before I arrived but Mendocino is also the setting for the fictional Cabot Cove from Murder, She Wrote.
The place isn’t cheap. In fact it has been nicknamed ‘Spendocino’ by some, but in my opinion it’s worth it. I toured the Ford house museum and tourist information center who were kind enough to book me into the Joshua Grindle Inn. Once again, fortune was on my side and I ended up paying the single room rate but staying in the Master bedroom with the comfiest four-poster and wonderful touches like a teddy bear on the bed and rubber ducks in the bath. Such a warm welcome and amazing breakfast are unfortunately a rarity these days. I can’t commend the place more.
To paraphrase Lucidity by Kinobe, if you were to interview a butterfly – which live for only a few days – standing on the branches of a sequoia tree – which may live for over 1000 years – and ask “Do you perceive the object on which you stand as being alive?” then the butterfly would reply “Of course not. I’ve been here all my life and the tree hasn’t done a thing!”.
It’s the same problem with human kind and the planet.
I left Oregon behind me yesterday afternoon and with it the Speed Zones which were unfortunately not carte blanche to drop the hammer but actually implemented to make you go slower. The weather definitely improved – the closer I got to California, the sunnier it became.
Having left the stern Washington laws behind me and after randomly thinking about hitchhikers earlier I happened upon a couple of Hoopa Indians – mother and daughter – just outside of Brookings when I stopped at a viewpoint. Maybe it was reading Kerouac’s On The Road or maybe I remembered the frustrations of hitching around Indiana a decade ago. They were also heading to Eureka so I thought that I’d give them a ride. It turned out that they’d been waiting for a large part of two days and wanted to stop in a town just outside Eureka first. I was happy to accommodate seeing as though I wasn’t in any rush.
After getting directions to the motel I dropped my passengers off and had a little tour of Eureka before checking in at the Bayview Motel. I then had a little nap, read a little, found the a problem with the wireless connection, diagnosed and attempted to fix but had to give up and head to the Lost Coast Brewery for some food, beer and free wifi access.
Earlier this week I had a bizarre dream. I forget which night it was – I don’t really know (or care for that matter) what day it is now. In my dream I had a nosebleed. Not just a few drops but a torrent, almost as if something had burst inside my head. Apparently this is either a forewarning of danger, financial worries or a feeling of not being appreciated. I’m going to ignore the varying interpretations from the Internet and instead substitute my own metaphor of finally getting rid of some of the build up of thoughts from inside my head.
My transient insomnia returned last night which was really annoying. Various things were still going around inside my head but the one that is still there is the theme song from The Littlest Hobo.
Last night I stayed in less salubrious surroundings than the night before but they served their purpose. Most of today was spent in a similar fashion as yesterday’s weather from Mount Saint Helens but not nearly as severe and the mist actually added to the beauty of the bay vistas.
I stopped for a walk along the beach just outside Astoria in the far nicer Canon Beach (where the closing scenes of The Goonies were shot) before getting back into my (as yet unchristened) rental car and hitting the coast road down to Coos Bay. I’ve no idea where the name stems from – I haven’t spotted a single bovine since I got here a few hours ago.
The driving is going fine – I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it actually. I am currently of the impression that cruise control is the best thing since July 7th 1928 (the debut of sliced bread) but the XM satellite radio is starting to annoy me. It’s a huge improvement on the FM transmissions here but the trees seem to be playing havoc with the signal. I have found the 80s and 90s stations though and consequently my voice is suffering a little from belting out song after song for a large part of the day. I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t sing professionally and also that I’m on my own in the car!
