Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road

by Neil Peart

  And now the sun is sinking, the surf is playing its chord, the glass is empty, my stomach is growling, and I’m going to find me some dinner.

  Later, Bro.

  Oct. 19, ’99 Brookings Harbor, OR

  Back at ya, Pilgrim —

  You and I learned awhile back that a little coastline goes a long way. And takes a long time too. Think Pacific Coast Highway from San Simeon to Monterey. Think Mexico from Puerto Angel (clobbered recently by that earthquake) to Mazatlán. Think Oregon 101 from Newport to Cannon Beach.

  Well, I wanted to take a different route, and avoid the snow in the mountains, and now when annoying people ask if I’ve ever taken the “scenic” coastal route, I can assure them I have.

  Some lovely vistas of blue ocean, surfswept stretches of beach, giant teeth of rock sticking up, conifers shaped to leeward by the wind, tall stands of Douglas fir, and all like that, certainly makes a beautiful sight. However, once you’ve seen it one or two times . . . . . . from the end of a line of traffic backed up and crawling behind a big fat RV towing a sport-ute, or a double-trailer dumptruck. Or, just as the road finally opened up a little south of Coos Bay (nice name on ya), a bitter fog rolled in, hiding the road, the traffic, and the scenery. And making it 47°F out.

  That’s why my writing might be a little shaky; I’ve been here half an hour, had a drink and a smoke, and I’m still shivering!

  Just a few miles from California. It will warm up soon.

  I’m thinking I’ll check out some big trees tomorrow (yeah, really!), then maybe swing around the “Lost Coast,” and then think about whether I’ve had enough “coasting,” and go find some mountains and deserts. Where real men ride. (Strangely, I’ve only seen maybe five or six other touring-type riders, yet dozens of long-distance cyclists.)

  I think I told you I was invited to the “South Park” guys’ Halloween party, so that gives me a kind of “target” to work around. I’d like to visit the Sonoma area again, maybe stay in St. Helena (still holding a position in Ellwood’s Top Three Small Towns, with Moab and Loreto), try to get into the lodge at Yosemite for a couple of nights, do a hike there, and of course, there’s always Death Valley. We’d still go there again anytime, wouldn’t we?

  I’ll probably get Palm Springs in there somewhere too, then after, drift a little eastward. Southern Arizona merits some more “jazz riding” (it occurs to me that one theory on the etymology of “jazz” is the French verb “jaser,” to converse, and that’s what I do: converse with the weather, traffic, and road, and decide where they want me to go). I’m still psyched on Big Bend [Texas], too, so we’ll be wandering that way, then picking a new “gateway” to Mexico. Maybe “Gringo Pass,” by Organ Pipe Cactus National Park, where I wouldn’t mind camping again. Would you?

  I’m just glad there’s still lots of stuff that interests me enough to get me up in the morning to go have a look at it. Earlier in this western meander, I was harboring a doubt or two, wondering where I was going to go, what I was going to do, and it’s still a big ol’ riddle: Who am I? What am I supposed to be doing? Where am I going? When will it be over? And why — well, just why.

  But no. I think we agreed not to trouble ourselves over that question. It’s not about why, but how. Right? Du-uh!

  Anyway, tonight we’re seaside again, in a Best Western, with a cliffed cove of gravelly sand, hundreds of giant beached (and bleached) logs, the above-described chilly fog (no open window tonight, we fear), and occasional slo-mo waves breaking one at a time, 10 long seconds apart. You know, the other kind of Pacific scene.

  I’m still maintaining that the Pacific sounds better than the Atlantic, as a shameless generality, but it seems increasingly true to me that the Atlantic smells better. Or at least richer. Dunno why that should be, but from Alaska to Mexico on this coast the ocean just seems to smell bland in comparison. Different tide patterns? Different intertidal species? Find out, willya?

  And with that mission, I’ll leave you for now. I’ll get this mailed out tomorrow, from here in Oregon, where we are far too stupid to be allowed to dispense our own gasoline.

  Ghost Rider

  [Brutus again]

  Oct. 20, ’99 Mendocino, CA

  Far out, rainbow crystal unicorn —

  Like, wow dude, this place is a totally hip groove, sayin’? (Jive Across the Decades.) On another cool, foggy afternoon, I took a cruise around this hippy-Victorian, wheat germ, dream-catcher, B&B, cutesy-wootsy little town. And you know, we don’t know what to think. We may have to stay another day, just to try to figure it out some.

  Pretty splendid ride today, now that I think about it. (You know how it doesn’t always feel that way at the time; can’t really, I suppose, until it’s over.) Cold and foggy this morning, and I just took it easy, kind of “felt my way” down the 101, riding only as fast as I could see.

  And I’ll tell you what: we’ve got to be selective about recommending that Lost Coast road. It’s what we professional Ghost Riders call “very technical,” sayin’? Narrow, lumpy, twisting, not particularly “engineered,” you might say. Like some Mexican roads. Random scatterings of gravel, often in the tighter curves (of course), and often needing first gear in the switchbacks, with solid trees to either side, or wide open curves of meadow and fog, with steep dropoffs looming down into the . . . fog.

  Last spring, Geddy asked me for recommendations on a five-day driving tour from Portland to Vancouver, and I’m sure I told you about the all-inclusive route I sketched out for him. He ended up not going, but of course that was one of the routes I recommended, based on my notes of our reaction. However, I reckon a good Ghost Rider has to look at the “rhythm section” a little differently when he’s playing for an audience, you know? Weather, traffic, and roads are capable of many moods. And mood swings. Some people might not dig the vibe, man, or adapt so willingly (or resignedly). And then there’s the “technical factor.” We must be properly discriminating, for our discriminating clientele, n’estce pas? (Frog for “sayin’?”)

  Anyway, the redwoods were, once again, rather tall. And all around you going way up in the sky, with sunbeams (shafts, really) through the mist (briefly lighter fog, really), so big around it’s alarming sometimes, kind of like looking at an elephant up close, or a whale, or . . . a really big tree. And lots of ’em, too, though all in named groves, like the big red cedars are on Vancouver Island. (Named after the philanthropists who saved them, no doubt.) Still, they are there, and you can cruise slowly through the “Monarchs of the Mist,” as the picture-book called them (the one I saw in the Visitors Center, where I stopped to get the little “passport stamp” for the inside cover of my journal), and dig their delicate spice, and the somber, cathedral-like vibes from those impossibly tall and thick pillars. (I know, you’re thinking, “Been there, done that, got the sticker,” and no, I didn’t have the heart to ride through the “Drive-Thru Tree,” not without you.)

  “Not without my Brutus!”

  I meant what I said on the phone the other day, my furry freak brother. When I say “You’re always with me,” I don’t mean nothin’ glib or sappy, sayin’? I mean that I’m constantly thinking of where I am and what I’m doing vis-à-vis you: what you would say about it, what I’d say to you, how I can describe it and relate it to all the things that we know. And much that only we’d know, I’d venture. Or understand. So with regard to what I said about being there for you, I want you to know that you are here for me too, in a very real way, and it’s good for me both to think about these letters, and to write them. And that’s all I have to say about that.

  And back to Mendocino. What mystified me, I realize now, is that when I circled the 10 or 12 blocks of the town, I didn’t see anything “real.” No McDonald’s, no Super 8, no NAPA Auto Parts, no Home Hardware, no supermarket. Just hippy-dippy Victoriana and big old-style hotel (though yuppified, of course) called the Hotel Mendocino. Remembering the Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee (a similar sort of town, now that I think about it), which had bee
n a good experience, I was tempted to give it a try, but when I learned it was non-smoking, I passed (saying, with mock innocence, “You mean you can’t even smoke in your own room?”), and went back a little outside of town to this place, Hill House. (It might be overlooking the town, but I can’t see through the fog!)

  Anyway, it’s pretty good. A big Victorianish main building with restaurant and bar, and a couple of house-like modules to either side, with maybe 50 rooms altogether. We had a nice dinner of lentil and smoked pork soup, mesquite-grilled chicken with potatoes and baked beans, and a nice selection of wines by the glass. Now the fog has cleared a little, for I can see the three-quarter moon and hear the distant surf. (Not that distant, obviously.) Still cold though.

  Oh yeah: one route we will recommend to our clients is Highway 1 between Leggett and the coast. Sublime mountain road of good pavement and engineered curves (e.g. second gear switchbacks at full lean instead of first gear, and everything else a notch less “technical”), and the odd lumber truck or RV to get by, but mostly just great, and probably some fine views when it’s not so foggy. (Later in the day it was okay inland — I was actually hot for about a half hour — but remained foggy off the ocean. Probably that Humboldt Current. This is Humboldt County, after all. Or maybe that Pacific effect called “La Puta.”)

  Probably, yeah.

  And some fabulous groves of eucalyptus today, too, with that fine medicinal tang, and sometimes the road ran through arching tunnels of what I’d guess were cypresses. In the barren hills above the Lost Coast, a peregrine falcon and some horned larks, and fog crawling up from the sea in moving shapes, like ghosts. Yeah.

  Oct. 21, ’99 Mendocino

  Like ghosts, yeah. And still the same, a day later. And suitable, somehow, for there’s definitely a “Twilight Zone” feel to this town. No convenience stores, but a good general store (they had no synthetic oil, but they did have the obsolete typing-paper tablets I’ve been scouring for in drug stores and stationery shops from coast to coast without success). No cheesy stickers, but The Macallan 18-Year-Old. No Gap, no Safeway, no Dairy Queen, no Rite-Aid, and certainly no Walmart. But there is a shop called “Sacred Symbols,” offering Hypnotherapy/ Readings/ Energy Work.

  And, of course, lots of things made of driftwood, stones, glass, and candles, and lots of expensive casual clothes. A decent museum and bookstore. Many little shops and café-bakeries, but few restaurants: basically only the hotel on Main Street and here, it seems.

  What started to win me over is the setting. The whole headland surrounding the town to seaward is a state park, all rugged cliffs, arches, and sea caves, with a knee-high meadow of salt-resistant grasses. Through the moving shapes of fog I could just see the ocean, maybe 100 feet down, with thousands of those weird, snake-like kelp stalks moving in the slow surge, as if alive, and ripples and foam as a submerged rock was revealed, like some big animal surfacing. Nicely spooky, overall, and as I circled back toward town, facing the buildings along Main Street, too far away to note the vintage of the parked cars, but just the line of uniformly stylized shops, it could definitely have been, like, some other time, you know? Somewhere between, say, 1895 and 1967. It’s starting to work for me, this place. Maybe it’s just the fog.

  But no, there’s something more insidious at work, for in my mellow tripping through town after my cliff-side stroll, I bought a replacement for my travel-weary sweatshirt, and a tan ultra-suede going-out-to-dinner shirt. Plus a pair of cashmere socks (sounds so decadent, couldn’t resist). Then, a coffee and cookies in a little café as I caught up on my journalizing.

  Could I be, like, turning into my brother here? Scary.

  Mendocino, by the way, is named for Mendoza, a Spanish regent-governor type in 16th century Mexico City. (And the cape was named first, long before the town 40 miles away.) Got its big start around 1850, hacking down redwoods to feed the boom in gold-rush-era San Francisco. One of my theories is that they’re trapped in a timewarp in atonement for their previous sins against the mother planet. There are similarities to Nantucket, for example, or Lahaina on Maui. A history of butchering big things evolved into a picturesque shrine of romantic nostalgia.

  Doing their Energy Work.

  And it strikes me that it could be (shudder) an “artists colony.” No, no, anything but that! (I overheard two aging hippie ladies at the post office talking about living there, and one of them said, “It’s been so good for my work.”) However, I’ve heard that epithet applied to Bisbee too, and I guess it’s not necessarily the kiss of death. Never heard Moab called that though.

  Oh yeah. It occurs to me that neither we nor our clients should stay anywhere with “Fort” in its name. I told you about the hellish atmosphere of Fort Frances, and yesterday I’d thought of stopping in Fort Bragg, but it seemed that the oceanview property was occupied by a Georgia Pacific lumber mill, and all the motels across the highway were facing it. So no Forts, except in the Northwest Territories — where there’s little choice anyway!

  But I digress. Repeatedly. Well, that’s my job, eh? (Canuck for “sayin’?”)

  Consider this as a name for Mendocino’s zoning restrictions: “Homeogothic.” That works.

  And now it’s after six. Time to think about din-dins. I’ll wrap up this rap for now, tribal brother. May you walk in vales of love, a peaceable kingdom, butterflies, songbirds, rainbows, surf-chords, redwood spirits, and mellow vibes.

  Or maybe it’s just the fog . . .

  Fare-thee-well for now, Sunshine, and

  Keep the faith, brother Ghost Rider

  [“passport” stamp] Oct. 24, ’99 Yosemite National Park

  Yo, Yo, Windigo —

  That there’s the “passport stamp” I was telling you about, and this here is the time-warp writing paper from Mendocino. We hope it will be nicer than that flimsy air-mail stuff we used to use. (It better be, because I bought two — in case I don’t get back into the past again for awhile.)

  Before I attempt to recount a busy couple of days, I want to bring you here: the Ahwanee, the supreme example of log-and-stone-walled “lodgeness” you can imagine, the palatial dining room with high log-trussed ceiling, triangular iron chandeliers outlined in electric faux candles, gigantic windows reflecting them, and tables enough to accommodate a few hundred people. Which, unfortunately, they’re doing.

  I believe that, after Yellowstone, this is the busiest of the national parks, and it feels like it, everywhere I’ve been so far. The road leading into the park was superb, a beautifully engineered mountain road on which third gear was nearly always fine, good banking on the tight turns, and perfect pavement everywhere, but a steady series of “clumps” of cars crawled along in my direction, and even more were coming out (Sunday afternoon), so passing was cautious and rare.

  Truly epic scenery of high, gray, glacier-scoured rocks, through pines and cedars, and delicious air at 4,000 feet. A lovely lodge to arrive at, but all around it, and over by Yosemite Village (think Grand Canyon) and the Visitors Center (think Rushmore), just feels like, I don’t know, a beautiful outdoor mall or something.

  But I’ll give a more objective report tomorrow, I’m sure, after I do a hike and calm down a little.

  It was a strange couple of days. Yesterday morning I left Mendocino (which was definitely a “winner” destination, I think now), and carried on along Highway 1, near the coast. Some wonderful riding despite the unrelenting fog (about three days solid), especially when the road tucks inland to avoid building a bridge (I realize now), cutting through a ravine with a couple of whoop-de-doos, then a tight switchback at the bottom, then a couple more whoop-de-doos up to the next headland. Glorious — if you have it to yourself. You know the odds on a road like that. Slim.

  However, I persevered (just to say I done it!) all the way down to Jenner (I think it was), where I turned inland through the dry yellow hills, eucalyptus, and groves of pine. Pretty, but with just a little too much traffic, habitations, driveways, cars, and “drivewaydarters” out of now
here. So, it was tense riding. Then through Santa Rosa and into the Sonoma Valley, where I’d thought I might stay a night or two — except that I’d made a typical Scooter Trash error, and thought it was Thursday, when it was Friday. Forget about it.

  So, I stopped at the Jack London bookstore in Glen Ellen, cruised the town of Sonoma (nice), then picked somewhere nearby, and unpopular with San Franciscans. That would be Petaluma, and the inevitable Best Western and Carrow’s Restaurant (both mediocre, and an exact echo of last May in Stockton, I recall. Great).

  With another day in hand before I could get into this place (again, think weekend, and an easy day’s drive from San Francisco), I thought I’d try something a little . . . off the beaten track. Say, or rather sing, “Saturday Night in Salinas.” But first I’d swing by the Blackhawk Auto Museum, just outside Danville, which I’d visited last year.

  Maybe I told you about it: the most beautiful car museum this reporter has ever seen, and I’ve seen all the “biggies.” Every car in there is unique, in one way or another: one-off Ghia-bodied Chryslers; the choicest examples of Duesenberg, Packard, Pierce-Arrow, Bugatti, V-16 Cadillac, Isotta-Fraschini, Rolls, Hispano-Suiza, Mercedes; the one-and-only Jag XJ-13 Le Mans prototype, Delage, Delahaye, Lagonda; you get the picture. And each one restored to jewel-like perfection, and presented on two floors of opulent polished stone salons, with excellent lighting and plenty of space for each one. (And about 150 of them.)

  Then back into the suburban Interstate grind (no joy in the riding that day . . . though I take that back: I remember riding past San Pablo Bay, near Sears Point, and digging the shore birds along there — stilts, plovers, and sandpipers — and some of the on-ramps were . . . fun). But you know the gaff: they’s the roads that takes you where you’s goin’.