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Part 8: Ocean, Sky, Freedom: West Coast Bicycle Adventure—Canada to Mexico—Plastic Trash, Fog, Art, Eternal Gloaming

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By Frosty Wooldridge

Part 8: Thick fog, plastic trash turned into art, Great Pacific Garbage Patch, eternal gloaming

John Muir said it best, “The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”

(Seals play along every beach on the West Coast. They swim in the surf, lay on the rocks and frolic in sand.  They enjoy the “good life.”)

We awoke to thick, heavy fog. It soaked the tent.  We felt wet air moving into our bodies.  Dewdrops formed on the bikes.  The viscous fog caused the birds to sit in their trees for fearing of flying into something they couldn’t see.

We packed up and hit the road for a 20-mile ride of ups and down through deep woods fractured by clear-cuts.

We reached a quaint city of Bandon where we ate lunch at the natural grocery.  Sandi stopped for an acupuncture appointment along with a chiropractor adjustment.  I gave her a full body massage.  The experience recharged her mind and body.

We followed the road into “Old Town Bando.”  It featured a wharf with a jetty. The steal carcass of a huge ship protruded out of the sand near an ancient lighthouse. They cut the ship apart while making it a part of the jetty.

People stood on the dock throwing crab cages, loaded with chicken meat for bait, into the water. They dragged them up to throw back the females, but kept the males.  Seagulls flew everywhere with pelicans gliding over the waves out in the bay.

Every restaurant featured seafood in various dishes.  Lots of art galleries, too! 

(Signs to put a smile on your face.)

As we pedaled out of town, we accidently turned onto a street that carried us past a spectacular window display of plastic creatures created out of washed up plastic for 300 miles up and down the Oregon Coast line.  The artist, Angela Pozzi, created an entirely new art form.  We stepped inside to see all the plastic trash discarded in the Pacific Ocean that washed up on Oregon’s coast—become plastic sharks, birds, seals and other collage items.

“Fascinating,” said Sandi.  “She teaches classes to high school students on the dangers of plastic trash in the oceans.  Look at these statistics. Incredible.”

“Yeah, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch just 1,000 miles off the coast of San Francisco houses 100,000,000 (million) tons of floating plastic junk in a landmass the size of Texas,” read a flyer.  “It kills millions of marine and avian creatures annually.”

(Humans throw everything imaginable into the world’s oceans. Metal, plastic, oil, chemicals, radioactive waste, garbage, sewage and worse.  We eventually pay the price in contaminated foods, destroyed ecosystems, extinction of marine species and, worse in the future.   www.washedashore.org)

Further information showed that humans throw billions of plastic bottles, soap containers, Styrofoam, toys, toothbrushes, fish netting, Bic lighters and more into the oceans without end.  Some estimates show 2.5 million pieces of plastic tossed into our world’s oceans every hour.  An astonishing 46,000 pieces of plastic float on every square mile of Earth’s oceans.

We spent several hours watching other artists cement, paint and put together plastic collages of plastic trash that 6,000 volunteers picked up along the Oregon Coast.  While Pozzi brings a noble cause into the world, the only solution to humanity’s trashing the oceans means an international 25-cent deposit-return law on every piece of plastic container produced.  Humans need financial incentives in order to save themselves from themselves.

(As you can see, discarded plastic components make up everything in this shark. From plastic shovel handles to Bic lighters to broken toys to plastic speakers that careless humans by the billions tossed into the oceans.  It’s pretty sickening to walk the beaches of the world and on many of them, I have walked in knee deep plastic. It makes a person want to scream in exasperation, but the leaders and the people of the world won’t do a thing to change it.)

“It’s all pretty depressing,” said Sandi.  “Like there’s no end to it and it will only get worse for all of the world’s oceans.”   www.WashedAshore.org

“Roger that,” I said.  “Humans are clever, but not to smart. Let’s get down the road.”

As we pulled into Port Orford, the Pacific Ocean opened up with grand vistas revealing multiple rock islands offshore.   The area featured aboriginal tribes that fished the area before being forced out of their homes and placed on reservations further north. Those reservations continue today. As the Indian lady said at the beginning of our trip, “You whites pulled the rug out from under us.”

Miners, loggers and settlers polluted the rivers, killed the fish stocks and cleared the forests.

While it’s painful to see what “progress” did to the area, we continued pedaling 27 miles to Gold Beach along dramatic woods that opened up to vast beaches with eternal frothing waves pounding the sand and rocks.

(Pozzi created this plastic bird from all the plastic trash tossed into the oceans and washed ashore.  www.WashedAshore.org)

The energy of the Pacific Ocean wafted over us with 20 mph tailwinds.  Along the coast, footprints of beachcombers tracked everywhere into hidden coves, rocks and inlets.  Gulls soared over the waves or stood in groups along the water line.  Seals “surfed” the waves.

Pedaling through such natural movement creates a symbiotic physical, emotional and spiritual experience in a cyclist.  As the wind blows, it moves across our bodies.   It cools us or it chills us.  While the sun shines, it warms our faces and brightens our spirits.  With the fog, we feel the dampness on our skin.  With the rising of the sun in the mornings, the flowers awaken to their natural colors exploding from every meadow along our route.  Descents create a wild flavor of joy in our minds.  Climbs bring disciplined determination.  You can’t enjoy one without the other.  Through it all, the grand march of Mother Nature compliments us on our pedaling journey.

My friend John Muir said it best, “The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”

(Sandi rolling south on Route 101, West Coast, Oregon.)

##

Frosty Wooldridge
Golden, CO

Population-Immigration-Environmental specialist: speaker at colleges, civic clubs, high schools and conferences

Www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com

Www.frostywooldridge.com

Six continent world bicycle traveler

Speaker/writer/adventurer

Adventure book: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World

Latest book:  How to Deal with 21st Century American Women: Co-creating a successful relationship

Frosty Wooldridge, six continent world bicycle traveler, Canada to Mexico summer 2014, 2,200 miles, 100,000 vertical feet of climbing:

 



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