We finally left San Francisco. We drive for a full day. We go through vineyards, then into the redwoods. The redwoods are trees so big that they make you exclaim.
Our dear friend Ben Krupp has given us an iphone, packed with hours of amazing music. We listen to it, occasionally exclaiming at trees.
We are in the hills now. This is gold rush country. Rivers cut stony gorges between the heavily forested peaks. The sun drops.
We park a little off the road, behind some trees and by a river. We hastily take the seats out of the car and make our bed, pilling all our stuff in the front. We need to work out a good system for this, but this will do for now.
We go sit my the water and make camp. The stars put on a show above our heads that we are both too terrified to appreciate.
We have three things to be afraid of.
1. Bears.
2. Locals who want to steal our stuff, or make our skin into masks etc.
3. The law, or rangers, because we are not meant to camp in these hills.
There is a dim light on the other side of the river. We can hear a voice sometimes, above the whispering of the trees. They are doing something over there, something industrial, something crunchy.
Why would someone do crunching, at night?
People use this bank too, there is the remains of a fire and a litter of empty beet cans.
Every time a car goes past the headlights peer accusingly through the trees. Light licks the trees on the opposite side of the bank.
We have over spent in SF, and petrol is more expensive than we hoped. We must live like gypsies now. We heat up a tin of beans.
There is something in the nearest bush. Something at least a big as a cat, and hopefully smaller than a person.
The night-cruncher continues. Mosquito’s whine and dine.
To prove we survived, and to appreciate the beauty we woke up to, please look at the following images:
