The columnist documents a road trip from Day of the Dead in Silver City, New Mexico to Eureka, California.

“And the way up is the way down, the way forward is the way back.”

—T.S. Eliot, Dry Salvages, Four Quartets

A genetic disposition

This little snow bird is making her way home over miles of open road, blue highways, two-laners, freeways, byways, back roads, gravel roads and back alleys. I called a longtime friend from the road and she asked, “You still like to drive?” I said “Absolutely!”

Then I had a wondering moment. Last week I mentioned that trauma can be passed on genetically. (“Certain fears can be inherited through the generations, a provocative study of mice reports: tinyurl.com/Olfactory-experience. Some researchers are skeptical of the findings because a biological mechanism that explains the phenomenon has not been identified.”) Could other traits also be inherited? Some studies have hinted that environmental factors can influence biology through “epigenetic modifications:” changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than the genetic code itself. Hmmmm.

My dad was a traveling salesman for international firm Bemis Company, Inc. — he was the most successful sales person on the West Coast with a territory including Washington, Idaho, parts of Montana, and Oregon. He drove a lot! And often sister Starla and I rode along with him, hanging around while he met sugar beet, potato, and wheat farmers. Did we get a dose of roaming in our veins? I think maybe I did.

Sign of the times

I love driving and watching the world go by. I’m intrigued by the billboards: along the freeways they seem mostly to be for injury lawyers, those smiling white guys in suits. But occasionally there are also advertisements for suicide hotlines, Christian messages, real estate — “Your house sold in 60 days or we buy it!” — and big blaring teasers for casinos.

On the back roads, the signs get more interesting. In the vast open desert between Flamingo Heights and Lucerne Valley in California on Old Woman Hot Springs Road (AKA Highway 247) where there is virtually nothing except a tiny house on the left or right every 10 miles or so — suddenly there is a big sign with red letters reading, “Please come back soon!” … um … to where exactly? And, why?

Coming down off the heights just past Mohave as you pass Tehachapi you can still find (wait for it, I always do) the “Fresh Fruit and Gas” sign on the right. Always good for a laugh. I’m still trying to puzzle out one that caught my attention just heading from Bakersfield onto Highway 99: the picture of a cute brown Dachshund and the words, “Does your wiener have a rash?” Vet clinic or some X-rated medical message? I went by too fast to read the small print. Or today tootling along just off Redwood Highway on a little back road called Avenue of the Ancients (where there were no “ancients” to be found), a sign said simply “Information sign” with an arrow.

Bumper stickers are also amusing. One I especially liked was “We The People” — written in that exact swirly script copied from our U.S. Constitution — followed by “have had enough!” Or the fascinating one on the back window of a massive muddy pickup, “Got Donkey?” Then there was an entire van painted shocking pink with big letters on the side: “Imperfect Foods” — the “I” being a stout orange carrot.

State of the world

Driving gives you a quicker-than-you’d-think review of the state of the world, or at least our American version of it. There seems to be so much abandoned stuff everywhere: falling in houses, sheds, garages, barns, ranches, corner markets, gas stations; broken down walls, and fences; crumbling and rusty machinery, cars, trucks, trailers; neglected croplands and crops (fields of pumpkins, trees with falling and rotting fruit); unused driveways and roads to nowhere. The waste, or lost dreams, or changed decisions is enormous. But I know there are farmers, gardeners, and artists working on regenerative projects somewhere — you just can’t see them from the freeway.

Then there are often people walking along roadways miles from anywhere. Where could they possibly be going? And why? Late evening at the front of one of the motel chains I frequent, there were two women — one older bundled up, one younger with a missing front tooth and a cellphone like she was in charge. They had backpacks, blankets, and a box, as well as three small dogs in a square wire cage. “Do you have a place to stay?” I ask. “Yes — well, maybe. We’re waiting for a ride.”

They were still there an hour later. What does one do? Buy them a motel room for the night? Offer them a ride in the morning? (Truth be told, they smelled a little.) Where does one start with the suffering and homelessness in one’s own country? And it’s not just the humans: in a cold pouring rain one morning I saw two dilapidated dog houses in the middle of a field. One black dog on a chain was sitting next to his (her?) dog house in the downpour. For many miles I contemplated going back. But then what?

Contrast that with the changes I saw in the once forgettable town of Williams, California. This was the jumping off place for Wilbur Hot Springs: a magical spot with a Victorian-style lodge, kerosine lamps, and a series of progressively hotter clothes-optional pools. I celebrated my fortieth birthday there one year and stayed up all night in the library reading Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” before taking a hot soak all by myself in the pre-dawn light. Perfect.

Now, pull into Williams and you’ll find the expanded footprint of Granzella’s Deli, Restaurant & Inn and 12 — 12! — Tesla charging stations in the parking lot. The place has gone to the (designer) dogs.

Behind the Redwood Curtain

Nearing my weekend goal of visiting friends in Eureka, I traveled Highway 20 and U.S. Route101 from Williams to the coast, when suddenly I came upon Richardson Grove State Park. OMG! Here are the ancients meandering onto and nearly crossing a narrowed and winding section of road. You can barely see the sky. These redwoods have grown right up to the edges of the blacktop. On my drive through four states, I saw “soft shoulders,” “low shoulders,” “closed shoulders,” and “no shoulders” — but I’d never seen “redwood shoulders” like these.

This wiggly section of the Redwood Highway is absolutely impassable for those omnipresent transport trucks. And because of this impasse, Humboldt County does not (and cannot) have those hulking big box stores crushing local enterprise. Eureka, Arcata, Fortuna, Ferndale and others are “behind the Redwood Curtain.”

Caltrans wanted to widen the road — to “slice through the root systems of the grove’s ancient trees, all in the name of bringing huge commercial trucks to the remote North Coast.” But thank goodness local environmental groups, neighbors, and Natives fought and won to keep these magnificent trees — the only reminders of the vast redwood forests that blanketed Cascadia from southern Oregon to Big Sur. It was both humbling and heart-breaking to witness these giants. As one person commented, “It’s been 19 years since my visit to Richardson Grove, and it will stay with me forever.” In my opinion, the entirety of Humboldt County should be a national set-aside.

I’ve traveled forward and back, up and down the west coast my entire life, yet I still find new roads to explore and mystery everywhere. Who lives in Glenhaven, California — population 350 — and what do they do for work? Why is there a French café called La Copine in the middle of the California desert? Is time a straight line or a circle? Can we be home wherever we are?