I woke up this morning to scramble some tofu, fry a potato.  We were going for a day hike in Redwood National Park.

We bought a baguette, then armed ourselves with $5 worth of Humboldt Fog and a slice of Truffle Tremor.  We stopped by the ranger station to get our free C Line Road permit plus the combo to the gate.  We sped up Bald Hills Road into the mist.  We found our turnoff and fumbled with the lock on the gate.  I tried the combo backwards, upside down, guessing at hypothetical dyslexic interpretations of the numbers we had written down.  We were about to abandon hope, go for a different hike, when I gave it a frustrated jiggle and it popped open.

Down C Line Road towards Redwood Creek, drifting the Tacoma through muddy corners, wondering where we were going and what it would look like.  At the trail head only a beat up Isuzu Trooper and a bank of mist billowing up through the trees.

We hiked Tall Trees Trail, down steep red clay soil through a tunnel of bright madrone.  We stopped at the interpretive trail markers and Beth was so courteous as to narrate, to direct our attention toward old creek beds, fire carved cavities, the diversity of trees.  If there were no fires, the doug firs might never crack the redwoods.  The early settlers called the fire damaged hollow redwoods goose pens because they made great places to store your fowl.  Vanishing trails, prospector routes, donkeys and pick axes, numbered on markers.

At the bottom we looped the Tall Trees Trail, on the bank of the creek.  We saw what was considered the tallest tree, as recently as the 80’s.  Mushrooms and sorrel grew from every mossy opportunity.  Big leaf maples stood in circles, leafless in the winter, bursting with miniature ferns like tall spider sculptures.

Redwood Creek moved swiftly, colored cold slate.  I love how all of the rivers and creeks in Humboldt County have different colored waters; they’re trademarks and signatures.  We walked up the bank to a group of tangled logs that looked like a good picnic bench, startling a pair of American Dippers.  I sat down on the log and there was a long, stinky salmon spine sitting next to me.  Who ate that fish?  Whodunnit?  I stared deep into the water, looking for clues but couldn’t come up with anything.  I fumbled a crumble of Humboldt Fog into the water and thought:  fish bait.  I watched closely but nobody came to claim it.

What a magical combination baguette and cheese is!  What a treat.  To sit on a redwood log on Redwood Creek with nobody but my baby and a Steelhead Pale, a carrot and a satsuma mandarin.  To stare deep into the water and let my mind go downstream.

Driving the gravel road back to the gate a Ruffed Grouse liked us and hoped to come along.  It was foraging in the dirt by the side of the road, but when it saw my truck it walked up as I hit the brakes and it pecked around my wheels for seeds.  I backed up and it followed, seeming to demand, “Feed me!  I want some millet!”  We didn’t have any, so I gave it the slip and we sped back to civilization.

Nice and tired from an easy tour of Table Bluff back roads yesterday, this morning I find myself thinking about The Byrds and Larrupin’ Sauce.

Enough time has passed since I last listened to Sweetheart of the Rodeo that right now, for one brief listen or maybe two, is it no longer worn out. This morning it feels fresh and renewed yet comfortable and old. A sing along record, a groovy morning starter–one of those rare moments when an album exactly hits the spot.

I haven’t been in a very good music appreciation groove since I moved to Humboldt. The ritual has changed. It used to be that Todd and I would listen to music at our desks all day long. It was part of work: I’d come in, and if I was there first (hopefully) I’d queue up an album. Then after it was done I’d respectfully allow Todd to select one. And repeat, choosing thoughtfully, a pair of desktop DJs trying to make the day go down a little more enjoyably. Trading riffs, swapping anthems, or sometimes more embattled and grumpy, pitting Fleetwood Mac versus primitive French black metal. What an unholy match up that was!

But this morning I’m DJing for myself and it’s me and The Byrds and a toaster creation of jalapeño bagel, egg and cheese with some semi-experimental Larrupin’ sauce inserted somewhere. It’s actually not much of an experiment because I’m beginning to learn that Larrupin’ Sauce can be safely employed almost anywhere. And that maybe it’s a sign, that through fully adopting this local elixir I’m becoming a more fully naturalized resident of the Emerald Triangle.

Now that Sweetheart is over, the next pick is Song of America.

A few weeks ago I rode up through the Arcata Community Forest with a few buddies, wearing my old NATO Army surplus backpack. We dropped down the back side of Fickle Ridge on somebody’s private fire road then rode West End out to Mad River to purchase homebrew supplies.

I put the ingredients in my backpack and we headed for home. However on the way back los amigos decided it would be way radder to climb back up over the ridge instead of taking the flat way home. I grimaced and weighed a mutiny but decided what the hell, I’d do it.

Somewhere on the minor death march back up the hill the brown paper grain bags in my backpack burst open from sweat and jostling. As we rode back down through the forest, floating root sections, hooting and hollering, the grains got tossed in my NATO pack with all of the jacket lint, miniature ribbons of old trail maps, and etc. This was the first step in the creation of the Backpack IPA.

The second step happened later that night when we fired up the massive propane ring in Dbo’s back yard and boiled ten gallons in ten minutes. Somehow I ended up with Amber DME for my mini-mash IPA, but no matter. You do your best and adapt when change becomes unavoidable.

Last night we reprised the Community Forest Blue Lake route, but this time at night, wearing 12 watt halogen bulbs. Nobody crashed, and the night was clear and mellow with a beautiful full moon. When we got to West End it was so bright we didn’t need lights and rode through the ghostly pastures and farms in moonlight. The Mad River was silver and we all thought about how lucky we were.

The brewery was celebrating its 20th anniversary by tapping a cask of double IPA and a few kegs of wheat wine. It was overcrowded and hard to get a beer from the bar; as we wedged our way in we found ourselves parked next to a guy with an impressive mustache and a skyscraper of empies. “Six firkins!” he started ranting, “Pour these gentlemen six firkins! And a pint of bourbon barrel aged stout to drink while they’re waiting.” That’s how I found myself in possession of two fists full of DIPA. And that was about all I would need.

Today I bottled the Backpack IPA into two 1.5 gallon Tap-a-draft jugs. As I was finishing up, trying to pull the hop bag out through the neck of the carboy, it got wrung and produced a glass of hop juice in the foot of the fermenter. Ah, sweet nectar: I drank it. Tastes like adventure.