1. Intro. 8/13 mid-morning. 105 South near Grayland, Washington.

There's always that moment in a road trip where the initial giddiness and chatter and celebratory vibe suddenly ends and everyone grows quiet and thoughtful as they look out the window. That's how it is right now as I write these notes. We're passing through a dark tunnel of green Washington ferns at 60mph, the grey sky closing in over lonely cedar shake houses and dank-smelling oyster beds that stretch toward the horizon.

These pensive moments never last long but count for something, at least to me. Later the sun will come out and we'll put on some new beats. Kick and snare, hands tapping knees or out the window, heads bopping to the rhythm. Everything cinematic again. Externalized. Back to our normal distractedness.

2. "Weird Fishes" by Radiohead

Across the Columbia River into Oregon, just having stopped at a beach where Lewis and Clark landed on Nov. 15, 1805, and then Clark and his slave, York, finally walked out and saw the open Ocean. Clark later became a Governor, Lewis killed himself, and so legend goes, York stayed with the Crow Indians and had four wives.

On to Cannon Beach, Tillamook County, Oregon. Fat corridor of alder and western cedar. The music, the rhythm and the punchiness of the kick and snare can reinforce your trip or blast away anxiety and neurosis for a moment, and it's all just a moment--isn't it? 

"We're all just loitering here," DJ said last night. "That's what I remind myself when I get worried I'm supposed to be such and such by such and such age." This on the way to surf Westport, only two hours into the journey and already I was airing out complaints about how life's going.

3. "Run" by Air

Continuation of Oregon coastline. Late morning fog with intermittent sun. Inland it's 30 degrees hotter--a heat wave we'll learn about later. Ian splits his time reading Carlos Castenada and looking out the window. He has the vibe of someone who, unquestionably, has his shit together. His little brother Ian asleep after last night's beer-up. I taught him how to find dry hanging firewood in the lower limbs of the trees. Everyone looks on the ground until you teach them. He was a fast learner.

The big synth waves swell up through the chorus of this song that just keeps repeating the same words over and over through a vocoder: Go go go go go. Run Run Run Run. Which is pretty much what John Coltrane told McCoy Tyner: "just keep it moving."

4.  "Impossible Germany" by Wilco

The sun shines finally and I point out the layered guitar solo reminiscent of the Allman Brothers.  The old southland shyz puts me in a nostalgic mood and I end up putting on:

5. "Pretty Little Ditty" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

which reminds me of getting amped before soccer games. And then it seems like it's all gone by at warp speed and gets to heavy so I put on

6. ".38-45" by Thievery Corporation

just to wash everything away as beats are so good at doing.  But then that begins to sound hollow and we put on

7. "Speakerboxx" by Outkast

and just let it ride.

8. Interlude: Pacific City, Oregon

We stop at Pacific City hoping for waves breaking off the headlands but the only swell is dumping straight onto the beach, totally blown out by the north wind. Still, the sun is out and it's a great scene here--dozens of people hiking the dunes and flying kites and playing in the shorebreak. Ian and Adam charge up the biggest dune then we get back on the road and put on:

9. "Sweet Love for Planet Earth" by The FuckButtons

This is from some podcast DJ grabbed off KUSF. A bunch of washed out distortion, power chords probably created on a computer instead of a guitar. Kind of a post industrial sound that feels like fetishm to me but whatever. I toss a surf mag (surf porn, we call it) to Adam, who looks bored in the backseat.

10.  8/14. Pre-sun. Winchester Bay, Oregon. Rest of camp asleep.

At what point do we just give in and become part of the landscape? Heavy thoughts this morning watching a mosquito thrash around and then finally settle into the dust. We're certainly not blending in yet. This morning's debris--empty wine and beer bottles everywhere, a pack of cheese, bread, jar of salsa, plate of half finished rice--spread all over picnic table and around fire ring.

Mental debris as well. Some of last night's beer-fueled lines still reverberating weirdly: "I used to prune prunes," Adam said in an old lady's voice, looking into the fire. This from a 22 year old kid working in the produce department of a grocery store. The night was pretty much over after that line.

Just pouring the first coffee now. I've reached that point on the trip where whatever flow / rhythm we've established is all good. It is what is it. Rolling into this campground last night I was acting like an asshole, full-on pissed because we'd been driving all day, gotten skunked on waves, but worst of all, had pased 100 miles of raw coastline and national forest where we could've camped out freely instead of on this 20 by 20 piece of ground with a road beside us and 50 other people in RVs rolling in and out.

But that's just me. I despise campgrounds. They're good for one thing: concentrating all the yahoos into one spot (which does, effectively, minimize the overall impact to wilderness). 

There's just a certain magic to making camp in raw land, something unavailable in an organized campground. It's a style of setting up your shelters and kitchen and fire so that it all conforms to the terrain. And sometimes, if you've done it right, there will be a part of that place--say, the way the moon looked over the quiet ridge--that stays with you, even after you've broken camp and looked back at the place one last time and realize that nobody could ever tell you stayed there.

I know, of course, that if this is all I have to complain about--having to camp in a designated campground--then I'm probably pretty fucking lucky compared to the rest of the world.

But, as I was explaining it to the rest of the crew last night, the way that most people camp, the way they trash places--every place, it seems like, sooner or later--there's just this issue I have with camping that's been with me ever since I was a kid. 

Which was my way of saying sorry, I reckon, for acting like an asshole.

Either way, after that we pretty much drank beers and settled in here just like everyone else.

11. 8/14 Sunset. Secret campsite in Redwood National Forest (Playlist for the day mostly forgotten except the soundtrack to Black Orpheus)

Everyone jets forward in their own way whether it's going back to school or starting a new business, but I've always felt better just hiding in the woods. Twilight now, a golden, smoke-tinged tinged light from all the forest fires by Shasta. Three shots into a bottle of Jaeger. DJ, Ian, Adam, back at camp and I'm here looking at Redwood stumps.

One of the stumps--the circumference of a hot-tub--has iron spikes driven into it, each spike pinning down a rusted cable that loops around and then disappears into the forest floor. Some kind of noose they used to pull the tree down. I climb up onto the stump and study the clearing all around where this tree once stood. Dozens of young redwoods now shooting up from the clearing . What happened to the men who drove the spikes?

Thinking now as I walk back to the boys at camp of a Bossa Nova line I heard today: tristez nao tem fim, felicidade si, and how this corridor of forest must have once echoed with drumbeats, later--falling giants-and now it's just so quiet. 

12. 8/15 Redwood Forest. Early am. Fog.

We built the fire last night on top of the hood of an old car abandoned here 40-50 years ago. The metal kept the ground and dry redwood needles from igniting but as the fire burned the paint it gave off this toxic smoke that kept chasing us around no matter whether we talked about stencil art, reincarnation, whether our parents ever smoked pot, or how to still support a family without giving away what you wanted in your youth.

Eventually DJ drank so much that he kept forcing this incomprehensible comparison between Jackson Pollock and MIA and I knew it was time for bed. I pulled my sleeping bag up away from the smoke and over by the old car and the ghosts of those big redwoods.

13.  "Idlewild" by Outkast

How about all those minor characters you meet along a road trip that you forget about until you look back through the photos or your notes? On this trip there have been just a few:

• An 85-year old man who saw us getting out of our suits at Winchester Bay. "I used to bodysurf waves in California," he said. "Out with the sharks. .. . I used to take a lot of chances."

• A blond woman, maybe early 30s, with sparkles on her face and a teardrop tattooed under her right eye giving us directions to a market in the Yurok Indian reservation and transmitting so much more through her eyes than just directions.

• The gay forest ranger who came by, in the morning--almost apologetically--to make sure we paid for camping, and who seemed to act sheepish and distrait until we asked about surf spots nearby.

14. "Arpeggiator" by Fugazi

The last quick surf check at Camel Rock. A few longboarders out and some wide clean swellls rolling in but the spot just isn't really working. Maybe if we could wait until the tide drops, but shit, 240 miles to San Francisco and it's the go go go flow right now. Three days of bodily purification with night air, woodsmoke, and saltwater only now--as always--that it finally feels about right, it's time to switch it up again. DJ and I stand up (Why do you always kneel down or squat when you check the surf? Is it something about being closer to the ground that helps you see it better?)  and then we all get back in the van one more time, rolling through the fog towards the Golden Gate Bridge.