This one has been around, buried in various places
Picture a Southern Humboldt morning in late October, dawn, cold, no frost, light breeze brings scents from the orchard. I'm tricking my old Honda CL450 into starting, it does, it always did, but not without some drama. It lost a choke valve in one carb, so whenever I started it, it went throught the same routine, could be near freezing or 90 degrees, spitting, popping back through carb, laboring to idle. Finally it runs on all two, the thrash from the valve gear quiets as the oil makes it's way there. I check the gear, took some fancy lashing to get it all on the bike, and to keep it there. I blew a head gasket in the Old man's Scout, so I used the beater Honda. It had a very sturdy rack, had to be tough, I strapped on a 797 with 48" bar, four gallons of mix, one of bar oil, wedges, axe, saw spares and 5 pounds worth of lunch. I had to wait for the sun to rise, my GranDad told me not to travel his roads in the dark. Roads indeed, skidtrails would be a fair bet. With a gritty crunch, I found first gear, and thump thump thump headed down the hill, I was almost sitting on the tank, not much room left. Three miles, 20 minutes later, I get to the main ranch. The old guy is swearing something fierce, something about the old D6 and the need to waste a day going to town (Eureka) for parts. Then he gave me that sideways look, you know the one, where they think you are nuts, but are too polite to say so. He mentioned the lash up I had going, wished me luck and continued swearing at the malingering D6. Wow, real county road, not paved, but it looked like freeway after the goat trails on the ranch. I headed towards Whitethorn, the road was good enough to use 3rd and 4th gears, maybe 35-40 mph in spots. Took about 30 minutes to get to the turn-off, yet more goat trails, fresh ones this time. I could hear the NorthWest log loader running, dust hung in the air from the trucks getting their first load of the day. My partner Ray was coming up behind me, his beat International pick-up chugging and squeaking up the hill. It was steep enough that I was standing on the pegs, leaning towards the headlight, all that weight on the rear made the front end a bit light. The landing was it's normal chaos, heavy equipment, log trucks, men, all moving in seemingly random directions. I parked/crashed out of the way, headed to the landing chaser's fire for coffee/crankcase drippings, before commencing on the day's harvest/destruction of timber. Ray and I felled, bucked and accounted for around 25 old growth Doug Firs, the smallest probably went 40"dbh, the big ones ran 60"-72"+. Ray was a gas to work with, wise old guy, had a way with words, I learned a tremendous amount from him, the old school way of logging. We quit at 3pm, since I was halfway there already, I decided to run into Garberville, heck paved road was only a few miles away. So, I had a couple beers, a steak dinner and visited this gal I knew. It was almost sunset when I headed back to the wilderness, I did a shortcut, yep, this time it was real freeway. The fun didn't last very long, cotton pickin' Highway Patrolman decided to stop me. He went on about overlength load, no flag, obstructed tail light.....he even used a tape to measure, just how overlength the bar was. jeeze a man born without a sense of humour and well, patience stretched a little thin by my back chat, and watching me climb the bank, to borrow some flagging off a stake. Of course crumpling and tossing the ticket didn't improve matters. I didn't make it back to the cabin, too dark by then, I hung out with my GranDad, sipped whiskey, smoked cigars on the porch, talked about the day's work.
I had tons of days like this one, at the time, it seemed endless, I know better now. So, I sit here, in the dead of night, trying to get some of this down, before it dissappears.
