California

Many places and people that I met while on a self-supported tandem bicycle tour with my wife stand out to me. Many occurrences and flukes also.  on my trip to California where my wife and I rode 1773 miles from Crescent City California just a few minutes drive from the Oregon border to the Mexican border at Chula Vista CA  the thing that really stood out and made an impression was the California State Park debacle .

There are hundreds of beautiful state parks that pepper California, with 1000’s of campsites on them. We found our selves on dozens of them over our 4 weeks on the road.

The dilemma is that over 70 of these gorgeous state recreation areas and State Parks are under the threat of being closed. The term “closed” means what will likely happen as with so many other things lately is that the parks will actually be privatized. An individual or a corporation will buy the land. Some of these people will preserve the space to keep it exactly as they are now. Others will convert them into something else. This disrupts the area tremendously of course. Both the flora and the fauna are affected. The human cost can be several fold. One aspect is the amount of jobs that can be lost. The communities surrounded by the parks often are dependent on the income brought in by the campers and their families.

Another aspect if a park is bought and then “closed temporarily” which can take years, is that there will be many young and old people that never have a chance to experience the wonder of being in nature. My time as a child being in the great outdoors with my family tend to be some of the best memories I have of my childhood which was chaotic to say the least. The woods and a riverbed were always a place of peace and a place where it seemed like all the pieces fit together and made sense.

The idea that other kids and their families may not be able to have the same experience seems criminal. It seems more important than ever that kids and their parents can have time in the woods or in true natural environments so that we don’t lose this ever important connection with the earth.

California is almost completely bankrupt due to frivolous spending at the Capitol in Sacramento and throughout other myopic financial choices.  Now the entire state and tourists will suffer.

The unemployment rate in California as I’m writing this s now 10.7% and will surely increase. The homeless rate is high and will also be sure to grow. By closing these parks we will add to the daunting number of these two statistics and countless other ramifications. I’m glad to have these images to show, in the hopes that it may encourage others to head out west.

Some people I saw in India

The people I saw in India might not have been the people you saw in India, or the people your friends saw in India. I want to believe that these were the people of MY trip to India. Special. Individual, and all mine. Experientially.

 I was struck by their kindness. The complete honest feeling I got from 99% of the people I met and came across. These are good hearted and warm people. In the chaotic struggle of survival that is India, their spirit seemed unbroken.

When my wife was speaking about Bollywood movies to some young girls and she was asked what her favorite movie was my wife replied “Life in a Metro”, a movie that the girls said they didn’t like because it was too “realistic". Bollywood makes more sense to me now having seen the cities and villages of India; you want to escape your reality for a minute, or maybe for 5 hours. Whichever comes first.

I saw the largest slum in all of Asia. Larger than the population of New York City. The train tracks split right through the middle of it. There were human beings stitched into every fiber of the filthy cardboard, wood, metal, plastic tarp encampment. It went on for miles and miles along the train tracks. I hung cautiously out of the train will all the other young men trying to get fresher air and to see the landscape, or a passing friend. I wondered if the boys dangling from the train were at all concerned with their lives or more to the point with the loss of their own lives.

The value of a human life seemed puzzling to me. Are the Hindus content with this life as it is? Do they make no attempt to change it because they believe in reincarnation and are they just merely awaiting the next life? Are they galvanized by their living conditions and feel powerless about changing their country? These were some thoughts that would swirl around my head.

What really left the strongest impression on me was not the piles of burning plastic bags and bottles or the smell of the river at low tide, or even the site of unsupervised infants left to their own devices in a mass of trash and feces.

What left the strongest impression was the spirit of the people in the city and slums. They were not dejected. They were smiling and going about their lives the best way that they knew how under the circumstances.

All things considered my time in India was a whirlwind of emotions and inexplicable feelings that even now as I write this are very difficult to describe. However, the people left and indelible impression on me that I would like to share with others that I know.

I hope to be able to convey a fraction of that with these photos.