Comptche to the Town of Mendocino, Kind of

The word “verdant” keeps popping into my mind as we descend these lush, rolling hills with a view for miles. I can’t remember what it means and we have no cell service so Siri can’t save me this time. I’ve heard it on NPR dozens of times, an add for a charitable foundation: “A more Just, verdant, and peaceful world.” There’s a tiny town, a post office, a single gas pump, and a small store with a hand written sign as you enter reading, “Don’t Dilly Dally at the Door.” where I can get cell connection on the way back to camp. I’ll have to wait until we’ve finished this ten miles stretch on foot

Spoiler: Green with grass or other rich vegetation. Fitting!

Jo and I are on day three of one of our walking jags. We’ve been slowly making our way along the 840 mile coast of California. We’re taking it easy, covering about 10-12 miles a day.

We find a perfect campground, a massive open meadow, all to ourselves on the precise byway we intend to start our walk, Flynn Creek Road, and we spend the first day covering its length. On day two, chipper and ready for a walk in the rain, we reach the corner of Flynn Creek and Comptche Ukiah Road where we can turn left toward Mendocino or right toward Ukiah.

A sign at this juncture makes the decision easy. It indicates that Mendocino is one mile to the left. I start walking to the right. Jo asks, “Why aren’t we going that way? Toward Mendocino?” I tell her that having just double checked the maps last night, I know that while we do ultimately want to get to Mendocino, we are way more than one mile inland from the part of Mendocino we need to reach. I charted our course to take us inland because this stretch of the coast is not pedestrian friendly, at least not for long distance walkers.

So right it is! Toward Ukiah. Neither of us know the area well and we’ll be without cell services for most of the day but the road just goes on and on so we keep following it all day and return the next day to do the same, covering twenty three miles in addition to our ten miles on day one.

After our walk, we decide to follow the road to the end to see where tomorrow’s walk will bring us and end up in Ukiah, where we scour our phone maps and realize that we’ve gone far afield. We head back to the town of Comptche to regroup and take another look at the sign. On closer inspection, the sign is missing a digit. What reads as “one mile to Mendocino” should read, “sixteen miles to Mendocino” We should have gone left!

We are both reminded of a conversation we had on the first day of this walk when Jo told me that a friend of hers who is considering doing some adventuring asked her what questions she would pose to a potential traveling partner. Jo’s response was, “I would ask them what kind of person they become when they’re lost?” I am struck by the brilliance of both the question and Jo’s response and as we continue our walk, we talk about who we become when we’re lost.

This isn’t our first time getting off track, but it is by far the longest. Twenty three miles off course, on foot! It has been a wonderful, adventurous two days of walking and we’ve seen lots of things we would not have seen if we’d gone, “the right way.” But I also feel personally responsible for the mess up since Jo had suggested we turn left and I’d been certain we needed go right.

Jo’s response to my feeling responsible is to suggest that we each take turns naming the things we would not have seen if we’d turned left. That’s who she is when she’s lost. I guess I know how to pick a traveling buddy!

A few of the things we would have missed:

Tiny, fragile, pink orchids on the forest floor

A mushroom picker who proudly shows us his bag of black trumpet mushrooms and tells us a days hunting will cover a good share of his weekly expenses.

A delicious picnic along a rushing river

Orr Hot Springs

A little hilltop community that allowed us a place to park along their road, where it was otherwise next to impossible to park because there is scarcely a shoulder.

Hubcap ranch, chickens, goats, handmade signs announcing eggs for sale, apples for sale, BINGO tonight at 7 p.m. in the Community Hall!

Meeting a property owner, who was roughly half redneck and half hippie, with a name to prove the latter, and his three orange cats, Just Bob, Other Orange Cat, and Daniel and hearing orange cat adventure stories that included a Coast Guard rescue and a waterproof sack.

A story about a feisty lesbian, short in stature and long on personality, telling said property owner that if he messed with her spring water access (which was on his property) she’d, “string him up by the balls in the Comptche post office.” and the unlikely friendship that ultimately emerged between them.

Wandering through this small town, this sweet patch of rural California, where the pace of life feels contracted, turned down to a manageable volume, our own worlds expand.