Busin' lovin' and huggin'

Magical Medicinal Marvelous Mushrooms

The fungus among us. I stumbled upon lil' these beauties while in the ancient Redwood Forests of Northern California. The Redwoods are particularly smitten on 'shrooms. There are over 200 different varieties with only a handful of these being poisonous to us humans. To procreate, the fungal spores release the next of kin and essentially decay so a future generation can live. Quite loving those mushrooms are! They also spread their fungi love to the trees. Underground a whole 'love-in' is going on. The spores help break down dead wood recycling it for nutrients and they also hook up with the roots of the Redwoods and other plants to help (greatly) with the absorption of water and other vital minerals. A symbiotic love affair for sure. Redwoods were once to be found all over the earth. Sadly of all the old growth forests almost 95% of them have been logged. These majestic trees are now restricted to the foggy costal area of Northern California, a small strip of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and a very remote valley in China. These are the only living forests left of an ancient species that once spanned the globe. What have we done to these beautiful creatures? Join me in helping to save these wise ancient secret keepers. Could you imagine all the secrets they could tell! 

Lets have a big ol' Redwood LOVE-IN

http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/index.php

                                      http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/index.php

Pacific.

Roads to the other side

Passage through Wyoming. Big Sky country.

 Highway 85, a windy one lane journey through the mountains 

 and then, just like that…. it was flat

Snowed in. Repaired out. 

So when you buy an old Bus, you have to expect that there will be some repairs along the road. Who knew there would be this many!! After our stint in Elkheart, Indiana, we were crusin' along. "Hammering down" at a good clip as my Dad would say. We made it into South Dakota where Nate learned how to replace fuel filters as well as some colorful new language! Having sat for so long, our fuel tank has grown algae so its a constant battle to stay ahead of it. Armed with new knowledge and a few extra filters, we headed into the sunset…

We got as far as Rapid City, when all hell broke loose. Mind you, the bus is no pleasure cruise. Its bumpy, smelly and loud enough that Nate and I generally don't talk until parked (plenty of productive daydreaming happens during this time). So, as we pull into Rapid City to get new tires put on (thank you J&K!!) we were alerted to the extreme more-than-normal bumpiness that still persisted and had grown worse since our tire change. Anyways, long story short we spent the whole day in another garage getting all fixed up and all poor. The joys of home ownership! As the hours ticked by in the waiting lounge, the impending doom of a blizzard got closer and closer. We thought that we could put a few night driving hours in and get ahead of the storm but as soon as we got back on the road, we quickly got right back off. The wind and rain were becoming so strong that we knew it would be nothing but bad news if we kept going. We decided that safest thing to do at that point would be to stay put until the blizzard passed. We found a Walmart and nestled ourselves behind the building to wait it out. 

This is what we woke up to…..

And then...

                    This happened!!

             

So here we are, hunkered down in a Walmart parking lot in Rapid City, South Dakota, for the

 next day or so. They are predicting 18-24" of snow!! Thank goodness for warm blankets, 

hot tea and good books. Hope you are all warm and snugly somewhere. 

This is where we'll be, held up in our hippie fort...