People I met and I want to thank

and I would like to thank in this way, even if I don’t know the name of everyone.

Ruth:
She was my first host and com­fort­ed me after my long flight. I am grate­ful how easy she made my first days in Cal­i­for­nia. It was very spe­cial to stay in the Los Ange­les Ranges, a place I might have not seen with­out her. She showed me not only the Pine Moun­tain Club, she also intro­duced me to:

bud­dhist monks: Rev­erend Mas­ter Phoebe and Rev­erend Mas­ter Seikai:

I was invit­ed to be part of the Lotus Cer­e­mo­ny and here you can lis­ten what Mas­ter Phoebe said about the cer­e­mo­ny dur­ing the Dhar­ma Talk where we sat togeth­er and drank some tea and had some cook­ies which I found a touch­ing way of teach­ing as we were encour­aged to talk with her and ask questions.

San­dra:
I met San­dra at the park­ing lot of San Andreas Trail close to Palo Alto. She is born in New York and lives now since almost 30 years in Cal­i­for­nia. She encour­aged me to write about my expe­ri­ences about my trav­el and she is read­ing this blog too. Quite a lot peo­ple I met use google trans­la­tor. I was sur­prised how many were inter­est­ed to read my blog. That is also a rea­son why I write this in English.

Har­ri­et:
She is anoth­er couch­surf­ing host of mine and she is still encour­ag­ing me and I love that we are still in con­tact. I had to smile when she wrote after I sent her a book back, she bor­rowed me: 
I have lost a cou­ple of books over the years by lend­ing them to close, dear friends that I had known for decades, and that I would trust with my life.(One of the couch surf­ing rat­ings, trust­ing some­one with your life)
But trust­ing a book return is one step high­er than trust­ing ones life!
So, I trust you with my life, and with my books!
Maybe the librarian’s heart came through. It means a lot to me that she told me that she invit­ed me because of my pho­tos but also that she uses her annu­al pass to the Cal­i­for­nia State Parks now more often because of my trav­el blog. I like her pic­tures and her hous­es. If you want to see her hous­es, than enjoy I like her style.
Spe­cial Thanks to her.

Lyn and Sam:
while Sam was quite busy, I had won­der­ful talks with Lyn. It was like know­ing her for ages and I came just home for a vis­it. We spoke about fam­i­lies, the world, our jobs … all that stuff you talk to famil­iar peo­ple. I am grate­ful that she made me feel we know each oth­er since decades. I miss talks like I had with her. He, Lyn, you won­dered what I will resume about you. Here you can see.

Ranger Car­ol:
She works at the Lassen Nation­al For­est close to the camp­ground where I staid at Mount Lassen. She was cheer­ing me up for this trav­el ask­ing if she could come along with me. She was so friend­ly and nice and explained and showed me where I can go and what might be spe­cial for me. That she looked at this blog even after weeks was a love­ly sur­prise. Rangers like her are doing a won­der­ful job and I think they give a lot to all of vis­i­tors — hap­py we found some­one like her.

Rachel:
Rachel is a 20 year old woman and I found her on a rainy day cry­ing with her lit­tle dog on the stair­case of my motel. I did­n’t know what to do. Might it be obtru­sive if I talk to her? I did and as I could­n’t under­stand her because of her heart­break­ing tears I invit­ed her for a break­fast. She told me a long sto­ry and I don’t know if it was true or not. But I saw her care for her dog, I saw her wish to make it. Her boyfriend kicked her out and she had no fam­i­ly who cares for her that was easy to believe. I don’t know if she real­ly gave her child away for an adop­tion, she lost her mom 15 months ago. But I saw how strong she want­ed to make it. Few days lat­er I saw Will Smith in The Pur­suit of Hap­py­ness and I asked myself how many home­less or almost home­less peo­ple has the same dream and how many won’t make it.

Polit­i­cal talks:
At Low­ell Cov­ered Bridge I met a lady who was clean­ing the exhi­bi­tion inside the the bridge. I asked her why this bridge was only cov­ered part­ly. She did­n’t know but then I could see that the oth­er part was a dam and not a bridge any­more. I don’t know how it came but I spoke about the Roo­sevelts. Theodor Roo­sevelt whom I just knew from “Arsenic and Old Lace” when the cousin was dig­ging the Pana­ma-Canal and who gave the ted­dy bears his name. Hon­est­ly he want­ed a canal through Nicaragua and they bought it from the French. But he made quite a lot of Nation­al Parks, Nation­al Mon­u­ments, and Nation­al Forests and was the founder of Muir Woods Nation­al Mon­u­ment. Here I heard of him and startet the research because this hap­pened in 1908 and in 1945 the 50 del­e­gates who signed the Unit­ed Nations Char­ter went there. Franklin D. Roo­sevelt died short­ly before it and on May 19, the del­e­gates held a com­mem­o­ra­tive cer­e­mo­ny in trib­ute to his mem­o­ry in Muir Woods’ Cathe­dral Grove.

There­fore I start­ed to look for them while the first was a Repub­li­can, the sec­ond exe­cut­ed the “New Deal” and a Demo­c­rat. So I told her that quite a lot of the dams at this time were built as a activ­i­ty against the great depres­sion of the 30s. Lot of the meth­ods are now part of what Oba­ma is try­ing to force. I spoke with her that the Repub­li­can act as this has nev­er hap­pened before but it did. She agreed and I was a lit­tle sur­prised because I did­n’t expect to find peo­ple who like Oba­ma in the coun­try­side. So I told her that he has now gained more mon­ey from pri­vate peo­ple than 4 years ago. More peo­ple are active in his new cam­paign than 4 years ago. The Repub­li­cans like Palin have 1/7 of friends as Oba­ma has in face­book. Maybe just jour­nal­ists love the loud odd opin­ions of Repub­li­cans and there­fore We hear more of them. Not all are watch­ing Rachel Maddows.
On 4 July a young man came to me and asked me if I want to reg­is­ter for the elec­tion. With him it was clear that he was look­ing for vot­ers for Oba­ma. With him I spoke about the pow­er of com­pa­nies. Few days ago the 5 Mil­lion women lost a law­suit because men are earn­ing more than women at Wal­mart. They treat com­pa­nies like any liv­ing per­son which is quite strange but start­ed some­how with the roman law where prop­er­ties count more than human lives. And we still have that but with deci­sions like that it becomes more obvi­ous what strange direc­tion our soci­eties are going to. But if it does­n’t fit the com­pa­nies a state can’t do any­thing. Some cities want to ban plas­tic bag but the plas­tic com­pa­nies are fight­ing against it. Or stronger laws against pow­er plants: here the Fed­er­al Supreme court says it isn’t pos­si­ble that sin­gle states make stronger laws. We spoke about the unbe­liev­able pow­er of Mon­san­to and their restric­tion which is in my opin­ion against human rights. They bring more poverness than any oth­er com­pa­ny I know.

I was just hap­py to find some­one to talk about that after I was lis­ten­ing to dif­fer­ent shows. And of course the talks with my friend Bet­ty with skype who spoke with me about the sit­u­a­tion in Wis­con­sin. I am def­i­nite­ly curi­ous how it will go on because the peo­ple became active after the elec­tion and a Repub­li­can won.

Andrew:
I had almost for­got­ten that I met him till he wrote weeks lat­er. I think he is not aware that he was the only one for 2 days who spoke with me in the Port­land Hos­tel. I know that I don’t have real prob­lems to get to know peo­ple but there no one spoke to me. They looked at me ask­ing what the hell I want to do there. One stopped talk­ing after real­iz­ing that I am from Aus­tria like Schwarzeneg­ger. Thank you Andrew, you gave me the con­fi­dence back the oth­ers took away. Good luck for your job!

Haley
I don’t know if this is the cor­rect writ­ing Haley like the comet but not writ­ten like it. Which was the com­pro­mise of her par­ents and not call­ing her “new moon” but still peo­ple call her that way. What a nice talk we had on a lazy Sun­day after­noon. Her Grand­moth­er is from Wels in Upper Aus­tria and she knew some Ger­man words. Her baby is almost a year and I just remem­ber the 2nd name “Rebel”. I hope that he will live his name. We spoke about her child­hood (she is 25) and now even at the most peace­ful­ly coun­try­side chil­dren pre­fer to play with the com­put­er dif­fer­ent to her. She was out from morn­ing till evening. I won­der where chil­dren will be able to learn what we learnt play­ing with oth­ers. Are they faster in learn­ing social com­pe­tence and empa­thy? This is the beach where she played as a child. We also spoke about the idea that Amer­i­cans are seen as super­fi­cial. She first thought so but I think Amer­i­cans are quite open and oth­er peo­ple are in dif­fer­ent ways close but you can’t con­nect ope­ness with super­fi­cial. You might need as long as with close peo­ple and as much patience and efford for all peo­ple. If you don’t care more for the oth­er, the result will always be the same.Take care and all the best for your small fam­i­ly and mar­ry if you like it and if it is impor­tant for you and for no oth­er rea­son! And vis­it your grand­moth­er as long as it is pos­si­ble, this is important!

Twi­light Town Forks  and their Jan:
She is a love­ly lady from Town Motel and we had some love­ly talks and I am look­ing for­ward to read the book of Nicholas Spark she gave to me (and I will look for Note­book by him too). And the leg­end of the Sand Dol­lar. It is beau­ti­ful for me to hear that for the 50th anniver­sary she took her whole fam­i­ly of 27 and cruise to the Caribbean. I have to write her that I came home safe­ly which she asked me to do. I just saw now on her web­site what good prize I got. Maybe because of the rain? I was quite grate­ful that I did­n’t had to learn about the “Twi­light” which you found all over the place. Thank you for all.

Bill:
It was rain­ing and I stood at one of the less beau­ti­ful trees of the “you have to see” trees of my trip when some­one asked me if I am impressed by this big … wow I had to look into the infor­ma­tion of Olympic Nation­al Park. I for­got the name of the tree: it was a big Sit­ka spruce tree. I told him that the Big Cedar more south is more impress­ing. He was curi­ous and as every­one who knows me: I CAN talk. And I told him about the trees, old and young land, about Nation­al Parks and so on and so forth. And he made notes, final­ly he said that he is a jour­nal­ist and curi­ous as I am, I asked for the news­pa­per. New York Times… He took a pic­ture of mine which he send me lat­er. He does­n’t know that I was mar­ried to a jour­nal­ist. I know their fire when they hear good sto­ries. Thank you for your fire.I pre­pared these lines  a week ago as a fin­ish of my trip (is there any­thing bet­ter than a BIG THANKKS at the end?). But dur­ing that week Bill wrote not just an arti­cle about the rain­for­est which was what I expect­ed but an arti­cle about my travel:
Earth­ly Dream Is Real­ized in the Rain Forest
By WILLIAM YARDLEY Pub­lished: July 27, 2011
It is my fire to write “My lit­tle Sto­ries about almost Every­thing” which I already start­ed. It made the end over­whelm­ing. My sto­ries are also encour­aged by the next lady:

Lau­ra:
she was hitch­hik­ing at the Pacif­ic Rim Nation­al Park on Van­cou­ver Island. And she almost felt asleep because of her 2 jobs and she was going to vis­it her daugh­ter in hos­pi­tal. But she lis­tened quite inter­est­ed to my sto­ries where I try to explain in easy words what sci­en­tists know nowa­days about the uni­verse and the world. She belongs to the First Nation of Ahousat but nev­er lived in the reser­va­tion. I was hap­py to hear that she start­ed to lis­ten to the sto­ries of the eldest. She told me about the eagle and the sea ser­pent which are the ani­mals of her tribe. The eagle who came to every funer­al and fly in cir­cles around the fam­i­ly and friends. I remem­bered when I drove into their ter­ri­to­ry by acci­dent that it was dif­fer­ent feel­ing, a peace I did­n’t felt on oth­er places. But I was also in oth­er reserve which felt more inse­cure and search­ing. She thanked me telling that stuff in words she can under­stand. That con­vinced me about the impor­tance of a book like that.

I told her the sto­ry of The Every­thing. It is quite inter­est­ing that I talk about it most of the time in Eng­lish The Every­thing, that is what my friend Trent made out of it.

It was record­ed and the music is by Trent. (We were sit­ting in a cof­fee shop in Vien­na just talk­ing, and that’s what he made out of it :-).

Win­nie, Yvonne and Gael:
Fun­ny Vic­to­ria! After lux­u­ry couch­surf­ing places with an own room and an own bath­room, I stayed now at Winnie’s place. I was lucky that I had my mat­tress and sleep­ing bag with me as she had just one blan­ket but three couch­surf­ing guests. After the first night with Yvonne from Ger­many, Gael from New Mex­i­co arrived and we slept in the kitchen/livingroom of about 18 sqm with a park­ing in it. It was good that she wrote in her pro­file that she smokes med­ical .… I did­n’t know how much you need of that. In her enthu­si­asm of hav­ing guests from all over the world, I think she over­es­ti­mate the tol­er­ance of the guests. It was a kind of strange to sleep 2 oth­er strangers in a small room on the floor. But on the oth­er hand I had an expe­ri­ence I would­n’t have had with­out her even if I don’t want to expe­ri­ence it again.

Talk with 2 enlight­ened guys at McDon­alds in Victoria
Would you expect to sit at McDon­alds and talk with enlight­ened peo­ple? Me nei­ther. We spoke about uni­ver­sal pow­er, uni­ty and eter­ni­ty. I did­n’t expect that. But I had this con­ver­sa­tion. I was just leav­ing when the man next to me said some­thing and I total­ly for­got what he said. (I could­n’t even remem­ber dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion how all began). But after 2 min­utes I explained him my def­i­n­i­tion how every­thing start­ed. It was­n’t the first time I did that.

But after speak­ing for a while with one guy the sec­ond accom­pa­nied us and we spoke for 2 hours till we went our own ways. Also this talk was def­i­nite­ly inspir­ing and touch­ing. But I am not enlight­ened and one said we should believe and he would teach us. While the oth­er enlight­ened said he found it and knows that he can’t explain because he lives now and don’t believe I will answer mails. The man does­n’t know me.

I just meant that noth­ing will con­vince me that I just have to believe. I want to under­stand and not all under­stand­ing comes out of mind. Once I heard at a radio-show a first peo­ple sto­ry­teller say: Food of the mind will feed the heart. Isn’t that an inter­est­ing view? I still see my wish to grow, as I still have prob­lems to under­stand the no-attach­ment. I would have loved to com­mu­ni­cate at least with the sec­ond one but he thought that he isn’t attached to any­thing any­more. I believe that love for each oth­er and care is more impor­tant than any enlight­en­ment. Or should I say my vision of enlight­en­ment is love and care? And I don’t know how this goes with­out attach­ment. I’ll see.

Jan and Jakub:
2 young Czech men in the hos­tel in Van­cou­ver pre­pared me in a way to going home. The 2 of them are trav­el­ling around the world and I don’t know exact­ly what it was but the way they speak or behave just brought back my home. Is there a spe­cial mid­dle Euro­pean way of bei­ing? Maybe.

THANK YOU ALL. You were all part mak­ing this trip spe­cial! Good luck and save trav­el through your lives!