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on


the


road


Why I Migrate


THE ANNUAL MOVE TO MEXICO IS FOR WORK, BUT THE JOURNEY IS ITS OWN REWARD BY GINNI CALLAHAN


“We are the memory of the road we’re on” —Aaron English


O


ctober, 2009: Ol’ Blue, my trusty pickup truck, turns 200,000 miles on a Califor-


nia highway and breaks down at the ocean- front Aliso Creek rest area 45 miles north of San Diego. I spend a week sleeping on the floor at a


kayak shop, Aqua Adventures, playing in the sea and importing kayaks to Mexico. Import- ing the kayaks takes longer than the truck takes to repair, so the truck doesn’t cost time, just $530. Some people pay a lot more than that for an adventure! A week later, with kayaks imported and


Ol’ Blue back to life, I set off under a crescent moon and Venus in the dawning sky. I cross the border at Tecate preoccupied with worries —about the truck, my progress, my safety on the road—then stop to remind myself that worrying doesn’t help anything. Enjoy the ride. Take what comes. It will be okay. So I do. I enjoy the music, the passing hills


and weird familiar plants—cirio, agave, cholla, cardon cacti. I savour the delicious solitude of driving alone in my truck with thoughts, memories, feelings all my own. Te warm glow of evening paints itself on


the curious boulders of the Cataviña land- scape. Te shadow of my truck with its kayak top hat and trailer passes through boulders and cacti like a ghost. After paying the rancher at Rancho Santa


Inez, I set out my sleeping bag under a spec- tacular ceiling of stars. Not just individual stars, but the swath of Te Milky Way, clear as


20 ADVENTURE KAYAK | SPRING 2010


a trail in the wilderness. A trail with distinct puddles of galactic light to skip through. I am sleeping between a trailer full of kay-


aks and a mesquite tree, to a chorus of crickets, the flatulence of distant truck brakes and the sound of some large ungulate chewing and di- gesting indiscreetly in the nearby shrubbery. Lights come on in the house of the ranching


family who runs the campground. It’s time to move again. I hold the naked morning to me for one last snuggle, then get up to pack my sleeping bag. Te landscape from San Ignacio down is


incredibly green after the rains last month. I crest a rise in the road to catch a glimpse of a hand walking across the pavement. No, too hairy. A tarantula, silhouetted for a mo- ment against the sky, legs outstretched in an inspired gallop. How did it just miss the 18- wheeler coming the other direction? I straddle it with my tires and send it a wish to miss the others behind me. Tarantulas migrate. Follow some irrepress-


ible calling to move in a direction despite per- ils. Do they ever weigh the relative merits of just staying home this year? Or is it no longer home if you belong in another place at that time? Does some inner voice just say Move, and it does? Can the chunky arachnid hear the soundtrack of freedom as it struts through an ever-changing landscape? Does its heart sing as it passes a familiar landmark? Should we consider it lucky, brave or ignorant as it sets out on its journey? I confess that I’ve been unable to hold down


an indoor job for an entire year ever in my life. Boiled down to basics, I breathe, I paddle, I go


to Mexico. It started with an innocent little in- vitation: “Get a sea kayak, learn to paddle it, and drive me to Baja. Ten you can tag along for a few trips.” I did this as an ignorant adventurer, as a guide and now as a business owner. It’s been 13 years and the rhythm has become my life. I’ll speculate that part of the reason we “civi-


lized” humans go into wilderness or the sea is to remind ourselves that we are not ultimately in control. Perspective. Humility. Some might call it adventure. I migrate for work. I can make a better win-


ter living as a guide/coach in Baja than I can in Washington. I migrate for sun. Solar heating. I migrate for Baja. Its landscape, starscape, seas; its people; the energy of the place. I migrate back north in the spring for trees, the gar- den, the community of farmers, paddlers and friends, and summer work. But do I follow a voice any different from that spider, or a gray whale, or an elegant tern? Migration. Tat pull to move some place


different, yet familiar. To leave security for a time and accept the vulnerability of travel. Migration unleashes my mind and heart


from the daily duties of running a kayak com- pany, a farm and a symposium. Tose are cre- ative, too, but in a more structured way. My only mandate now is to go south. Be open to the journey. Open the senses. Open the heart. Breathe. Some people take vacations. I migrate.


This is the first in a series of travel columns by Ginni Callahan, a sea kayak guide on the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, in winter and on the Columbia River and Oregon coast in the summer. She owns Columbia River Kayaking and Sea Kayak Baja Mexico.


My winter home. PHOTO: GINNI CALLAHAN


Ol’ Blue. PHOTO: GINNI CALLAHAN


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