Davis, CA

Sac old building
town near Davis



After Placerville, we said goodbye to our biker friends and rode along a bike path. It was great! Beautiful path with plenty of joggers, bikers, power-walkers, and baby strollers.

This old guy caught up with us and we got into a very deep discussion about life and death and bio-feedback. He told us about his cardiac arrest experience of death. He died for 18 minutes. In that time he said he experienced the most incredible feeling of euphoria. Perfect bliss. He said it was very difficult going back into his body and consciousness because here is a world of pain and awareness and worry, and there in his out-of-body state of being, was only peace. It took him three months to realize that he actually wanted to be alive. But now he is quite content biking around and occasionally seeing patients (he is a psychologist). He biked alongside us for about 12 miles, told us all of these personal things, then disappeared just as quickly as he had showed up.

His effect didn't ware off for a while though. I was rather in a state of trance thinking about death and consciousness. That has been a huge theme for me on this trip: not only have we been having conversations with people about such things, but I have also been reading this book about a woman who has a stroke and loses left-brain function temporarily. So our experience of the world is filtered by the right and left hemispheres (each of which provides/processes information VERY differently), and by our physicality (eyes, ears, noses, which receive input uniquely), and all the neural pathways that have been forged over the years...

So what happens when we die for 18 minutes? Or when our left brain function begins to fluctuate? What is consciousness if it contains no energy or matter? where is it housed? How was this man conscious (experiencing bliss) when his body was dead? How was this woman conscious when the left side of her brain (the analytical, language-centered side) was swimming in a pool of blood? If consciousness or an idea or a thought contains no matter or energy, does it exist according to the laws of physics?


These are some of the questions we've been asking over and over again, and collecting answers from people with very different but equally valid knowledge (from pastors, to Native American chiefs, Kentucky hillbillies, grandmothers, firemen/ smoke jumpers, goat farmers, cyclists and motorcyclists, traveler bums, college boys, school teachers, kiwi sailors, corporate officials, police ladies, civil war reenactors, veterans, Kansas kids, bike mechanics, and many more kinds of people along the route).

Of course we haven't figured any of this out, but I have become more thoughtful, more aware, and most importantly, more AWAKE.

So then we passed through Sacramento and made our way to Davis. Davis is a town for bicyclists. They are bikes EVERYWHERE. All over the roads, sidewalks, leaning against buildings, strapped to cars. We felt right at home. Moreover, there was a farmers market going on right down town. We ate loads of fruit samples, bought some garlic, and went to the domes (a hippie commune/ dorms where we would stay for the night). The gardens there are beautiful. So many fruits and veggies growing. The students are responsible for all of it. Quite impressive and what a contrast to Bard.


So we stayed at the domes after a stone soup style dinner (we started with pasta, and the hippies started adding things from the garden .. tomatoes, basil, squash, zucchini).

We slept under a mulberry tree.