Jimi Hendrix spotted on the Pacific Coast!

Tales of the Traveling Hendrix

Hendrix Meets the Pacific

While being on tour in Olympic National Park, I had the fantastic opportunity to visit Ruby Beach, which is right on the Pacific Coast.  And of course, Hendrix came with me.  I’ve never been to the west coast before, and nothing against the other one, but I like the Pacific Coast more. 

At least in the park, everything that washes up on the beach is left there—except trash, of course.  That’s picked up.  So seashells, sea lettuce, kelp, stones, and driftwood—some of it being logs from 500 year old trees—are all left on the beach.  With the rolling waves and hissing breeze, I fell in love with the ruggedness that is the Pacific Coast.

Nothing seems as humbling as standing on a beach facing an ocean.  To the waves, you’re just as miniscule as the sand that’s tossed around.  I enjoy just looking out until I can see the world’s curvature, and can’t help but marvel at how much power something so simple and yet so complicated can have.

The following week in training, we were introduced to the basics of the mountain, rain forest, and oceanic areas of Olympic National Park.  The ranger speaking in regard to the last part mentioned a list of what are called “The Essential Principles of Ocean Literacy,” a concept used to introduce the importance of not only the ocean, but our influence on it.  They seem common sense, but they all seem to coincide with each other and blend together in the quiet white noise that happens in my head as I stand on a coast, Atlantic or Pacific. 

The Earth has one big ocean with many features.

From a distance, the world looks blue and green. (Byrd’s lyrics quote there).  The ocean has no borders.  We've only named different sections of it:  the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, Indian, and Southern (Antarctic).

But the Gulf Stream, starting in the Gulf of Mexico, has a major influence on the weather in Ireland.  Currents in the Bay of Bengal directly affect countries like Laos, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Thailand.  And the cold waters of Alaska directly affect the life that can survive and grow in the Pacific northwest.

And all shores receive waves the same way.

The ocean makes the world habitable.

Not slamming trees or anything, but most of our oxygen comes from the ocean. 50-85% of it comes from phytoplankton, minuscule plankton that undergo photosynthesis to make their food.  A byproduct of such a process is oxygen.  Which, last time I checked, is a huge component of what we breathe...

The ocean is largely unexplored.

We know more about the surface of the moon than we do our own oceans.  Which I think is crazy, given that the tide pools left behind from a receding tide are a world all their own.  But hey, Hendrix enjoyed rocking out with the barnacles and mussels!

The ocean and humans are inextricably connected.

80% (5.6 billion of approximately 7 billion) of the world’s population live within 100 miles of the ocean.

Most big cities—Beijing, New York City, London, Sydney--the list goes on is built on the ocean.  History shows that port cities always were the place to be if you wanted to meet people, sell products, and make a living.

So many people of the world today rely on the oceans for their livelihoods:  fish for food, trade, physical, mental, and spiritual health, a way of life, tourism, business products, and the list goes on for miles.  

The ocean shapes the features of the Earth.

One word comes to mind and is probably one of the most obvious.  Erosion.  Ruby Beach is the southern most point in the park where visitors can view sea stacks, which are products of waves constantly barraging an outcrop of rock until a hole is carved between it and the remaining wall, and eventually the bridge that is made collapses, creating a spire of rock standing like a soldier in the foaming ocean around it.  I don't think I need to mention how much a hurricane can do, and my prayers are with anyone who may be in the path of one this upcoming hurricane season.

The ocean has a direct impact on the weather and climate.

Water condensing from the ocean feeds much of the weather across the country, especially the Olympic Peninsula in particular.  The typical rain storm, hurricanes, monsoon seasons, are for the majority fed by ocean condensation.

The ocean houses great diversity.

New species are being discovered all the time—practically every day.  And some of them are WEIRD.  Check some out here!

Challenge:  name five different species off the top of your head.

Our own planet—our own backyards even—have so much to teach us, as long as we’re willing to listen.  Take a walk in your yard, barefoot if you can.  Feel the grass, hear the birds, and taste the wind.  Maybe a stretch of sand isn’t the only place one can be humbled…

Here’s a more in-depth look at TheEssentials if you’re interested!

Jam on!

Jimi Hendrix is on the move! See his visit at Fort McHenry!

Fort McHenry National Monument and Shrine

The Traveling Hendrix makes his first appearance at Fort McHenry National Monument and Shrine, one of the 400 sites managed by the National Park Service.  The site itself is a fifteen-ish minute water taxi ride from the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland, (There is a way to drive to it, but my only experience is with the water taxi), and it houses a small museum, which provides context for the events leading up to and following the battle at Fort McHenry, a major event in the War of 1812.  The retaining walls are also still present, as well as other structures. 

(Psst—if you click the title of this post it takes you right to the Fort McHenry NPS page for more details if you're interested in seeing the fort for yourself!)

Of the two times I’ve been there, I’ve always been there when the “good weather” flag is taken down for the day.  And this flag is big.  Like, massive.  Like 28 by 32 feet or-something-like-that big.  At that size, it can’t be folded into the standard triangle.  It has to be rolled.  The rangers there recruit a ton of visitors to help out in rolling it, and incorporate an interpretive program in the form of a game to get the flag rolled before it’s put away for the day.  A smaller flag is flown in its place, keeping the stars and stripes up all the time.

On this particular day, the volunteers involved in rolling the flag included a huge school field trip of (I would guess) seventh or eighth graders.  Hendrix enjoyed jamming out to the unity that all of these kids—the future artists, doctors, park rangers, and other ambitions—had while rolling the flag.  There were students of all colors and races coming together for a hands-on experience to something that is as much their identity as it is yours, mine, and the nation’s. 

In all honesty, the only two things I can really ever remember about the War of 1812 is that's when Francis Scott Key wrote the Star-Spangled Banner and it all ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.  But there’s so much more to it:  the battle there was a major turning point in helping the U.S. establish an identity—one of resilience and determination.  Thanks to Francis Scott Key, there were now words, eventually adopted in 1931 as the national anthem, to go along with a flag billowing in the wind after a major onslaught. 

 

I think the beauty of the whole thing is that the national anthem means so many things to so many people.  Think about it. A good majority of us can probably remember someone performing it at the start of some sporting event that absolutely NAILED it.  And I would think it safe to assume that all of us know someone or are someone that served in the military—a neighbor, a friend, a family member, or someone you remember graduating with—where the words can have a whole new meaning if they gave their all for all of us. 

And the cool part?  Jimi Hendrix had his own take on it!  This particular performance is Hendrix performing at the Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, New York, 1969.  You may like it; you may not, but is that not what the United States was initially created as?  A place of asylum for people to express themselves with whatever talents they have, a place of refuge for those weak and weary?  May “the star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

As it turns out, there are actually three more verses to Francis Scott Key’s poem!  Click here if you’re interested in seeing what the rest of the lyrics are to “The Star-Spangled Banner”!