Willits is a town that lies about 25 miles North of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. The road between the two is U.S. Highway 101. It's fairly flat for the first 10 miles then it climbs for the next 12 miles before dropping the last bit into Willits. It's largely a four-lane highway with shoulders either side that are mostly two yards wide. On occasion, this shoulder narrows to not much more than a foot. This is where the woodworm (they look like tiny armadillos and I don't know their real name) choose to cross, when the road is at it's narrowest. When cycling this bit, it's a little hairier than when the shoulder is two yards wide. Primarily because you're uncomfortably close to the traffic. To digress, it's not the trucks you need to worry about, it's the RV's and the Pick-ups. The RV's are troublesome because they're essentially coaches being driven by a man with a nagging wife beside him (sorry ladies but there you are) and several quarrelling kids in the back. The Pick-ups are slightly more worrying because when they come up behind you, the rabid dog, snarling in the back and waiting to sink his teeth into your neck can't be heard until the very last moment.
Why the woodworm cross the road is a moot point but on this occasion the woodworm was crossing West to East. This meant that by the time it reached the shoulder where it could be seen, it had already successfully completed 99/100ths of the traverse. It had, maybe, 6 inches left to go. Nevertheless, Precious, with no manouevrability, except to veer directly into traffic, put a stop to the woodworm crossing the road nonsense, crushing it mercilessly. Precious had clearly paid no attention to the previous day's encounter with Buddhism. Over the course of the next thirty seconds, a great deal of mulling took place. How, exactly, would whichever of the Ten Thousand Buddhas had seen the ruthess murder (I need hardly remind you that we're in California where murderers aren't known for their shelf life), choose to restore the Wheel of Life. Would it be a quick side swipe from an RV followed by a painful, ultimately fatal, fall down the side of the mountain or a high speed blowout followed by a swerve in front of a logging lorry whose fender would catch a collar and drag a lifeless bicyclist half a mile down the track. Who knows? What I do know is, before 30 seconds had past, another woodworm chose to cross the road, this time in the opposite direction. Perhaps he was looking for his mate, I don't know. Now what, my friends are the odds of bumping into two woodworm crossing the road. This time, Precious was clearly in a more benevolent mood, her blood lust sated for the day, and veered away allowing possible subsequent generations of Willits woodworm. Hurrah!
It's a good thing too, because there's lots of wood around Willits, not for nothing is it called the gateway to the Redwoods.
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