The Bi-/Semi- Debate

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Thursday July 22, 2010

Friday July 23, 2010

Saturday July 24, 2010

Sunday July 25, 2010

Monday July 26, 2010

Tuesday July 27, 2010

Screw the daily post-- I'm now looking at a weekly. Maybe even semiweekly… or is that biweekly? Or am I trying to say semimonthly? Where is my damned dictionary? Oh, there it is… that icon right there. Interesting! Semiweekly is twice a week, while biweekly is twice a week OR every two weeks.

Well, how the hell does that make sense?

Anyway… where am I supposed to begin?

For one thing, it's more busying than you might imagine joining a dad and his kids up in the boldt of Hum. Especially if there is no school in session and his children are not enrolled in day camp. The kids, aged 8 and 12, need to find something to do other than mindlessly stare at television all day and night. Not that they would mind, thank you very much -- it has been all we could do to tear them AWAY from the idiot box. When we do, the first place they tend to go is the second and even more destructive moron machine -- the computer. Yes, it's true -- all manner of electronic entertainment is available here in the beautiful and rustic Redwoods, and just five miles from the beach. Sadly, the beach doesn't seem to be much of a draw up here on the Northern coast -- the crisp and constant breeze tends to stiffen even the hardiest of nipples. Not really conducive to laying on a towel soaking up the rays. Want to get a tan up here? Try booking a spray booth in a salon. Or, up here in the farm community of Humboldt, one could always tend a vast indoor garden -- those full spectrum HPS lamps will empinken the reddest neck. Not really entertainment for tweeners, though… although give them a couple of years and we'll revisit the issue.

It has been a challenge. One technique that seems to work is keeping them up past their bedtime. The next day they roll out of the room, yawning and bleary-eyed at the crack of noon, which really cuts down needed scheduling. But then when they are awake late at night there's nothing for them to do but watch the TV and abuse the computer, and we find ourselves coming full circle.

What to do, what to do? We burned up an afternoon one day by putting them in bathing suits and telling them to wash our cars. With their naturally adversarial relationship it became less of a cleaning chore and more of a splash match, with one dominating the hose and using it to distract the other while the other tried to recapture it with well-timed and soapy sponge bombs. Their dad and I meanwhile set up two lawn chairs well away from the water's range, downed many mojitos and agreed on politics. We would have argued, but we both shared the same viewpoint -- the best thing to come out of two Schwarzenegger gubernatorial terms was eight years without any Arnold movies. Oh, and his well-meaning bankrupting of the state made passing of the upcoming marijuana legalization measure much more likely. About damned time, I say -- nobody should be in prison for being mellow.

You might not realize it, but things are expensive up here! My friend wasn't an elaborate home cooking chef, which meant that our meals were mostly taken in restaurants, and to keep within my budget I've had to buy a lot of sides and tap waters. Heh, heh... me eating sides -- how silly is that? I partook of all the various specialties which rolled within my eating perimeter. I got a burrito at Hey Juan Burritos, the only death-metal taco stand I've ever been to. Although it cost 50% more than my local place in LA and they didn't serve chips and salsa it was delicious nonetheless, and the clientele were worth the price of admission alone. They were almost exclusively ex death-metal rockers, ironically balding and paunchy and carrying their babies in around-the-neck hammocks covering the faded band names on their stretched-out black tees.

I got a sub at this little hole-in-the-wall sandwich shoppe called, appropriately enough, the Hole-In-The-Wall Sandwich Shoppe. Again I overpaid by half, but I have to admit it beat the hell out of the Subway meatball sub. The bread was fresh and crunchy, the sauce was rich and tangy and the meatballs were mouth-wateringly delicious and the size of horse testicles. That's big, for those of you who haven't held a pair of horse testicles in your shaking and sweaty hands.

Eww. That even grossed ME out.

We went to Los Bagels, a bakery-cum-sandwich shoppe featuring my favorite baked good, the croissant. I lie like a Frenchman (what does that even mean?) -- they didn't serve Frenchmen. The bagels were only 80 cents each, but turn them into a sandwich and you were looking at a car payment. Well, maybe I exaggerate a little. (a point of fact: when I started working in the bagel place on Main Street in New York City at 13 years old, bagels were just 8 cents each!) Again, the food was tasty, and of course, small-town friendliness existed everywhere. I had to be talked town from my belief that every shopgirl was hitting on me, though. "That's how they speak to everybody around here," my friend assured me. I wasn't convinced… I swear she said, "Good morning! How may I hump you today?"

We went to a cheap Italian restaurant and an expensive Italian restaurant. Oddly, the menus were the same at both. The only difference was, at the expensive place they wore suits and at the cheaper place they wore sauce. Oh, and the prices were the same, but the fancy place added corkage fees. At the cheap place we had to pay for the lap dance, but the sauce stains were free. Again I lie… we had to pay for the sauce stains.

We even dined at an all-you-can-eat buffet featuring Oriental food. I don't know what kind of food Oriental is but obviously they do, because that's what they were called: Oriental Buffet. It looked like every buffet I've ever been to. Steam tables and stacks of plates, every third one featuring a crustacean shell permanently stuck to the surface. The food was surprisingly good, and the price was surprisingly more reasonable. Plus they had three flavors of Oriental soft serve ice cream; vanilla and chocolate and a third flavor, choconilla.

So all we did with the kids this week was wash cars and eat. That kind of filled up the days. Oh, we managed to take in nature, which at least kept the dog's nose busy-- the kids were too busy arguing to notice. We went to a lovely marsh with lots of plant and animal life and hiked around the big pond. When we got to the far side I read a sign which explained that these were man-made water features which were a natural way to clean the waste water from all of Eureka's toilets. So that's what that smell was! Actually, all the worst stuff had been filtered out miles away in a treatment plant that turned the solids into fertilizer for the vast farming industry all around here. These ponds were stocked with bacteria and other life that thrived on this water, converting it into something people could use to play horrible practical jokes on their neighbors. Truth was, the bay smelled more pongy than the ponds did.

We took a small trip forty minutes away to walk the protected paths in Giant Redwood forest. It's always fun to cavort among those enormous trees, crashing through the underbrush like the thoughtless humans we are, destroying delicate and endangered species, all while frightening bears and lions away from their goal of claiming the kids. An opportunity missed, I tried to convince my friend. He refused to yield on that issue. Wuss.

I was given a chance to farm, Humboldt style, and I learned a very important lesson after that day: I'm allergic to nature. One look at my horribly swollen, disfigured face not only scared the kids but taught me that some farm products which were fine when you burned them were much more toxic when you rolled around naked in a room full of them. A forty hour allergy attack taught me I was more a consumer than a producer, unless I wished to invest in an environmental suit with its own oxygen supply. I opted out. Maybe there's a place for me in the timeshare business, selling vacations to nonallergic people so they can roll around in farm product like pigs in slop. I'm in the middle of research… I'll get back to you.

Days have gone by and yet I write mostly about eating. Well, that's what is important to me, I guess. Perhaps this is a clue which will lead me to my as yet unrevealed goal-- is my direction:

Sous chef?

Roach coach?

Eating contests?

It's a big question mark to me.

I guess it's okay to end this post weakly. Or maybe just SEMIweakly.

Maybe a Daily Journal ISN'T So Do-able

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Wednesday July 21 2010


Until now, I have been alone. Alone in my thoughts, alone in my actions. It's an experience I have to recommend, at least for the experience of spending that much time with yourself -- you can learn something about your passions and fears and tolerances when you have an uninterrupted stream of alone time.
On the other hand, when you are a guest in a house with kids, a dog and another adult, things can get BUSY. And my last two days were a nonstop flurry of busy… the parental kind. You find yourself in the middle of an endless array of needs presenting itself as children. Is there food in the house? Is everyone safe? How do we get these kids off the bigscreen for a few hours? And what the hell is that smell? I get ahead of myself.
Monday was mostly alone time. I touched up the house again, making sure it was perfectly clean -- to show my host he was right to trust me with his home, and to present myself in the finest light possible, because observing a man in tattered and stained road clothing hardly inspires a white-glove test. I picked up some caulk and filler in local McKinleyville to make the wood repair that much closer to finished, and of course to walk down the aisles of a huge box store. Well, it turns out there's no Home Depot or Lowes or even an OSH (Gosh, no OSH?) for a hundred miles in any direction. And while traveling that distance to pick up a pipe wrench doesn't seem to faze anyone up here, for me it's comparable to going to San Diego from LA, just to eat at a Pick-Up Stix. No thanks, I'll jump across the street to get a spring roll at Johnny Wong's instead. So I walked up and down the aisles of the biggest hardware store I've ever seen, a thing called an ACE. Box stores, move over! It was so much fun there I went down EVERY aisle, every row, and every shelf. Man, were they detailed in their inventory -- for example, they have an entire section dedicated to charcoal! A quadrant in a section for just hunting supplies! And the whole back wall was reserved for tent pegs! Okay, I lie. But they had eight different types, and that's nothing to spit-shine at.
I walked out of there with two big bags of stuff. Nothing I needed now, but you know, I'd use them at some point, right? Scented lamp oil has a multitude of uses... even without owning a lamp, can I get a hullo?
Polished and gleaming, I waited. And hung out. And waited some more. I remember they said they'd be gone for a couple of days. A couple is two, right? No, actually a 'couple' is an imprecise term used for when you don't want to be nailed down. I realized I could be waiting a l-o-o-n-g time, up here where time moves at a different rate and the guy who got married a 'couple' of times actually had EIGHT ex-wives (not my friend, just an example).
Fortunately, for him a couple meant two, and they pulled up to their home, 'the lumberyard', around 5. General greetings ensued and I helped them unload. I find it interesting that the first person to notice my handiwork was the sweet little 8 year old girl. "You straightened up!" she said, and I swelled with pride.
"Yes, I did. And that's not all--"
"I know because now I can't find my Crocs. Where are my Crocs?" she finished scathingly. Sheepishly I pointed to her new section, feeling a mite foolish. Why should they notice? I was just being self centered. But then the compliments really started pouring in.
"You threw away my torn cloth? I've had that torn cloth for ten years!"
"Does this repair seem discolored to you? Why is it discolored?"
"You used all of my Pledge? It was supposed to last all year!"
I was bursting with pride. Then my friend said "Thanks." That, or, "Thanks but no thanks." Either way, I was in my own little world of appreciation, and they were spreading rose petals before me as I walked.
"I can't believe you touched my stuff!"
"What are you, a girl?"
"Dad, make him leave!"
I swelled with the touch of love.

Our first outing together was lunch, and for that we travelled to nearby Eureka, to the Chinese restaurant Gonsea. Pronounced 'Gone Sea', we were told it meant 'congratulations'. Whether for picking a fine restaurant or for surviving the food I couldn't be sure yet. My past experience with small town Chinese places have left me wary. I remember Beef with Broccoli which was served with asparagus and hominy. I remember something called fried rice which was actually brown rice and paprika. Worst of all I have experienced duck sauce made of ducks. So I was justifiably concerned.
The rule of thumb when visiting restaurants featuring foreign food was to check the clientele for faces of the region. A mexican restaurant filled with whites and asians bode poorly, for example. So I looked around. Not an Eastern face anywhere. Not even in the wait staff. Uh, oh.
The food came. Well, it mostly came… three of the four meals showed up… and the last one arrived halfway through the meal. It was the starving teenage boy who had to wait, and watch us eat, and drool. To torture him, we wouldn't give him any samples off our plates -- that's how you're supposed to treat teenagers, right? Eventually his lunch arrived, and in true teenage form he was done before the rest of us anyway, begging for more food. He concluded by eating half of his sister's plate. And I do mean the plate -- he bit into the china.
By the way, their menu featured both Chinese and Japanese food. I guess they figured asian was asian. They'd likely put pizza and gnocchi on the same menu because white is white. So the kids had sushi while the adults had more traditional Chinese fare. Paid half of what the kids meals were, and had leftovers to boot. Not being smug -- just pointing out value to our age-restricted brethren.
Next was the obligatory walk through 'old town'. There were beautiful old buildings built at the turn of the century for, I'm told, the timber barons of the day.

So the rich were assholes even back then. Interesting. Lovely small shops presented themselves, hawking everything from bagels and soup to candles and crystals. The signage showed care and design expertise. Nowhere was a building permitted to fall into decay -- not in the town center, anyway. Back in the middle of farmland I saw a multitude of buildings which had had had their day in the 20's and were now all but collapsed in on themselves. Why people don't offer to dismember (dismantle?) dismantle them and utilize the ancient lumber for a thousand practical applications surprises me. Maybe that's my calling -- prettying up the landscape as a 21st century timber baron, using 19th century timber.
But not today. Instead of designing the next big business we hit a nice old thrift store (can you believe the kids had no idea what a thrift store was? The best comparison the older one could come up with was a pawn shop) and after a few minutes of pawing around all the cool stuff, both had found something they fell in love with, and were thrilled with the economy of it all. "99 cents for Nikes?" the teen exclaimed incredulously, and walked away with several pairs before I reminded him to try them on. Only one pair fit, but boy, was he thrilled! I looked for a belt to replace the one I had left back in LA but alas, my size was not to be found. Which was surprising. There are MANY people MUCH fatter than me -- how is it I can never find any belt larger than a, say, 34? And did you know that when they call a belt a 34, they are measuring from tip to buckle? A 34 can fit a size 30, tops. Where are all the normal people belts? So, no belt, no rope, not even an old wire hanger to help hold it up. I could do nothing to keep my shiny pink ass from exposing itself but stick my hands in my pockets and clasp my fingers together… and doing that looks not so vaguely pornographic, like I was valiantly working on a hopeful method of penis extension.
Now it was Northern California beach time. Sure it was 65, gray and windy, but at least it wasn't sleeting. Truly a perfect beach day. For them. Still, I stolidly joined their freezing exploits, jacket flapping wildly, me unable to secure it because my hands were performing an important task in my pockets and if I took them out, I would surely be accused of flashing and end up on a sex offender list somewhere. But we had fun anyway. There was a lot of stick throwing and rock collecting and molted crab exoskeleton crushing and sandy hill climbing and waves avoiding and dog chasing (did I mention we had the family dog with us?) Hours went by and miles passed, too. Suddenly we were just outside of the parking lot, up on a hill and I joked that my friend's car was on fire -- I could see a trail of black smoke in the sky.
Well, we established pretty soon that it was in fact NOT his car which was on fire, but one of the beachside bungalows a half mile away. A stiff wind sent the smoke almost horizontally and fanned the flame, which shot up several stories in angry orange cowlicks. The next bungalow downwind was in real trouble, and it seemed the fire engines had no idea how to get there, as the roads were narrow and unlabeled and bordered farm after farm before an occasional line of homes would appear. We watched in morbid fascination as the cottage roof went from red to black, erupting in billowing and viscous black clouds.
A pillow of shining white smoke emerged. Ahh, success! The fireman had discovered their target. Soon the whole structure creaked gratefully in the cooling flow and its structural neighbors stood smoky but strong and for the moment, safe. We departed and headed towards home, stopping only long enough to satisfy a sudden desire for flame-charred meat products.

The next two days were a torrent of activity. I remembered how my own child, now 20, needed scintillating input all throughout the day when she was a tweener. Multiply that energy by 2, add to that the factor of boy with insatiable curiosity and no personal safety zone and you understand what I mean. Imagine a gross of superballs being shot from a cannon into a small room with concrete walls. The resulting fracas resembled the infinite paths these children followed to satisfy their hungry minds. And we, their middle-aged and somewhat clueless caretakers, were dragged along for the ride, a high-speed emotional rollercoaster ranging from delighted amusement to baldfaced surprise to outright panic to catatonic exhaustion. In other words, normal life for parents.
What we actually did is a matter of some speculation, as events sometimes overlapped quite intricately. Walks became shopping events as they sidestepped into meet-and-greets; the twelve year old boy would be looking at girls while the little girl would be looking at sipping backpacks. Pizza and ice cream and hamburgers and fruit-by-the-foot fell into their mouths in regular spans; bathroom breaks meant a sometimes stressful search for facilities followed. And always we'd keep one step ahead of the chalk officer, who I guess is cheaper than a meter maid? The sign says 2 hour parking and we'd drive off as he was writing a ticket for the car next to us. There was a precision to my friend's timing which bordered on the mechanical.
And as always, evening entertainment in a modern small town usually means media. Movies, TV shows, video games, Skype, web pages, newspapers, books, cell phones, texting. A hundred years ago only one of those existed… what on earth did they do for fun back then? Tip cows?
A more lively solution for the adults presented itself last night, as my friend invited a few of his local friends and their musical instruments to come by and play for the night. Hours of fun bluesy rock ensued, entertaining as all get-out. We should've passed out handbills. We could have filled the parking lot with pick-up trucks and tractors for sure! I kid. But it was really fun, falling somewhere between a Charlie Daniels concert and that scene from Deliverance. Not the one with the pig.

Soo-ey.

Doing What I Know

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Sunday July 18, 2010

At 5:30 last night I said 'bye to my friend and his kids. At 6 his house was straightened up. At 8 both his and my laundry were done. At 8:05 I threw together a little dinner for myself (beanie-weenies). At 8:15 I made a list of everything that needed repair or improvement at his house. At 8:30 none of his doors squeaked anymore. At that point I briefly considered finding an establishment to party in, then retracted the idea. I know what can happen to a stranger in town. They put an APB out for any stranger driving with a BAC of .01 or more-- it's easy pickings. I opted to drink at home with my pal Bush. Bushmill's.

At 8:31 I made myself a Bush and soda. Don't let anyone tell you I work and drink. No. I work, THEN I drink.

At 9 I made another. Did you know Bushmills began in Ireland in 1608?

At 9:30 I made yet another. Smooth and mellow, I can honestly say that whiskey still tastes like battery acid -- after 402 years, you'd think they would have figured out how to filter the bitter out. Nope.

At 10 I watched Hulu until my eyes bled. Then I crashed.

Then I woke and disconnected the exercise wheel from the hamster cage. Noisy nocturnal buggers. They think they're smart, making all that ruckus while seemingly safe in their cage. Maybe I'll stretch the bars wide enough to let the cat's paws in… then watch the action. Well, first GET a cat… then watch the action. Maybe I'll sell tickets.

First, sleep.

Up early again. I could watch the sunrise, if it weren't overcast. But just 'cause I'm in the land of woo-oo doesn't mean I have to act like it. SO, no crystal meditation for me. My magnets are only used to hold stuff on my refrigerator. I dye only my hair, and then only brown, not multicolored. And DEFINITELY no tying.

What I DO do (heh-heh, I said doo-doo) is go into Arcata (pronounced, I was emphatically told, ar KAY ta, not Ar CAH tah… nor even Al Queda), find about 6 stores to buy everything on my list. It can be confusing. One store sells a pound of rice for $1.79, the other sells it for $5.69. Eventually I've hit a grocery store, a supermarket, a food collective, a hardware store, another hardware store and a lumberyard (which sold the $5.69 rice).

Now loaded with purchases (I'm like a girl that way) I staggered back to get busy. First breakfast (the most important meal of the day). No details, just good advice. Then I get started in earnest. Several hours later, I've finished it all. Busted fixture, replaced. Skinny fluorescent bulbs, installed. Unlockable back door, lockable. And I was most proud of the small carpentry job, because I made it happen with ridiculous tools. The front porch has turned posts holding up the little roof. One post was missing its 'shoe', exposing all the ugly connections.

My job: wood cobbler. And I had to do it with nothing but a pair of scissors, a rasp... and putty. Somehow I made it come together, and look serviceable at that.

I always wanted to put an addendum to the old saw 'Poor workmen blame their tools' that related to the opposite situation, where GOOD workmen accomplish miracles with even crappy tools... but, ever the budding wordsmith, I could come up with nothing snappy.

Poor workmen blame their tools, but good workmen call them fools? Nah.

Poor workmen blame their tools, but just need to go to school? Uh-uh.

Good workmen use good tools? Yech.

Like I said, nothing.

Now I'm done and I can relax. The problem is, I've BEEN relaxing. Everything I've done is fun for me. What to do now? Maybe something I don't like?

Nah, that's stupid.

Or is it? I don't like walking -- I think I'll take a walk. My friend's back yard is not so much a yard as an old lumberyard, only designed by a frustrated skyscraper architect. Acres of former storage buildings were laid out behind his house, which was probably the front office once (since an old faded sign above his door says 'Front Office'). Now devoid of anything building-like above ground, all that remain are concrete pads and sawed-off I-beams. But some of the concrete pads are three feet thick (when normal pads are 4 inches), and the I beams could have supported Godzilla's nest. All leveled and discarded, I wondered why the buildings couldn't have been kept and used for something, like storing brown star remnants, perhaps (alluding to the overbuilt quality, again… hah, hah).

Anyway, I thought I'd walk through it. Oddly, the concrete floors are not at all level, like the buildings came as an afterthought. No matter. I walked until I had to climb, and then I climbed, level after irregular level, and then I reached the gravel.

There was a pile of gravel in the middle of all this, three to four stories tall in places. Why it was there baffled me, but I was tired of second-guessing the past, so I tried to run up it like I used to as a kid. Panting and wheezing moments later I had to admit I wasn't a kid anymore. Plus, not only couldn't I get up the pile, I couldn't get above my own head -- just kept sliding down again. Next challenge… after I empty my shoes.

A hundred or two yards away, standing strong and forbidding, glared the treeline. It stood foreboding and would not be breached, and so of course I had to try breaching it. I strode with confidence away from the ruined lumberyard, through the scruff and towards my goal. The land dipped and a muddy lake stood between us. Not to be outwitted, I walked the shore until I stood on the other side, triumphantly. For a very short moment.

For what I thought were closely entwined bushes between tightly growing trees were in fact closely entwined BRAMBLES between tightly growing trees. Nah, I wasn't going in there… the forest had won, and I hadn't even put up a fight. What a pussy.

Back at the front office I relaxed in a steaming tub. Man, that wore me out! That was one busy 38 minute walk. I wonder how much weight I lost?

The Great Escaper

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Saturday July 17 2010

It's 3pm and I'm in the cool hippie town of Garberville, stopped because they have a free WiFi (out of the 342 locked ones). Are you noticing the same trend I am? Should I rename this trip Operation: WiFi? Let's wait a bit before resorting to something so drastic. Let me take you back in time to this morning, and the reason for today's post title.

In what is becoming more the norm than the exception I arose before sunrise. It's not that usual since I'm hitting the sheets before midnight and I've rarely needed more than a few hours sleep in a row. With nobody in the camp awake at all I saw no reason to hang out and so packed up and left. Nearby was the famous town of Mendocino, truly a Northern California original boasting lots of interesting architecture and lots of pricy restaurants, and no sidewalks to speak of. I began to set up my breakfast service in a vacant parking lot in the middle of town, but in 10 minutes time there wasn't a space available -- seems I chose the parking lot of a popular eatery, which hadn't yet opened when I stopped.

So as not to take their business away I drove instead to a nearby 'Coastal View' stop, again alone in the lot, and began prepping my breakfast meal. No sooner were the onions and peppers diced than a hitcher walked up to me and said, "It's my birthday… what's for breakfast?" He looked like what I figured a northern Californian should… long hair and beard, mismatched and unkempt clothing employing every color on the wheel. On another road I might have been worried.

Here however I said merrily, "Let me kick the oven on and I'll bake you a cake."

He snarled and said, "So you think that's funny?" pulled out a Luger and shot me between the eyes. I died instantly, regretting my stupid sense of humor as he rolled me over the cliff and took my rig.

Fortunately it wasn't 'turn my thoughts into reality day'. What he actually said was, a little surprised, "You got an oven in that thing?"

"Hah, just pulling your leg. Grab a rock and have a seat. I got an omelette and bacon rolling."

We spoke as I prepared. Turns out he was employed as a farmer, it really was his 58th birthday, and he wasn't really going to horn in on my breakfast. I protested that I had plenty of food and could use the company. We talked as I prepared, but when I cracked the eggs he excused himself. "There are people waiting for me at So and So's Restaurant. They're throwing me a party."

I smiled knowingly. "Happy birthday, Clovis." (His name wasn't Clovis-- I think it was Mike) I realized that the other parking lot where I began to set up was the restaurant where he was headed. Small world!

I finished, cleaned up and left, heading for blue skies. The low clouds which had been hounding me for three days made the temperatures comfortably cool, but gray and depressing, and I was ready for a change. I checked the map and realized in a couple of hours the 1 would be veering inland and would be swallowed up by its big brother, the 101, so I planned that route into the GPS girl and let her talk me through it. She wasn't helping much, though -- she really needed an unobstructed view of the satellites to do her job correctly, and the thick fog wasn't helping. So instead she kept telling me to take a sharp left at hairpin turns high on cliffs. I ignored her obvious murderous intentions, preferring to take the road in front of my eyes.

I still wanted to sit by a beach, even in this overcast condition. But I passed, of all things, a McDonalds! I haven't seen one of those for a hundred miles, so postponed my desire. Free coffee here I come!

"We can't give refills if you've left the restaurant, sir." She was young but already had the disapproving look of the farmer's wife in that famous painting.

I grumbled and shelled out $1.09 in dimes and pennies. 4 dimes and 69 pennies. I got my coffee and sat in back. That's when I noticed somebody using WiFi on their laptop.

WIFI! I ran to the computer and sure enough I was connected to the world. I sat inside, surfing the net without getting wet, drinking coffee after wonderful coffee until that same disapproving girl came up to me and sternly pointed at a sign: No Loitering-- 30 minute limit.

I checked the time. I'd been there for 32 minutes. "Wow," I said. "I didn't know you owned the place."

"My dad does," she clipped, and tapped the sign impatiently.

I smiled. "Well, then let me order something." I already had breakfast, and they were now serving lunch, anyway. "I'll have a strawberry sundae." I handed her another $1.09… this time I made her count out all 109 pennies.

I stayed for another hour and then left… my stomach was feeling floppy. Karma can be a bitch, but mostly she's right. Or maybe the owner's daughter had put Metamucil in my ice cream. I found a beach just a few miles outside of town and decided to take a nap. It was cold and gray, but the obsessed Northern Californians were romping about in swim trunks and bikinis like they were sweating in 120 degree Vegas, but I rolled myself up in blankets and grabbed 20… six times.

Finally feeling more normal I got back on the 1 (now called Icicle Highway… at least by me) to its inevitable conclusion, ending at a town called Nowheresville. Actually Leggett was the name… but being amidst ten million million trees, it only resembled that remark. The 1 had meandered away from the coast, climbing the mountains and then descending the other side, and the temperature had changed drastically. Plus, I could now see the sky and Miss GPS could too, and knew exactly in which direction she was heading. "Go back to the coast… please!" she begged, but to no avail. I was heading somewhere and nothing would stop me!

I thought the road along the coast squiggled incessantly, but it didn't hold a candle to here -- I swear, at one point I went around the same redwood six times. Either that or I just got confused because It was a 'giant' redwood (yes, we were in that part of California now).

From Leggett it was a short 23 mile hop to Garbersville, which of course took an hour because of all the near-death scenarios. At least there was some degree of disguise along the coast so that when I was approaching a dangerous cliff or a bit of recently 'repaired' road it wasn't immediately obvious. Not so here -- here I could see the toothpicks and Jenga blocks used to rebuild a vertical 200 foot washout of the mountainside where the road once was, and is again, immediately. Okay, it's the Army Corps of Engineers and they build the most durable and huge constructions… but it still looked scary dangerous, as if a single stiff breeze could blow its base of playing cards away. If it happened at all it happened after I crossed and I wasn't looking back, nohow.

Arriving in Garbersville I immediately noticed several things. 1) I had to pry my stiff white knuckles from the steering wheel; 2) the temperature had gone up even more and was now hovering near the boiling point of lead; and 3) we must have crossed into Humboldt county, because everyone was wearing tie-dye. Especially grandparents. Even the bikers seemed mellow -- they had put mufflers on their Harleys so they putt-putted along like go-carts. I lie about that -- they were as loud as ever, but the noise resembled the encore at a Grateful Dead concert. I lie about that, too.

I was driving slowly through town like a police cruiser looking for pot users. I had a different motive of course… I was looking for free WiFi and when I did, I parked, triumphant. Sadly the only available parking spot was in the blazing sun, and over the course of the next hour my left arm browned like a Christmas turkey. No matter. I made all my contact calls, uploaded several days of posts and watched interesting people walk past, usually holding a beverage of alcoholic nature. Not judging… I was THIRSTY.

I called my contact to the north. He had mentioned he would be incommunicado for a couple of days. I of course recited the Brian Dennehy line from '10': "Where's Communicado?" After he stopped not laughing he said he was taking his kids camping for a couple of days, so I knew I couldn't reach him, but I figured I could leave a message and he would call when he heard it. The message? "Remember I said I had your address? Turns out I only had your IP address." Oh, that computer humor.

Well, he didn't answer as I expected, but moments after I hung up he returned the call! "Wow, you have reception in the woods?"

"I haven't left yet."

We talked a little bit and it turns out he was leaving in a little while. I told him where I was and he bet I could arrive before his departure time, so I took his address and accepted the challenge. I got into town exactly one minute before deadline, drive up to the address… and stared at an open field.

A more paranoid person would assume that he gave me the wrong address on purpose, that he was blowing me off in the rudest possible way, that he had no intention of allowing me to stay at his place for the weeks or months we had talked about earlier. An insecure person would agonize over giving up their life back in LA over a sham. An apoplectic soul would have become enraged at that moment and set fire to the town.

I am none of those. I called him and said, "I'm here… where's your house, pal? I'm standing in front of an open field-- is it built beneath the ground, or is it perhaps invisible?" He repeated the address. "Yep, that's where I am."

"I'm gonna walk out into the street," he suggested. I looked left. All signs calm. I looked to the right. A tiny figure was standing down the road.

"Is your address in the 500 block… or the 600?" I said when I drove up to him (that tiny figure WAS him).

He looked sheepish. "I keep doing that," he admitted. "After all, I don't write to myself."

We hugged hellos, all of us. His kids had grown, and his son's voice had changed with advancing adulthood. My friend showed me around the house, said, "Sleep anywhere," and left with a wave, shouting, "We'll be back in a few days. Make yourself at home." Then they were gone.

Alone again, naturally.

Near-Death Experiences- and Actual Ones Too

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Friday July 16 2010

Later

I was looking for beaches, and beaches I found. Oh, I found them in droves, along with cliffs, big rocks in the water, seagull guano and tourists. What I couldn't find was sun. A pervasive blanket hung low over the beaches all day. I climbed to the top of a mountain and felt blazing sunshine, but the beach was now a thousand feet below me. So I went down to the beach and the sun was, like, 93 million miles from me. Relativity sure is a funny thing. And when I said I climbed the mountain, I'm sure you assumed that the road went up the mountain and I drove in my car to the top. That's precisely what happened. But I take credit for all the walking I did today whenever I stopped to look at another beach. I would get out and walk to the edge, look at the gray sky and the gray sea and the silly people determined to have a beach day in the cold wet sand, bundled to the hilt in warm clothing, and I turned and went back into my car to look for the next, nay, the first sun-swaddled beach.

It was a disappointing day for the beach bunny in me, but just hellzapoppin' for the driving fool I became. The 1 (called the Shoreline Highway now), from the air, must spell something in script writing, probably a long monologue about how crazy all the drivers on this insanely curvy and dangerous road must be. But I love it and for once I'm glad to be alone in the car so nobody can hear me scream like a little girl with every free-floating tire.

I'm on a schedule now and making daily miles has become my mantra. My host to the north expects me on Sunday. He's X number of miles away and today is Friday, so I should drive 1/3 X each day. Wow, my algebra is popping up -- don't look, maw!

Today's X deposited me right at the Manchester State Beach and it is lovely, although for the life of me I can't see or even hear the beach. But it is a wooded property and my tent is pitched directly between a couple of exuberantly growing evergreens. I promise I have pictures of it. Maybe I can find the ocean if I go over that ridge right there. I'll be back.

I almost wasn't right back. I ran up to and past that ridge. You know what's past that ridge? Half a mile of falling! I shuddered to imagine not stopping in time. So that's why I couldn't hear the ocean… it was way, way, way below us. There has got to be a path to get there, I think. Or a James Bond type underground tunnel. Maybe the park service airlifts people to the water's edge. I can't believe that the state would place a park by a beach which is not accessible. That's okay… it gives me time to type. There's just no power anywhere, so when my laptop's juice is drained and the last word is formed, I'll be alone with my thoughts. Oh the horror! Not only is there no electricity, there's no cell service. And not only that, but there's no WiFi, either. It feels like 1972, only without the jewfro.

There's only 68% left on the battery.

Well, I was kidding before… there was nothing over that ridge except more ridge. I know it's there somewhere, so I drove to the ocean 2 miles away. When I arrived there was a parking lot and some oddly brown (not tan) beach sand, and a warning not to step on the endangered Snowy Molar eggs buried just below the surface. Dumb place to put eggs, if you ask me. I took the path and found the beach. It was cold and foggy and inhospitable-- the whole length was littered with gray-white, gnarled driftwood, which looked to have been sitting undisturbed for years. I could see no footprints in the sand. The only people I saw was an SUV family collecting the driftwood, endangered eggs be damned. In fact if they found eggs I think they'd probably eat 'em and think of it as good fortune.

SUV families are homeless but for their car. Swept up in the housing mess, the SUV was all they could escape with. Now they roam the state from park to park, surviving on camper leftovers and handouts. When I passed by they looked at me a little hungrily and I skedaddled. 44% left.

I left the campsite to try and find WiFi and a cell signal. Phone service was available in nearby Point Arena, a tiny town with one restaurant and one bar open on Friday night. Still looking for WiFi. Now my phone died and I realized I forgot to charge it at the hotel yesterday. Idiot! The device that turns the car's cigarette lighter into an outlet seems to work as long as I'm not driving, so I'm stuck in town, sitting in my car, waiting for the phone to charge.

Near the water's edge is an oversized log cabin multipurpose retail space. I'm parked next to Pizza and Cream, which sounds unappealing but just means they offer pizza AND ice cream… and probably not together.

"I'll have a pepperoni and pistachio slice, please."

Above them is a seafood/fish restaurant/bar called the Chowder House. The food smells good but the prices are extortionate. I can wait a lifetime before I buy a $24 clam chowder in a bread bowl. 28% power.

Finally the phone is ready, which is perfect because so am I. It's dark and I drive the tricky road slowly. Some local tailgates, and I speed up a little but he still hangs on. I speed up some more but no good. Then I spy a turnout after a curve and dive in, but I enter it a little late for my speed. The local zooms past as I slam on the brakes and slip on gravel past the turnout's end, which lies in gloom but seems to fall away precariously. I get out to survey. Yep, I just missed flying off a cliff. I try to back out of the channel my car dug in the gravel but my wheels spin, fucking up my undercarriage with flying debris. I figure I have to go forward and turn sharply away from the cliff if I want to get out of this. What a shitty way to die!

I have confidence, so perform the maneuver. The car looks like it's going to make it, but at the last second slips over the edge and plunges 150 stories into the surf. The steering column snaps from its bracket and drives itself through my chest and into the cooler behind the seat. I die feeling icy water drizzle through my body. Sea creatures immediately begin to consume me, and nobody finds the car for 30 years.

Well, that happened in my mind, anyway. The car performed as expected and I returned to the campsite, cursing at the sound of every dislodging rock bouncing around the undercarriage as I drove.

Fuckin' locals.

10% power. I gotta go befo

Shopping Center Sitting

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Thursday, July 15, 2010

I don't know which to rave about more… the beautiful McDonalds I spent three hours learning or the lovely city in which it resides. Yes, Monterey sounds beautiful, and it is. They started by removing all manner of billboards (or maybe they never put them up), got rid of eyesore displays (like the golden arches), and focussed on beautiful structures, great foliage and fantastic scenery. Win, win, win. But like they say -- I'd never live in a city which would allow me to live there. And Monterey took one look at me and said, "Uh-uh pal," then got a private security squad to watch my every move. There they were in the Mickey D's parking lot. I saw them again while I purchased gasoline. They were peeking out from behind trees as I walked through their lovely parks. And the entire force breathed a sigh of relief as I exited their fair burg.

Or maybe I'm just paranoid. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching you. What was that!? Oh, it was just a bird.

I'm back on the US-1 and the sky coats the ocean like an angry blanket. As the coast winds in and back like a weaving alcoholic the fierce cloud cover draws closer and pulls away as if threatening a choke hold. At one point it slips landward and I smack through a wall of fog, angry wisps following my car like fervent gangbangers. I speed away and they give up, returning to the flock.

Sun breaks through and dots the farmland with bright freckles. Lines of hunched farmhands in oversized straw hats pick tomatoes and strawberries and artichokes. Dozens of curious travelers pull their expensive hybrid vehicles to the side and watch them work as if experiencing labor for the first time. I zoom past. Labor has been my life… I am unimpressed.

It's a mellow ride to San Francisco. I'm still on the US 1 and the number one tourist sight is beaches. Unmanned, deserted… and it's nice out! I walk on a couple-- I'm not feeling the hole, so I get back in the car. Halfway there I realize that my fancy car charger isn't working. The computer is threatening a walkout. Of course I pull over to find a power outlet. My relief comes in the form of an eating area in front of an Albertsons in Half Moon Bay, where I sit for two hours awaiting full power. I people watch during that time. A dozen feet from me is a vagrant, sitting on the ground next to his home… I mean his cart. He doesn't say a word, just looks at the people as they exit the store. One after another they hand him singles or fives. One beautiful young girl's expression shifts to sadness and hope and she asks god to bless him. He's made 60 or more bucks in an hour… he's blessed enough. I always wonder if some of them take off their filthy rags at the end of a day and enter a fine split level, leaving them in a box in the garage marked 'work clothes'.

"Honey, I'm home!"

Kiss. "How was work, dear?"

"Same as always. People throw money at me."

"Daddy!" Screaming little blonde muppets attack and hug him. "What did you bring us?"

He reaches into a bag. "I got a puppy!"

Something like that.

He leaves after awhile, arguing with himself, and I'm now sure he doesn't live in a nice house with a pretty wife and loving kids. Maybe once, long ago but not now. Poor shit. I give him a dollar. He doesn't thank me. Why should he?

An employee of the store takes their lunch hour on the benches, munching on crunchy overfried chicken from the deli counter. He pulls out a device from his backpack which turns out to be a portable battery operated DVD player and loads a movie he got from the video display inside. An employee/friend stops by. "What are you watching?"

"A 40 Year Old Virgin Knocked Up Sarah Marshall And Feels Superbad About It." Not kidding. I could hear a few choice scenes as they watch. It's violent, dirty and pretty funny. I wonder when they are going to release "The Making Of A 40 Year Old Virgin Knocked Up Sarah Marshall And Feels Superbad About It." It's what logically comes next, right?

He goes inside to get something to drink and I volunteer to watch his stuff. "I don't know you and you don't know me, but we're both sitting here watching electronic devices -- we're kindred spirits," I say. The 20 something smiles and agrees. When he disappears I grab his shit and run. I don't, but the thought of it passes briefly, just to imagine the look on his face after my impassioned speech. He returns and thanks me, unaware of what just happened in my mind. I ask him to do the same and I get a soda from the car. He also doesn't steal my shit. It's a good day.

I made a few phone calls, to the ex and to friends and to my future host upstate -- I should be arriving in his town in a couple of days. He made the offer a few months ago to let me stay there for as long as I want. But he doesn't even know that I've even left LA, or that I've even made this big change in my life. I wonder what he'll say when I tell him? He doesn't answer and I leave a message briefly describing my 'Crisis-Quest-About' … I figure he'll call back. Hope he will, actually.

At 85% charge I've had enough of this upscale shopping center and check my route. Turns out this road doesn't go where I want it to go, but the road I do want is coincidentally adjacent to the shopping center. I'd like to think it was Karma because I didn't steal the guy's DVD toy, but probably it was just coincidence.

Soon I'm in Frisco. "Not if you don't wanna make enemies, you won't." That was the answer to the question I asked this angry fat queenie AAA rep

when I arrived the first time in 1985 -- "Can you call this place Frisco?" I decided right then I would ALWAYS call it Frisco, only not to their faces. I park at a meter and pay a buck for 30 minutes, then hop into a hospitality store (oh, you know). I get back to the car and discover a ticket for 75 poppers. The bastards. Turns out meters in FRISCO which are painted yellow are the same as yellow curbs. Was that Karma for calling it Frisco? I didn't wait to find out. After spending accrued weeks in this city over the last 25 years, I know it well. Pretty, expensive and a driving nightmare. It's like most big cities so I left, headed out through the gate. The Golden Gate.

Ended up in a town called Rohnert Park, at a place called the Extra Super Budget Dirt Cheap Sleazebag Rat Motel. Not the name, just what I call it. My first room had no air. Literally. I couldn't get the door open, the vacuum was so intense (Okay not literally). The second room was better by a fraction. The AC pumped out air marginally warmer than the chilly outdoors -- I left the door open. There were two beds crowbarred into a room so tight that a wild eightsome wouldn't fall off the edge. The lights flickered. The TV smelled like eggs. Missing tile in the bathroom. And there was a perfectly formed iron burn in the carpet -- I think they use it to point North. My next door neighbors had 32 teeth -- between them -- all 6 of them. The scaly woman upstairs on the walkway asked me for a cigarette while I was tending to my car. I didn't have one, so she asked if I had any crack. I said no to that too and she asked if I wanted a blow job for $20. I said she'd have to pay me more than that, and went inside.

Oh, and the WiFi sucks. All this for the low price of $79, marked down to $53 because I complained. Cross Rohnert Park off my list of potential life destinations.

My buddy up north called and said he was happy to host me for as long as I want. Yay! Then my friend down south Skyped me and we chatted for an hour and eleven minutes, like old times. I tell you, set the computer in the right position when you Skype and it's like you're there!

I'm out of here. Gonna find a beach and toast up. More later.

A Daily Post Seems Do-able...

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Wednesday July 14 2010

Another long day! I took full advantage of the rented motel room-- I took several showers, utilized the provided electricity to run the hot plate for two meals (breakfast was a cheese omelette and toasted onion bagel with cream cheese… yum!) sorted through the various pay cable channels (HBO, Showtime etc), and of course made absolute use of the hi-speed internet (I Skyped the ex for an hour, checked all my routes through Google Maps, and uploaded a couple of entries to the blog, all while listening to Pandora). I asked for a late checkout and spent the time wisely, cleaning everything that looked dirty in my car (yes, I polished my knob, thanks for asking).

At noon I took off, meandering up Route 1 to Big Sur. Oddly, it's not called Pacific Coast Highway up here (even though it IS the only highway on the Pacific Coast), but rather the Cabrillo Highway. There were many scenic pictures to take (which I took), and a few mural shots in Pismo Beach to add to my collection. Then I hit the danger-studded and wildly dipping Road on the Western Edge of America (yes, the PCH. Which road did you think I meant?). I was not reassured that at least ten times during the journey we travelers were ferried to one side of the road because the other side was being 'shored up' following road failure. Funny choice of terms, with the shore being so terribly far BELOW us! I was also alarmed by the sign which informed me that for the next 60 miles I would be driving through a 'falling rock zone'. With the road being hewn out of the near vertical cliffs bordering the Pacific Ocean, falling rocks aren't tumbling down the side… no, they are in freefall, like the penny over the side of the Empire State Building. At least I'd never see the end coming.

An interesting phenomenon on PCH and other 2-lane roads is the way faster drivers pass the meandering ones. On straightaways when the lines change from solid to dashed, the 'rabbit' speeds past the 'turtle' using the oncoming lane, hopefully completing the pass before violently meeting bumpers with an oncoming car. On those vast stretches of winding, cliff-hugging road however, there are small turnouts built into the road every quarter mile, which a turtle can utilize to allow the impatient rabbits passage. The problem with that system is that the turtles are going slowly because they simply don't have the ability to drive these difficult roads. They are in a state of white-knuckled panic for the entire route and turnout duty is not only far from their thoughts, it is an optimistic impossibility, so us rabbits have to think of more clever (and dangerous) ways to leave them in the dust (where they belong).

If flashing your brights at them doesn't work (and it doesn't), if honking and tailgating doesn't help (and they won't), waiting for a hairpin turn is the next step. They use the lane-shortening advantage inherent in curves to jump in front of turtle dude. Sometimes they keep an eye out for oncoming traffic. If they don't they face imminent death unless they can slam on the brakes and scramble back to their original position, frustrated but determined to make it happen with the next danger-filled opportunity. Sometimes they instead pull into a turnout to change their suddenly soaked and smelly underpants. I know I did.

I was doing that very thing when I saw the sign, and briefly considered going to the famed Hearst Castle. I even made it up the driveway, into the parking lot and into the visitor's center. I had told myself that I'd pay whatever the tour cost (now $24), but the next tour was 3 hours away, so I said fuck it and got back on the road. Maybe one day I'd see what all the hype is about. Until that time, I convinced myself that the tour was how the Hearsts originally became wealthy, a skewed bit of logic I won't even try to describe.

At 3 pm, after sixty alternately frustrating or nail-biting miles I got to my favorite beach in America, the Pfeiffer, near Big Sur. It's very remote, a mile-long sand spit flanked by mountains, featuring gorgeous, huge, climbable rocks projecting out of the water a scant 50 yards offshore. More of the more daring beachdwellers has ascended to the top of them, looking for all the world like the little plastic people residing on wedding cakes. It was enlightening to watch how quickly they scurried up the rocks, yet how hesitatingly they returned. Some became petrified and were glued to their position and had to be coaxed, sometimes with pelted rocks.

One of those huge offshore mini-mountains featured a bizarre natural stone tunnel going all the way through it at water level, and waves came crashing through from the open sea, sending fierce plumes of whitewater streaking horizontally towards the shore. Centuries of this action had carved a small valley in front of the tunnel, pushing lesser boulders to the sides, which people scaled trying to approach the absurdly violent tunnel. Invariably they would be caught by a shooting wave and be shot off like a target in the carnival, only to soggily emerge from the drink and try again.

I opted for a calmer endeavor -- the boulder hop. Along the relatively wind-free southern border of the beach there was a maze of boulders bordering the ocean. Crevasses between them were filled with sea life: side-scurrying crustaceans and raspy rough starfish, tidepool fishlets and slimy green plants, all fascinating to watch as they went about their watery lives. The boulders themselves were dotted with antediluvian footprints and sandstone impressions of an earlier age. I hopped them as far as I could, but although I could clearly see them continuing on for a long while, a churning pot of angry ocean smashing the cliffs between me and them made passage impossible. You see, I had forgotten to bring my ITD suit, or for that matter even to design it. For those of you who remember back to my Hawaiian trip in 1998 (I think), a weekend in Hana watching the deadly roiling sea inspired my idea for an ITD suit-- Impervious To Destruction. Basically it would be a wearable inflatable raft, blowing up on command all around the wearer until they were the hot dog in an indestructible thick rubber bun. The waves could throw them into the cliffs-- they would just bounce off and laugh. The stumbling point for me came was maneuverability. When deployed, the user was as helpless to affect their position as a snake in a box. So like most of my brilliant ideas, I left the ITD suit in the closet to collect dust.

I knew I'd have no reception so I left my phone in the car. Unfortunately that meant I also left my clock in the car. When I got back I was shocked to see that it was after 6 pm. If I wanted to get to Monterey, find a campground and set up my tent before nightfall, I had to get going! Somehow I made it happen. I found the one Monterey campground in the AAA camping guide, was amazed that it wasn't filled, got a spot and erected my tent. I also finally got a chance to use the air mattress pump I picked up following the very hard night's sleep at Ventura's Faria Beach. It worked like a charm. Too bad the mattress had a hole -- it filled in under a minute, and emptied in under five. How to fix, how to fix? The hole was on the flocked side of the mattress (velvety soft so you don't slide around… which you do anyway). I went into my tool section and found some Elmer's wood glue. It would take a while to set, so I had dinner while I waited (Chunky soup and a tortilla). It was fire season so no campfires were allowed… I heated it all up with my Coleman stove. Good times.

10 pm and the glue was dry enough to try refilling it. The Presidio must be next door -- suddenly we could hear 'Taps' through a distant speaker. Uh-oh, quiet time. I again used the electric inflator, plugged into the car's cigarette lighter. It was a very noisy product to operate in the quiet campground, sounding like a nervous vacuum cleaner. A minute later I was done and the mattress was firm. I went to sleep.

I woke at midnight on the cold, hard ground. I did not fall off the air mattress, or roll off. Rather, the mattress was flat. This time I filled it with my breath, then passed out from hyperventilation. Again woke to a flat mattress, but this time it was 5:30 am, so I packed and left to find my morning retreat, a McDonald's. Bless them all, they have been my short-term motel stop for 40 years. A cheap meal, a warm (or cool) environment and the three S's (shit, shave and if you don't mind the mess, an above-the waist shower as well).

Some try to sleep there as well, but the establishment frowns upon that. Well, in the dining room anyway, but they leave you alone in the parking lot, as long as you don't set up a tent. I learned that long ago, the hard way.

And We're Traveling!

Later The Same Day

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Here I sit, in my car in the biggest heart of Danish country outside of Denmark and there's nobody wearing wooden shoes. Maybe that's because this is Solvang California, but I still feel somehow cheated. At least there's a fair sprinkling of wooden windmills and thatched roofs I can use to fool myself. It's very realistic except for the bright yellow Subway sign. Now the spell has broken. Oh, wait! I can see a horse-drawn carriage. It may be 100 degrees here but I'm gonna need to down a tureen from Pea Soup Anderson's. THEN I'll feel complete.

Let's back up. After my daring and semifictional escape early this mornng I stopped in Carpinteria for a quick breakfast. I needed a slow breakfast though, because nothing was open at 5:15 AM, so I searched for and found a Wi-Fi hot spot and for a little up/down action. That's uploading/downloading action for all of you sick fricks, get your mind out of the gutter. THEN I ate, and used the old empty coffee cup trick to grab a couple of refills (couple = seven).

Suitably awake now I wanted to perform a sacrificial hole-digging and did one, after I found a beautiful and vacant free beach in Goleta. I think it was called Goleta Beach... I could be wrong.

I was wrong about the vacant part, though. It was empty when I arrived at 9 am, but it was crazy busy when I left at 1:11 pm though (there's that number again!).

If I can figure it out, I'll show you my Sand Dungeon representing the old me's post mortem. If you don't see a pic here it's because I didn't. Anyway, it's an exaggerated rectangle to represent a grave site. On the walls are two inscriptions: 'R.I.P Old Life' and 'I Am Reborn'. Sadly there's too much sun and shadow to get a good pic of them. R.I.P. OLD LIFE is missing the periods so I guess it could be read as 'Rip Old Life' and be construed to be derogatory to the aged, but since I am one I swear that's not how I meant it.

Today was a series of short trips, just to break up the travel plus to check out places I'd seen before... like Solvang and Buellton. Pretty countryside... lots of farmland in the rolling hills between mountains. Gobs of living green brush and trees, then broad swatches of tanned grassland. And the weather kept switching with my elevation... 72 and breezy to 98 and still. ACK!

After leaving the feature town of Solvang, which as I said had many pretty buildings in the town square with completely ordinary California homes surrounding it, I headed back towards the coast, a bigger trick than you might think 'cuz there were no roads going that way. I picked the US 1 back up, because it's the Pacific COAST Highway, right?

Not here, and not for a spell. I finally hit water in an appropriately named town called Oceano (O shun-o? O-shee-ann-o? Not sure how it's pronounced) and I saw a beach there dedicated to ATV's... I decided to leave the station wagon on hard ground and have a look. It's the Pismo Dunes Vehicular Recreation area,

and it looks like sand dunes have taken over, heading up the mountain and over, visible from the valley side as I travelled there. THAT was a strange look... seeing sand dunes crest the tops of tall mountains as I strained to look for ocean beyond them.

Exhausted and in dire need of a blistering shower, I got the last room at the Oceano Inn, which was the roomy and obstruction-free 'handicap' room on the first floor outside of the handicap parking space, bargained the nice Indian owner (Bombay Indian, not wampum Indian) down to $50 from $70, found out that (according to him, anyway) there are no less than eight syllables in 'Oceano', then brought into the room all the various acoutrements to make me happy (booze and food), including a hot plate and pots and pans, and heated my leftover Hamburger Stroganoff (Good Housekeeping recipe, circa 1952). I took a shower in the Handicap bathroom (which you have to do sitting down, did you know that? I looked like a Massengil ad), got in bed at nine to watch a little TV, and BAM! it's 530 in the morning. MAN, what a good night's sleep. I didn't even get to check out the night life in this burg-- there was a Cantina across the street which catered to the bikini'd sand bunnies... that could've been fun. Ah, well. No regrets. At least there's high-speed Internet here. Now I have to charge up my computer, my phone, my shaver... everything.

Next stop... Monterey. Man, I do love the beach tour.

Or maybe Big Sur.

This part of California kicks MAJOR ass.