Later The Same Day

essay

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.