LA County

Santa Monica was great. Not because I partied with the stars, or because I was discovered in Hollywood. I didn't venture East any further than Westwood; I set my GPS to enable Highways as an avoidance, and kept myself and my Suby far away from the 16-lane insanity that is Los Angeles driving.

No, Santa Monica was great because I could finally relax, in the madness but away from the madness. Mostly, I slept and watched bad television. And that was everything it could be and more! You can easily imagine how fulfilling this would be, after two months of over-stimulated trucking, day in and day out.

Don't I look healthy? I lost a lot of money to a Whole Foods that was just at the end of the block. It was time to splurge... oh man, I ate good. Let's take the time to acknowledge why I was so relaxed, and able to spend money: My wonderful Uncle Jack. He let me stay at his beautiful little apartment off Marine St., and since he was in NYC for the month of November, no one was around to tell me to wake up. It actually would have been awesome if he were there, and could show me his favorite places and all that, but sleep was great too. Thank you Uncle Jack! You rock.

Of course, I did pry myself off the comfortable couch to go see Santa Monica's main street, the Venice Pier, and of course the Venice Boardwalk. Actually, the first day I hit-up the Venice Pier (or maybe they hit me up - $5 for parking...) I'd thought I'd "been to Venice." You had your Surfers, Skateboarders, tourists, and I thought I saw a muscle man on roller blades. More importantly, as I leaned out over the Pier I saw a whole pod of dolphins swim by, about 20 yards away from the nearest surfers. Or maybe they were porpoises...

After some further research online, I discovered that no, no I hadn't been to Venice Beach yet. So, not having anything better to do, and being real curious about the rollerblading-turban-wearing-guitar-player, I set out to see it.

And I'm glad I did, I actually went back for more the next day...

So, the walk down Venice Beach... First, you're accosted by rap-star hopefuls, who play you their CD and are more than willing to accept donations in exchange for their music. Not a huge rap fan, it didn't sound too terrible - no more terrible than what you've got playing on the 'MtV'. Next, you're supposed to get some cheap sunglasses. I really wanted to get me some of them alien-looking peepers, but settled for the more useful polarized pair. On recommendation from a friend, I had purchased a pair of these beauts when I was leaving New York state, but I think they got crushed somewhere on the East Coast and were darn-near useless come the drive West, when the sunsets were their most vicious...

After the cheap sunglasses, you check out the vendors. And you walk. And you walk. And you dodge some more rap-star hopefuls. You read some of the funnier Hobo signs, but mostly you keep your eyes forward. There are street performers, a muscle man who kinda just walks around with a medicine-type ball, and yes, the fellow with the Turban went whizzing by with his guitar blaring. Some of the street performers truly earned their keep:


There was one drum-circle group, with a super-crazy guy waving his arms around and challenging the board-walkers. "Children First, Women Second" he repeated, only the "Children First" part kept getting lost, and for a while I thought he was a sexist jerk.

Guess which one he was?

I ended up sitting down with a group of alright-looking transients and chatting them up. Most of them I figured was just like me - drive out to California, and... well, that's it. Sleep on the beach. A few of these guys had cars, one even had a VW Passat and a blackberry. I was very confused until he explained that he had a PO Box. And a laptop. So he could pay bills.

A Transient paying bills. Wow.

A few of the kids were electricians, getting money whenever they could find jobs (which I'm sure was proving more difficult in this recession). All of them seemed to be there on purpose. The VW Tranny insisted that his own presence there was "by design." I wonder how many trannies this applies to. For all the people who drive to California and never leave, how many end up with steady jobs, and how many would prefer not to? Why tie yourself down to a monthly rent when showers are available on the beach, and you could sleep under the stars every night?

It's certainly not the life for me, but I could certainly understand it.

The sunset that night was amazing; this shot was taken an hour before, then I stowed my equipment and went out for a game of hack-y-sack with the trannies.

Of course, right when I was Kodak-free, the most beautiful of sunsets I'd ever seen hit the water and mountain range behind me. So, like I usually do for missed opportunities, I justified it: that sunset was for me, for then, and that's all, and I'm lucky enough to have caught it in the first place.

The Blue Pacific

I've made contact! Finally, I arrived in Dana Point, California. The waters of the Pacific are freezing, so I didn't get to jump-right-in and enjoy, but, driving around Orange County, I can totally understand why people pay millions of dollars for homes on mudslides. It's still the desert, I can tell, but it has been painted over as some grand get-away. I look forward to forests, but in the meantime, I'm headed to Santa Monica for some rest, and to get an idea of LA County.

Squirrel! ...big squirrel...

Going Nuts in Joshua Tree

Back in the desert - I hate the desert. I can survive here, but I could not thrive here. A long day of beautiful roads winding and turning their way into the flats; and I finally get to the California line.

And do you know what they do there? They stop all traffic, right at the border, and ask if I have nuts. No, sir, I do not. (You are not getting my Georgia Pecans, you bastards!)

I understand the peril of native species at the hands of the introduced variety, and I promise to be very careful with my nuts, and burn them if they start to go downhill... but I will NOT hand them over, they cost a pretty penny and sleep-loss when I was back in the South.

So anyway, welcome to California; first stop, Joshua Tree.

$25 entrance fee, $15 camping fee, and at the end, next to the sign that says "keep dehydrated!" $.25 for water. All for this:


Which is nice, I guess. But I'm totally done with the desert.

Oh, there were also big piles of rocks that look like someone had dumped them there. Gotta love geologic history!

And some pretty-ness. I guess. For the desert.

Life in Prescott...

...might have easily been a drunken' blur. It's a party town, yessir, with cowboys, natives, hippies and even those saloon-style swinging doors. But the air was crisp, it smelled like Fall, and for some reason, that little college reminded me of Green Mountain and Poultney. I did walk a bit of Whiskey Row at night, and stayed at a little campground a few miles above.

Other tasks for Prescott:

• Went to the house my grandparents built overlooking Thumb Butte. I'd been there before - over a decade ago.But still remember gazing out that back window, waiting for a cougar or a coyote to walk out...I couldn't tell you if one ever did, my back then my imagination was much more powerful than my memory, and you wouldn't believe what I "remember" seeing. It may have involved a ninja turtle. That's right.
  
• Find a Geocache and deliver a TB. For the dorks who know what I'm talking about, you're a dork. For those who don't, apparently you're known as a "muggle", and in all honesty I don't know which is worse.
• Find a Geocache. Yes, this one gets an honorary second mention. These things were terribly, terribly hard to find. BUT, in looking for the cache, I found this:which makes it all worthwhile, right? NO! Thank God I finally found one, I would've torn my hair out by the end of the day! Well, no, but it was darned frustrating.
  
• Decide whether to attend the McCain speech being held in the court. I decided against it (thinking I'd rather be in Cali when Obama wins), but this is not the first time I've faced this kind of political decision - the candidates were following me everywhere! Nashville, in particular, I left a day before... the first debate? the VP debate? I don't know. Anyway, when these things happen, you see this:And then this:
  

(Hippies...)

I'll leave you with what I saw as I left Prescott:

And back to the desert I go...

Mi Familia

So, in Arizona, after Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon, I'm headed down to Tempe to see some kin. And to meet some new additions to the family! It had been maybe 5 years since I've seen these folk, and of course it was great catching up - a lot happens in 5 years!

There was rest, relaxation, and little kids. Now, I know the latter often negates the former, but in my case it didn't - hanging out with the youngins was fun and seriously upflifting. Well, for me - for the little ones, I don't know, it might have been a little intense. Or, at least it seemed that way. One of them was seriously wierded out - he kept running away from me on his trike, going so far and so fast, that he'd eventually run up against the door.


And then, just generally hiding from me, but just a bit curious, he gives me the peek-around from within his room:

In the end, we definitely made friends though.

This was also an excellent break, first because I could hang out with the kids, and more than tha, I got to hang out with the kids during Halloween. Awesome neighborhoods in Tempe! Good people abound.

I've got no good Halloween pictures, but I did dress up as a trucker from Virginia, so give that time to resonate. (Sorry Stevie, totally borrowed your accent for that one... But I think I did it justice!)

Very nice to see family and take a break from the road, and a thousand thank-you's to Uncle Mike for making sure my vehicle was sound, and resolving my navigational dilemma. It was lovely to see you all, and I look forward to the next go-round!

Meanwhile, I'm off to Prescott College to see what life would have been like if I transferred for a Semester...

Temporary Blackout

I spilled a glass of water on my computer. Ugh. She works for 5 minutes at a time before shutting down.

I'm in Santa Barbara, out of the reach of the fire, and continuing to Santa Cruz Sunday morning.

Articles to come: Arizona, Joshua Tree, SoCal, Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara.

Lots of love! And you buggers in VT, enjoy your fresh air! I now understand the oft-overlooked importance of such a thing...

Feb/08, Pawlet, VT

Wish I were there!

The State of the Grand Canyon

Gorgeous. Beautiful. Just like every postcard you've ever seen her in. I wish I were down in the crevices. There was one particular lake I would've liked to jump in; but rattle snakes are a factor, also a handful of laws preventing me from (or severely charging me for) the experience.

Tourists!

The Grand Canyon State

Enter Flagstaff, 7:30 PM; no, wait... The cell phone says 6:30?! That doesn't sound right, I wasn't supposed to cross another time zone for hundreds of miles!

So apparently, Arizona doesn't "do" the whole Daylight Savings "thing." Which is great in Spring - I know "Daylight Savings" becomes a muttered curse-word in my vernacular. But it will be an awful pain when California 'falls back' and I'm an hour behind again.

I have family in Arizona, which is wonderful. My Aunt and Uncle also have a house in Flagstaff, so this was a great check-point for me. A place to get some sound sleep after almost a week in the desert, to recoup and make plans with my kin. I also had to decide whether to shoot up to the Grand Canyon before going down to Tempe to see the relatives.

I've been there before when I was a kid, so there was no real pressure to go see this amazing thing for the first time; but I rationed that I would be looking into the 'grand' expanse with much different eyes than the last time, and what the hell, it's only an hour up the road.

The road from Flagstaff

Where Was I?

New Mexico was very cool, Albuquerque seemed like an alright city, and Santa Fe was gorgeous. But I was bummed. For no particular reason; I'm sure it was some sort of panic attack. That was Saturday. It did not help that my birthday was Sunday, and I'd be spending it alone; I didn't think I cared about that, but emotionally I was a mess. So when I got to Santa Fe, for the first time on this trek, I bought a hotel room.

And it was the best thing I could have done.

I re-entered my voyage, showered and refreshed, and aiming for Flagstaff, Arizona. On the way back to the interstate I stopped at an outdoor market and bought myself a birthday present - a necklace and earring set - from some nice Native American laides who wished me well in my adventures.

But this was "Indian Country," make no mistake. That much was obvious from the highway signs. No sensitivity whatsoever in the billboards and marquees noting "Indian Souvenirs!" and "Indian City!" Did these people skip 4th grade? This isn't India, we figured that out years ago, Columbus was all wrong. Of course, my school may have been a liberal powerhouse of tolerance and white guilt, but most of this I always felt was quite deserved; it's the nature of the beast (the beast being expansion and exploration by one community, which subsequently leads to exploitation of another - in this regard, no one race or creed is innocent. Except maybe eskimos. They're probably too cold for tribal warfare).

Now, here I am in the midst of the Navajo reservation, and the only solace from these discrepancies comes from passing the Casinos where "Indians" were hard at work emptying the pockets of the tourists. The ladies I bought my birthday present from definitely told me to hit up the Casino. But that's my gas money. And it would be gone in minutes.

It took a while for me to get the nerve to purchase that necklace for myself; this population of people was horribly mistreated, as everyone knows, and are now confined to the desert while we continue to draw up invisible lines in the fertile soil and call it "property" - if these people hold any grudges, who's to say they weren't cursing every bead that they threaded? These two ladies seemed nice enough, and so far I'm still alive and well.

Sufficed to say, I am not a fan of the desert. Well, maybe I'm a fan, but I could never stay here. Only a handful of species can thrive here, and I am not one of them. Survive, yes, but thrive? No way.

So, to all my friends back home, a word of caution from Gallup, New Mexico:

(I think the next panel should be Teenwolf...)

Deep in the Heart...

I'll give her credit, I saw ten times as many wind turbine operations than oil rigs. Not that I went to the coast, and I wouldn't dare venture into the South Western corner of the state, but for what it's worth, watching the sun set against the backdrop of turbine-covered range really wasn't terrible.

Also, leaving Colorado Bend State Park was an experienced - I crossed the same 'Open Range' that had me cautious and white-knuckled the night before.

"Open Range: Watch for Livestock"

Thanks for the 'Heads-up!'

The night before, however, was not so exciting. Enjoying my sleep in the car, with the moon roof open and all the windows cracked, at around 3 AM this part of the state saw the first frost of the season. Goody for me. Too cold and tired to close the windows, I'm lucky I still have all my toes, and thankful for my queen-sized comforter!

Ahh, the beautiful Colorado Bend. No doubt it didn't help decrease the windchill on this frosty night. Ugh.

With Huntsville, Austin, Abilene, Lubbock and Amarillo behind me, I'm on my way to Santa Fe.