I left my heart in

I could make a whole series of the fog over the bay, and
the things it was willing to show or hid from the passing people.

Elephant seals taking a nap, while the Golden Gate Bridge battles a cloud.

Anchovies!
 

The moms with the little kids in the aquarium trying to get pictures. "Touch it honey, touch it!"
 

I love tube aquariums. The lighting is weird. The juxtaposition between
couples flirting, children screaming, and sharks swimming by....

This is the Sevengill Shark. It's one of the oldest species still alive
today. It looked like a dinosaur in the tank. I want one!

Not sure why I needed to know this from the bathroom stall. Should I have been worried?

Jambalaya

Redwood

You don't know what you miss until you don't have it.

Long, lonely road

Alice Avion on Route 66, desert in either California or Arizona, August 3, 2009

I'm in Flagstaff, Arizona, at the old-faithful, WiFi-fallback: Barnes and Noble. It seems a little ironic how much I have been craving the remote, the out-of-the-way, the unique, yet have to return to the mainstream chain to participate in the world. That is how these things that are isolated, stay that way, I guess.

For those who don't communicate with me directly, Alice Avion, J, two cats and I left California via Route 66 on Saturday, August 1. We spent the night at my grandparents in Beaumont, CA, then headed up through Joshua Tree and Amboy to continue on 66 into the desert.

Joshua Tree, California

Joshua Tree, California

Because of how long it has been since my posting, I fear any attempt at remembering everything will mean we won't make it to camp tonight, so I will be slightly brief. Time has also made it difficult to remember all the poetic ways I wanted to talk about how isolated 66 is, so much more so than other roads, with tiny towns along it somehow still trapped in the 1950s. Alice fit right in.

Alice Avion on Route 66, Amboy, California, August 2, 2009; link

Some of the stops, such as Roy's Motel, are famous on 66. In this case, Roy's is all that is left of the town of Amboy in the Mohave Desert. We spent that night in an RV park in Needles, were the evening air sat stubbornly at 105 degrees. The trailer quickly turned into an oven, and each foray for a photograph turned into a life-or-death situation for the cats. Soon, I just left the car running, as I jogged around the desert capturing my images. Something about the 1950s feel of everything made this seem like a safe thing to do.

The park in Needles had a beautiful pool, which was warm as bath water, but seemed cooler with the blue light-covers under the water. The sky grew dark as we swam, and the pale silhouettes of owls swooped above us.

Route 66, tires in the desert in either California or Arizona, August 3, 2009

Route 66 becomes a topsy-turny roller-coaster in several places in the desert, the road barely wide enough for the car before succumbing to the surrounding dust. Don't be fooled though: it was beautiful, exciting, peaceful, and a car would pass once a half hour. This was what I had set out for.

Route 66 tourist stop, Ashfork, Arizona, August 4, 2009; possibly a replica of the famous art piece

Most of the tiny towns seem to subsist on the few tourists that come along this famous road and stop to buy trinkets. Oh course, there are only so many "Route 66" magnets made in China any one person can buy... I did appreciate the "Outsider Art" aesthetic of the places.

Route 66 tourist stop, Hackberry, Arizona, August 4, 2009, another famous art piece

Gun fight with town donkeys and Alice, Route 66, Oatman, Arizona, August 4, 2009

A delightful town, Oatman, shows what the road was originally for--running through the main streets of towns in order to trap travelers. At high noon in Oatman, the Sheriff blocks traffic on the road for about twenty minutes for a gun fight/comedy routine. Even the poor UPS driver parked his car in the street and had to wait in the 103 degrees for the show to finish. Even without the show, drivers must be careful of the numerous donkeys moseying about the street.

My favorite fun-fact about this mining town (whose motto is "the Ghost Town that refuses to die") is its namesake, Olive Oatman.

"Have Gun Will Travel", Grand Canyon Caverns, Arizona, August 4, 2009 (be sure to look at the larger version of this one)

We camped the next night in the Grand Canyon Caverns, the 3rd largest dry cave in the world. We also had the chance to finally open up Alice's awning and photograph it in front of the rising full moon.

Alice Avion with full moon and awning, Route 66, Grand Canyon Caverns, Arizona, August 4, 2009

The caves have been a tourist attraction from the beginning. You take an elevator down a 250 foot shaft into a large, cool cave. Concrete sidewalks mark a predetermined path a guide leads you along, much like the Jungle Boat Cruise at Disneyland, including corny jokes. My favorite story was sad and haunted me for a few hours of my drive. There used to be other surface openings, and animals have fallen into the cave to be fossilized or mummified. One such was a now extinct Four-Toed Sloth named Girdy (don't name it! That makes it worse!). She fell in and broke her back. She lived a while after though, long enough to use her Four-Towed hands to claw at the walls to try to climb out. The scratches are still there, a toe found caught in the rock. A replica stands where she fell, and her fossilized bones are in a museum in Phoenix.

Girdy the Four-Toed Sloth, Grand Canyon Caverns, Arizona, August 4, 2009

Grand Canyon, Arizona, August 5, 2009

Then there is the Grand Canyon. We arrived on the evening of the 4th and paid for two nights. We saw the moonlit canyon that night, then a poor view of the canyon most of the day, obscured by a cloudy sky, and smokey atmosphere (there was a fire at the north rim). The shuttle system seemed efficient enough, but somehow it took us two hours to get back to our car. We called it a day. This morning, we drove through the park on the 64, exiting out the east side, but catching amazing views of the canyon, newly cleaned from a late-night thunderstorm, which left no trace other than fluffy clouds.

Alice Avion and one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Grand Canyon, Arizona, August 6, 2009

California Sea Mammals

One thing that has been consistent in my journey across America, is the response I have received from 99% of the people I have met about my destination. "You couldn't pay me to live there." I found it interesting that they never said, "I don't like California," or "It's not for me," or "I've heard bad things about it." It was always, "You couldn't pay me..." It seemed odd because most people (especially those who said this) couldn't be paid enough to afford to live here. Maybe that's what they meant.

Most of California is more beautiful than most other states combined. There are dramatic rocky mountains, beautiful oceans, fertile farms, deep woods, crystal rivers flowing past pastures of happy cows. Having now driven the whole length of California, I can say this with first hand experience. That is not to say that all California is beautiful, but I keep thinking of the negative impression all these people have. One person, when pressed, finally muttered something about loose morals.

Loose morals?

I don't get it. Having been born and raised in California, I wanted to ask, "Did I cut you when I walked up to talk to you? Did I try to mug you? Did I try to drown your child and kick your dog? Did I slap your grandma and pee on your bible?"

In fact, I find Californians to be warm, welcoming, friendly, considerate. I can say this, because I have driven the length of it with Indiana license plates.

That doesn't mean they are all good. Please allow me to digress a moment.

Leaving the Monterrey Bay area on Monday, I lamented we hadn't seen any sea mammals on our trip. In the past, I have seen otters munching on urchins by the pier, sea lions lounging in the sun under the restaurants, dolphins and whales jumping out of the ocean for the pure pleasure of it just on the horizon. What I hoped to see were the elephant seals. Sure enough, as we coasted down Highway 1, there to the right were little beaches covered in the hulking masses of sleeping bodies. Pulling off to look, we learned they are all males, beaching for the month while they molt, before returning to the water to feed and mate. Sometimes they work up and yelled at each other, made displays, but mostly they huddled together and threw sand on their backs.

With pleasure at our success, we continued down the coast to the Santa Barbara area. We decided to stay a night on the beach before finishing the last 125 miles of my long, long trip.

The beach was lovely, the waves a beautiful lullaby. That night, I had a strange dream.

In my dream, the trailer became a part of the ocean floor. I could hear the waves all around, and was sleeping comfortably on the silty bottom. My fingers scratched at the silt, revealing glowing stripes of phosphorescent diatoms, and I was content to do that all night. Someone started knocking on the door. When I looked, I knew it was someone who wanted to buy the trailer, but I didn't answer and went back to bed. Children of the potential buyer rushed in and began running around me as I scratched the silt. They threw the door open, and my cat ran out. I jumped to chase her, in time to see her run into the street and be run over by a truck.

Here is where a blog is tricky. Is it literature, or is it real life? Because in literature, this would be foreshadowing, a premonition. In real life, it would be a coincidence.

I woke up early, not interested in returning to that nasty dream, made some coffee, and went out to watch the waves. The night before, there had been a little sea lion at one end of the park. He had been practically tame because the campers had been feeding him. I was worried about him, but also sort of wanted to take his picture. Looking down the beach, I saw a sea lion sitting on the beach. When we went over to him, we could see it was a different one. And when we got close, we were horrified to see what had happened to it.

He was three feet long, with a golden brown coat, and impossibly large eyes. He looked like he was wearing a leash, but it was a fishing net that had opened his beautiful skin like a zipper. He struggled to stay standing, to stay above the line of rising water, and to keep an eye on the people who watched him. Cell phones all around were calling every number they could find, getting the same responses when they got people, but mostly getting answering machines. "There aren't enough people to be able to send someone out." Flashing in my head were all the newspapers I have been seeing... "Schwarzenegger cuts funding to state parks." That would include rangers and wildlife rescue workers. I looked at the juvenile lion, and knew who I wanted to blame.

Sea lion portrait (very graphic!!)

We called until we finally found (three different people) someone who said they would send someone sometime today. We had to defend the poor creature from the man who wanted to wrestle him with wire cutters to try to free him of the net. His intentions were good, but I didn't think the animal's shocked system could take the strain.

After a while, the little lion stopped trying to stand upright. He laid down, rolling on his back to keep the wound out of the sand or to show us what we had done. He would lift his head if the water came up, but mostly, he laid still with his eyes closed. I kept expecting to see his breathing to stop, but it didn't. Every now and then, he would shudder, but his big eyes would open and look at me as I took his picture.

There was a young woman waiting with us. I finally said we had to go, and asked her to call me if she had any news. I got a text message from her an hour later. "The rescue guys just got here." I wrote back, "Do they think he'll make it?" "Ya."

I know times are tough, the economy is bad. No one's job is safe. I understand. California made some bad fiscal decisions and the belt is being tightened. But should she sacrifice everything that is great about her? Throw the baby out with the bath water? Destroy everything that she is legend for (so we are the last to see it), in order to keep taxes down, to keep driving Hummers to the super market?

http://www.savestateparks.org/

Fireworks

I had imagined we would be able to stand on the cliffs over the ocean, across from the most expensive RV park I have stayed in yet, and be able to see fireworks in both Half Moon Bay and Monterrey. I pictured us eating the artichoke heart bread from Pescadero (easily worth the whole drive by itself), drinking the bottle of Pinot Gris I bought in Oregon. In my mind, we would arrive at 2, swim in the ocean, and leisurely partake of this plan after grilling steaks and cooking up gnocchi.

Of course, we really arrived at the park at 6, argued about whether we should cook or pay for the ten dollar burgers the park was grilling up, the overcast sky making the ocean look as cold as I knew it was.

After dinner, including a local beer called "Little Sumthin' Sumthin'," we walked through the dimly lit trail to the cliff, down the steep steps to the ocean. It was dark, and you could only see the whites of the waves flashing in the moonlight.

"There might be sea lions down here, so be careful," I said, half joking. Immediately, we both became convinced the large shape ahead was one, and cautiously approached the pile of seaweed. Later, we found out there was a dead seal only a few feet to our left.

As we left the beach in the dark, vaguely paranoid about being kicked off by police, we passed a large group of people heading down to our little beach. They all carried wood, fireworks, ice chests, blankets.

"We're having a bonfire! You should join us!" they said. We walked back to our camp, thought a moment, then picked up our bag of marshmallows and headed back through the dark. I kept expecting someone to fall of a cliff, the night hiding everything, the beer making it all fuzzy. But no one did.

The group wad made up of couples, all friends from Sacramento, Santa Cruz, even Hawaii. There was no moment while we were there someone wasn't talking to us, friendly, inviting us to share their beer, fire, and marshmallows. They were made up of 30-somethings, most married with children (the kids, thankfully, left behind with parents), and the leader explained to us modestly how he liked to buy vast quantities of fireworks and have these gatherings every year so they didn't fall out-of-touch. He even said as his friends fell on hard times, he would pay for their travel and rooms, to make sure they came along. They also told us the celebration was a sort of good-bye party for one of their friends, a man so inebriated I thought he would fall into the fire (sporting a black eye you could see even in the dark), as he was about to head off to jail to serve a year of hard time.

Much later, they began launching fireworks (the big kind you see at Disneyland). I was sure any minute the police would come and arrest us all, but none did.

When we finally headed back, blinking we were so tired, it was 3:30. A good night, indeed!

July Fourth

I had really hoped we would drive Alice through a drive-thru redwood tree. As it happened, we didn't even arrive at the site until after they had closed. I didn't know a tree could close. We took a picture of Alice and J next to one of the "smaller" trees in the parking area, and headed for the famous Pacific Coast Highway. On the way, we stopped at a lovely little winery, had an excellent tasting, bought an excellent bottle, and drove through some of the most beautiful country, on one of the most challenging roads Alice has taken so far. The stretch of PCH north of San Francisco is not for the faint of heart, trailer or not. It is a two lane, no shoulder road, with curves that may as well be U-turns, hugging a steep wall of rock on one side, and a high cliff above a rocky ocean on the other.Eventually, we come over the hill and there was the city. We had to pull over (another tricky feat--4th of July in San Francisco; I've never seen so many tourists) to take a picture of Alice by the bridge. An amusing detail of this stop was how many people took pictures of our trailer, how many asked us to pose with her. We grinned for the photos, proud of our quirky silver trailer.

Red Woods and Black Waters

Yesterday, all the things I dreaded might happen, did.

I'm sure it was because J was there. It's Murphy's Law. Things were going smoothly for me this whole time, but then there was another person along, a person who might be skeptical of Alice's rustic beauty and provocative plumbing. Skepticism is a friend of mischief. It was nothing J did, but his presence altered the delicate balance of the trailer's ecosystem, and chaos and mayhem reigned!

We slept in later than I ever do, lingered over breakfast and lying about. I'm not used to it, and kept glancing at the clock. "It's really time to go," I would say. I took a shower, hot water refreshing. When I got out, we heard something. Outside, the sewer hose was having difficulty, as the warm water sat heavy in the hose, two feet below the raised sewer hole it was supposed to flush down. I had to lift it up to allow the water to exit. That should have probably clued me in other things could go wrong. Where was the rest of the water that hadn't been able to go into the tube?

J said he wouldn't take a shower, but I convinced him he should, that it was great. He relented. I went outside to manually hold the hose up to empty the water. It wasn't working, and tiny holes were appearing along the tube. We would have to replace it before emptying our black water tank, but I had emptied two nights ago and had gone as long as four without emptying, so it should have been fine. I asked him to turn the shower water off, unhooked the sewer line, and replaced it with my bucket. The bucket is what I use for washing dishes when I am camping in the woods. Usually, a shower is too much for a 5 gallon bucket. J resumed his shower. Within a few minutes, the gas ran out, and so did the hot water. Poor thing had to rinse in icy cold mountain water.

Forgetting about the bucket, I began the dishes, knowing we had limited time before we had to check out of the camp. Sure enough, the bucket overflowed, and we had to run out and manually scoop water out of it and into the drain tube. Yuck.

I showed J how to to unhook the hoses, unjack the jacks, hitch to the car. We washed our hands one last time, closed the windows. As I was double checking everything, I saw water on the floor. I mopped it up, but more appeared. And more. It was running across the floor diagonally, escaping out the front door. Following the trail, I found it came from where you never want to see water escaping--the toilet. The black tank was overflowing. The water was clear, so it seemed the shower water had backed into the tank and we would have to empty it after all.

It was a disaster. I had to reattach the sewer hose, and rubber-glove handle it to get an angle for the waste to flow into the sewer. I only let a little fluid out at a time, so the liquid wouldn't shoot out of the tiny holes. It was vial. When that was done, we mopped and disinfected the floor. We didn't leave the campground until after 1 PM, well after check-out, feeling awful, dirty, and miserable. The cleaning solution was making my lungs burn and my heart race, and soon I felt sicker than I had in a long time (and this was the "green" cleaning solution!). We stopped to buy the replacement LP line that would enable us to have hot water again, as well as new parts for the new sewer hose. Then, we went to find lunch, but had trouble finding a place to go, to park. By then, I was too sick to eat, and ordered tacos reluctantly. A few minutes before the food arrived, J got an emergency work call and left to deal with it in the trailer. I sat in front of my food, not wanting it, and his food, getting cold. I finally boxed up both meals, paid, and went to lay down in the trailer and listen to my heart palpitations while J was frantic on the phone.

We pulled out of town at 6PM, having not yet driven any of our 125 mile daily minimum, and were generally grumpy.

So what saved us? What made the day pleasant after all, erased the terrible morning, the ruined lunch? We listened to Harry Potter together and admired the landscape. Knowing campsites would either be sketchy or full at this time of night, and not wanted to deal with the trailer in any way other than for sleep, I had us pull into an Indian Reservation (you see the influence it had on me), remembering my friend's advice that I could sleep anywhere on a reservation without trouble. We went to the Casino, open all night with parking security. All the machines were penny and nickel bets, and they were happy to let us sleep in the parking lot. There was free soda and coffee, chili cheese dogs my now-healthy body was grateful for, and we played nichael video poker. I slept better than I had in three nights.

Oceans and Redwoods

Three weeks

Yesterday marked the three week anniversary of my journey on the road. I crossed the border into California, marveling at the giant trees that closed in on the road, looking black to either side even though the sky above still showed day-time. I stopped to photograph a 1500 year old tree. A mosquito bit my forehead.

I'm in the Humboldt area now. Another hippie town, the northern sister of my alma mater, Santa Cruz. More rural that I remember Santa Cruz.

I'm picking J up from the airport today. He will join me the rest of the drive, probably concluding on Sunday. I have mixed feelings about this. It will be nice to have company, but it also terrifies me. All the silent moments, the thinking, the spontaneous stops, the not-closing-the-bathroom-door... will these all be lost with company?

I used to write in a journal, sketching ideas, reacting to events. It was good material for ideas for projects, and good ventilation for a cramped mind. When I started writing online, I know I began to restrict what I wrote, but was also pleased that the writing suddenly seemed "useful" because it had an audience. I worry I do not ponder things as deeply now, because I am trying to compose them, bring a beginning, middle, end and theme. Do musings always have these things? Right now, I am using the blog to outline the days, while I decide how this whole trip will be assimilated into my mind. Will having someone to talk to pollute these thoughts?

I have been listening to books, which I have worried would be too distracting. When I look at certain fields, I suddenly see the scenes described in my book, on the other side of the world. Will I lose the American landscape, if I am listening to a Middle Eastern landscape?