Coasting To A Pause

North of Mendocino on US 1

Northern California Coast

Dec. 15 2010

Humboldt County, with its magnificent coastal redwood forests is  the marijuana capital  of North America.  Marijuana is the largest cash crop in the United States,   more than corn, wheat, grapes, cotton, oranges, apples or vegetables.  That it is so huge and overwhelming a multi billion dollar industry is almost too hard  to comprehend.   For one thing you don’t see it.  There are no acres and acres of cultivated fields, hills and valleys  with all the trappings of agriculture, no sprinklers, tractors, field hands.   It is all hidden from sight.  It is green gold hoarded and protected.  An entire industry exists to grow it, medically prescribe it, market it, and distribute it.   The number of clinics that prescribe  ( “recommend” as prescribing is still illegal ) it that are popping up in the marijuana states and the number of shops that sell to the “medically” permitted populace is runaway.  More than 1000 such shops blossomed in Colorado  alone in less than 2 years.  It is as if the somber massiveness of the redwood trees here in Northern California hinted at another shadowy parallel world of equal immensity.  And this hidden world continues to expand at such a rate that soon, very soon,  it could very well be the largest industry in the United States of America.  Our entire national economy could become based on a single drug product.  The United States of Marijuana.  We will probably ignore its existence even as it drives our entire monetary and political/social/military/industrial system.  It is amazing our capacity to so completely consume yet ignore even deny the existence of the eight hundred pound gorilla sitting on our head.  I am dumfounded.

As the winter season gains a  dripping,  gray hold we find ourselves one of only two campers here in Benbow, CA, the other also an Airstream, in this large and open field.  It is in a  cold wetness that we set up for the 120th day.  We will not escape winter after all.  Not a lot of snowbirds in the northern climes this time of year.

We left Benbow RV Resort and Golf Course relatively early, 9:30, as the weather was supposed to break clear and I suspected we might try to make the eight hour  run all the way into Southern Oregon and I did not want to get into Nancy’s, Jo’s sister, after dark as they live in the boonies.  

The redwoods were of course head shaking grand.  How did we manage to save these from our rapacious appetites for plowing through every living thing in our way?  We  humans can do a few things right but it is never an easy task as we are basically consumers.  We are takers.  Givers are looked upon with bemusement or even hostility because we don’t believe them.  Then one of us will lay down our life for another for love or war and we are momentarily lost for words at this ultimate giving.  So we act a little too loudly with song or praise or even medals.  I don’t know where I am going with this only that I seem to be drifting away from the sublimity and infinity of the Pacific Coast’s spray  and back into the hinterlands, back into the resource consuming crush and I despair at my acceptance and participation.

All adventures, road trips, even vacations start out with the freshness of hope that a simpler life will open to us that a generous earth will welcome our untethered pause.  And on the road this is most often the case.   Yet we must always come back to those and that which remained.  To family, friends, homes, jobs, chores and projects, the density of life that never left.  Do we  owe it to them to bring something back of ourselves that was changed for the better?  Trinkets and souvenirs don’t do it.  Gestures of considerations for sure and more on the giving end than the taking but we want to have come back with more.   I know I never come back with enough gestures and I am piqued by  guilt.  But there must be more of something to accompany our return.  More of what we have seen, done, felt.  More of ourselves.  

There will be some of us who are anxious to get back to the familiar, to our own beds. There will be some of us who are already thinking about their next departure even before their return.  I am afraid I am of the later.  Often I fear for my restless soul and wonder where it will or can find stasis.  I want it to find quiet.  So that I may look again with loving. Perhaps it is again a suffering of that hunger to consume all in front of me.  To consume completely all of the time, all of the short life I am allotted before it drifts away like a fine sea spray over an infinite beach.

I will slip this lengthy journey by seeing my grown son in Eugene, Oregon.  With this visit that is ending I will selfishly see someone of my self, love, that will continue our journey forward.  That is plenty.  That is everything.

Bon voyage,                                                                

 Air streams from Tony & JoAnn

Mt. Jupiter with a dust of snow taken from our back porch,  home

   

Vineyards, wineries, hilltops

Vineyards, Wineries, Hilltops

12/13/10

From Monterey, where I lived as a child in the 50’s. and Carmel we drove north still along 101 with the near term goal of cutting NE into Southern Oregon.  For this leg I took very little in the way of photos as my mind seemed to have drifted from the visual to the internal cerebral wanderings wherein  dealing with picking up all the loose strands precipitated by our imminent returning to the NW occupies my time.  So I apologize for the lack of photos for this and the next  blog of this journey probably being the last one.  

Connecting Cloverdale, California on 101 and Mendocino on the Pacific coast is 60 miles of Hwy. 128.  Its tightly curved and a roller coaster.  It goes through a vein of fabled Napa Sonoma Mendocino counties and even in the rain and the fog its beauty would not be hidden.  Coursing into valleys and dales were millions of acres of grape fields folding themselves into and over the undulating landscapes,  rows so symmetrical flashing by the road’s edge  in a whir with the regularity of railroad ties.  There was no green upon their branches but the woody architecture was still attractive to my eye.  

The wineries came in all sizes from thousand acre fields with warehouses and gigantic  stone chateaux with European formal gardens to small wineries in the smaller valleys of only 50 acres with small wood framed homes and stainless steel tanks in the back yards.

On this road last night the sun started to slip behind the hills by 5:00PM and not wanting to be caught like deer in headlights  on these curves  we pulled off the road at a wide spot on a rise. Better safe to just stay hitched up and dry camp.  Besides,  the view was grand, pure California.  Nothing in front of us save oak wooded hills with sloping meadow pastures, the sound of a stream somewhere close below, small rolling patches of winter vineyards and tops of hills holding the last moments of light in a blaze of chartreuse pasture and patches of black oak.  As darkness fell only a single small pin of light across the valley on the far facing slope hinted at some habitation.  One of the sweetest places we have stayed and it cost only the nerve to be disconnected.

This morning getting up early in the damp mist we continued along Hwy 128 to Mendocino.  Beyond the mellowing dreaminess of more and more rolling hills of grape vines we began to notice  evergreens amongst the hardwoods.  Soon, 

with about 25 miles from the coast of Mendocino, we entered large groves of redwoods.  The further we went the taller they got and the dimmer the light on the forest floors 200 feet beneath  A damp two lane road tightly wove  between and thru these massive dark sentinel trunks closely spaced.  It was a woolen gothic dampness, filled with longing like the songs of RoseAnn Cash of Fathers lost. Where shadows speak your name.

Prior to turning on to Hwy.128 we had spent two days in Fairfield visiting JoAnn’s brother and his wife Barbara.  I did not wish to write then.  A sense of writing fatigue or perhaps a general malaise of soul.  Perhaps it was the weight of a sense of a journey of circumnavigation nearing attachment to it’s beginning.  I want to write with information and entertainment.  I really want to write with some elegance and content yet I am angered and frustrated by my lack of skills and  words.  But is not now  the time to try ?  Time is flashing so quickly that I know I could never catch up to where I should be in writing.  That will remain a moving target of variable speed and forever out of range for the rest of my life.  So I will line it out however it comes  and trust with your indulgence you can allow me some small but cherished audience.  

It was a restful two days at Fairfield with Jo’s brother except for the dinner at the Texas Roadhouse - peanut shells on the floor from the barrels of free peanuts, smokey spattering grills, loud music, loud people, loud waitresses, screaming babies and drunken oafs.  Whew.  Got out of there with our meals only half eaten and undigested.   Otherwise we slowed ourselves down at Ash’s by diddling with 1000 piece puzzles and I powered through 300 novel pages in two days and nights at blur inducing speed..

While in Fairfield I kept Moochi the cat, that long haired shedder, company in the trailer about half the time.  She has started to tolerate me after more than 3 1/2 months  cooped in the same tube.  She seems to survive, nay thrive, on meanness towards me and others but snuggles right up to Jo.  I know its the lack of patience I emit whereas Jo is so gentle with her Mom’s old bitty cleaning her box faithfully every morning and tending to her needs and  feelings.  Who could resist that ? Unfair I say.  A cat must meet my human demands, right? are you with me? maybe?  no?...  thanks a lot.  Now I do stumble up to feed her most dark mornings myself but admittedly it is to silence her yowling beside my ear.  She has my number.  Now canned cat food such as slimy pated fish parts is made to stink.  It’s the stink that gets them cats going. They love the stink.   Ever try living with that smell in a 25’ trailer for 4 months?  Its your last sensory input, eight feet away from your nose,  as you go to sleep and the first input you awake to.   So I clang around the sink and bump my head on cabinets again and again to get the smell of a fresh hot pot of coffee going.  I intend to snort the coffee to counteract the latest most aromatic can of slick ground chicken tailings I had just opened.  Now I can’t seem to spoon it out of those little gourmet cans without getting it on my fingers the klutz that I have become.  I use to be so co ordinated, remember?  So to further convince myself that I really need to wash my hands so early in the morning what do I do.  Yes, I smell the slime on my fingers!  Aggh!  Whoweee!  I need to wash my hands!  I’m not too smart and don’t think very clearly 60 seconds after standing up from sleep and bumping my head,  hard,  again.  

Travels with Moochi.  Now that is a whole other story.

There are a lot more stories to tell.  Of other ventures to Europe, South America, Tahiti, New Zealand, Canada and Alaska and 40 years of motorcycle trips throughout the mountains, plains and valleys of our own West.  Piles of prose, poetry and photos spill onto my desk so I might as well harvest them here as  I enter my “golden years.”  I haven’t even started with stories about relationships yet.  That one really scares me yet we must face them, yes ?  I think I am still waiting for that level of maturity that will allow me to be honest without being  self serving.  As I said, scary.  It’s like the way I tell a joke, great with the build up but often confused about the delivery of the punch line.  Wait, wait, let me start over.  I can’t quit while I’m behind !  Please no pity laughs.

Don’t most of us think about doing something like this ?  Yet it is with much trepidation, akin to stage fright, that I would presume to embark on a path of story telling.  Although story teller is less of a presumption on my part than calling myself a writer.  How else can I deal with my insomnia.

See you down the road. 

Moro Bay & Kirk'sCreek

Moro Bay & Kirk’s Creek State Park

Dec. 2 & 3

Morro Bay, CA

Morro electric plant stacks

About 75 miles further North on US 1 up the California Coast lies the little town of Moro Bay.  I have been here several times.  There is nothing really spectacular about the town.  It has a small waterfront, an electrical plant with three outrageous smoke stacks that defy acceptable slenderness ratios and a geologic rock.  This rock is big.  More like a small dense mountain that pops up out of the bay like a glacier with such presence that it was used as a navigational aid for the early explorers and has been designated an historic monument.  This is a singularly big rock probably 5 times larger than the one at Cannon Beach, Oregon.  Breakwaters and roads are tied to it.  It is the dominant  piece of Moro Bay.  Moro Bay also has one of the largest wildlife estuaries in Central California.  With all this the town is in a time warp of about 40 years ago and its denizens are so laid back one needs to poke them with a stick to get any action. We stayed in a tiny RV park, Cypress RV,  right in town.  I mean right in town!  One block away was Main Street.  Any town with an RV Park that close to town is not moving too fast.  it was a nice place but the owner had recently red bricked the entire lot except for the actual vehicle spots.  That’s right, bricked the whole site with brick in a herringbone pattern no less. Felt like 20 RV’s parked on an immaculate patio. It actually was clean looking and a very straight line job with well planned drainage.  And it was a quick walk to town.  I walked to get a hair cut from a real one chair barber shop  and was the 5th in line with two others behind me.  The barber, Liz, was thin and in her late 60’s and I got the scoop on a lot of the history as each elderly customer caught up with all the doings and comings and goings of families and friends of long ago that Liz still remembered and seemed to know all about.  It was a fascinating view of small town Americana.

1/2 a block away was Bottles - a liquor store/deli with burger, fries and any size soda for $3.99.  That was any size soda so as I type this many hours later I still sip at a 44 oz. foam bucket of soda next to me.  Its old fashioned grilled burgers wrapped in red and white checkered paper with thick fries seasoned with chili powder.   Don’t miss it when you’re in town. 

KIkr's Creek St. Park, S. of Big Sur

 Two nights of kicking back with TV! and we were ready to be moving up the coast this time a 60 mile leg up US1 that will take more than 2 hours with the narrow twists clinging to the side of the cliffs above  pewter grey Pacific waters.  Every now and then a “Rough Road” sign was thrown in for good measure.  But we made it to another small site on the ocean side of the road.  This time it was a small peninsular bluff high above the water.  We won a rare cloudless and fog free  day on the coast.  At Kirk’s Creek State Park 60 miles South of Big Sur we lucked out and got the last spot right on the edge which I thought was the best site with our own grassy meadow to the cliff’s  drop off.  This outcrop was centered in a giant bay of mountain walls.   A sad flimsy wire fence was all that kept one from slipping over the wet grass to the rocks 300 feet below. We are isolated.  No internet,  phone, potable water, electric or sewer.  We are going to stay two days anyway as the site is just too spectacular.  The Pacific Ocean from this vantage covers all the earth that we look upon.

Camp site Kirk's Creek

Last year on my motorcycle trip down the Coast to LA I saw this site from above.  It was warm then and the site looked completely filled up with tents like colored mushrooms.  An emerald grassy bluff that projected out and high above the ocean.  I took mental note to try and find out the name but that slid back into my memories of collective detritus.  I did not realize that this was the same place that JoAnn had mapped out in her daily navigation work.  A Pleasant surprise indeed.

Yesterday we just sat around and read.  I have just about read everything to the point where in desperation I read maps, brochures, anything with print. W also prepared a grand Mexican feast with genuine tamales picked up in  Cardenas

US1 Pacific Coast, CA.

Mexican Supermarket in Indio, Calif.  Jo and I had a great time in a store so large that carried so much Mexican goods.  The bright colorful stacks of peppers I had never seen nor heard of.  The meat counters were a little strange to my eye though as every conceivable part of animal and fowl was piled high including chicken feet.   So we had last evening a great Mexican feast (sans chicken feet).  We have not denied ourselves good meals on the road.

Pampas Grass

Also yesterday afternoon a Saturday the whole camp emptied out.  We and the host were the only occupants of this peninsular bluff.  The host was a little suspect being a single guy, usually the Park Department hires only couples, with his Corvette and motorcycle parked beside a run down old motorhome and piles of tarps covering stuff surrounding his rig.  I think this is probably considered one of those “outpost” assignments that is low on the desirability list.  It is so isolated here.  No communication, not even drinkable water  in this huge bay rimmed by steep rock walls.  To each side US1 on the cliffs twists and turns, appears and disappears as a thin brown cut around the ends.  The few cars are seen as twin points of headlights or tail lights that move cautiously slowly downward from the South then upward on the North like tiny beetles on the walls.

Our campsites personal space!

Last night we had a blow.  It was the convex lens like shape of bay and walls to each side that concentrated the winds upon this grassy outcrop with a force that gusted the Airstream with slams.  It was rock and roll and we were thankful that we had left the Airstream hitched to the truck for the extra rigidity and weight.  There was no sleep for the couple of ours that it raged.  The rains peppered and the winds howled.  And who should come walking to our door in the middle of all this storm and bluster but Mr. Host.  “Someone is coming .  I think its the host” Jo said in the darkness.  We were the only people here so what would he want at this time and type of night.  I threw on my sweats and went to the door with my high powered flashlight. He hadn’t knocked yet so when I forced open  the door against the wind and rain his fist was raised near my nose poised to knock and his face was about 12” away from the beam of my light. Shit!  He scared the f.... out of me! in his hooded jacket and metallic object in his fist (a mini light) and a stupid grin on his face slick and whipped with rain! “ Jesus! You scared the fuck out of me!  What’s up?!” I groused.  “Well you did not pay for tonight.” he grinned.  What the hell?  In the middle of a storm he says this to the only campers in the park with a stupid/sheepish grin on his face!  I told you he was strange but JoAnn again had seen  something about him she liked when we first arrived. 

Big Sur

He had this paid deposit slip in his hand we had slotted into the metal tubes that are at the gates of all parks.  The slip was torn and thoroughly wet and about as useless as wet toilet paper.  I told him we paid for two night and this was our second night.  Did he take into account that we only paid half price with our Golden Age discount the membership number written on that wet rag he was holding?  Meanwhile the wind and rain continued to howl and whip.   “Well, OK, I’ll check it again.” and he walked away trying to flatten out the limp paper.

“I told you he was strange. What the hell was that all about? He spooked the hell out of me!”  I said.   “Oh Tony, he was just walking up to the door when you opened it” Jo said.   “A move like that could get one’s head blown off.  Banging on your door on an isolated bluff in the middle of nowhere with a full storm raging”  

“Oh Tony, calm down.”

“Shit.”

The morning broke much nicer and the storm made the air, if possible, even more pure and bracing.  

Big Sur

Ventura & Jalama

Rincon Parkway,Ventura Calif.

Rincon Beach

Contrails

Halama Beach near Lompoc

 Jalama Beach State Park

Nov. 29 & 30

Having left Simi Valley we got as far as Ventura County when we spotted these RVs all parked along the ocean along a long and beautiful stretch of the Pacific.  It looked like they were enjoying the day and thinking this might be one of those free park and dig it California deals we pulled off Hwy 101 and down to US 1.  All parking was parallel to the ocean so the views were perfect for the Airstream’s doorway side.  Above us between US1 and 101 were the RR tracks as AMTRAK’s Surf Line Coastline rumbled by.  It turns out that this parkway is run by Ventura County for a fee, $27.00/night.  They did have dumpsters and porta potties every 300’ but that was it.  but the views of the surf and huge beach were worth it so we stayed the night.  This pleasant stay was not without its incident however.  The parkway was basically empty with 5 empty spots in front of us and perhaps thirty spots empty behind us and wouldn’t you know it some young kid in a pick up and his boisterous insignificant other both uneducated by their lack of language and speech tried to squeeze in right behind us.  Its the parking lot syndrome - no matter how far away you park from the store in order to have a space to yourself without the risk of banging doors and carts someone will park right next to you.  There you are in the furthest reaches from the mall parking lot and now there are two of you.  What the hell.  More on the  lemming problem later in this blog.  Also, notice how on the freeway as you are driving along centered in your lane when someone pulls along side to pass they actually swerve towards you as if some magnetic force were being applied?  This does not apply to truckers who work on the roads for a living.  Again the Lemming principle at work?  Anyway this kid with the pick up could not back up his trailer and spent about 1/2 an hour trying to get his trailer as close to the back of ours as possible and in the course of his jogging almost hit the back outside corner of our Airstream a couple of times.  It probably made him a little nervous that I was standing there watching.  It was night and it did take me a long time to  learn to back up 25’ of non responsive dual axles myself but at least I knew where I did not want to go.  This couple was determined and the chick was downright hostile when I asked her with all the space in front and behind for as far as we could see Why would they literally squeeze behind us her reply, “Hey we live in the area and this is our spot.  We always use this spot as it works for our dogs.  Hey, and we noticed that the back of your trailer was sticking 2’ over the line but we thought we would be nice and not say anything.  So this is our spot.”  They finally squeeze in and they park their truck perpendicular to our trailers with less than a foot to the windows of our beds!  Who breeds these jerks and why is the earth so full of them?  We tossed our folding chairs in the Airstream and pulled three lengths ahead and I cooled off.  I detest crowds.  I don’t see the joy and abandon of mobs. Even choirs have too many people for me, I find no security in rubbing shoulders.  As we overpopulate we give it up to the ease with which mob packs can take over.  In the definition of mobs I include most governments as well.

Unknown

The next morning we spun around and shifted back down US 1 North for Santa Barbara.           

We gingerly pulled the Airstream through the well kept and tony neighborhoods of Santa Barbara and to the Mission Santa Barbara but did not feel like stopping and going in.  Instead we again gingerly pulled thru main street and sensed the laid back but       expensive ambiance of Santa Barbara.  This might be a place to live in the warmth of Southern CA but a 9000 sq. ft. lot starts around $450,000.00!  That a small piece of land.

Oil Seepage at Halama

Wood or Stone?

We were not sure of this evenings destination Jalama Beach Park since it was 14 miles off the beaten path and 5 more miles from Lompoc and dicey amenities but it was on the ocean had great review especially about the burgers at the Jalama store.  I think the thought of burgers won the day.  We would be isolated as well with no phone service and no internet.  The 14 mile road down to the beach was called challenging for RV drivers by the reviews so we did not know what to expect.  They were not too bad and it helped that that there was almost no other traffic.  But before we took the turn off we stopped in at Lompoc 5 miles further down the road to do some banking, and shopping and fueling. I was surprised  by how large the town was, over 45,000 residents. We deduced it had a lot to do with adjacent Vandenberg Air Force base, a massive reservation.   Backtracking the 5 miles we dropped down into the 14 miler.  It actually took us thru the old California of those golden, rolling, hills.  There was no development and although the hills were not golden this time of year, more brown,  it still was the California of old maybe even as Pizzaro had glimpsed when he came from inland and saw the Pacific Ocean beyond those golden hills.

Mussels

We found a great site and chose to forgo the electrical and water hook ups on the upper level for the last beach site down below.  It was a great one and the beach and ocean was at our feet.  The surf was booming and rolling like the freight train that also rolled along the coast but much further up the hills from this site.  

Looking up to the upper park level I see that almost all the spots with water and power were taken by the big motor coaches with their huge glass fronts reflecting the sea’s light like glazed eyed dinosaurs in formation above us.   It occurs to me that those are the RV’s that are as divorced from the very environment they pretend to want to be a part of.  They are ensconced in massive metal and glass 8 x 13 x 45 feet long boxes with all the comforts of home to the point of hardly taking part in nature save where the tires rub the road.  Along a tangential line while eating a burger (the famous Jalama burger) at the cafe a group of 7 Harley bikers were eating.  They all wore the trappings of emblemed jackets, vests, coats, chaps, chains, scarves, etc.  but the thing that really stood out was their age.  They were all old, out of shape and paunchy.  They were baby boomers on their last legs.  I too am 64 and still dream of a new BMW1200GSA dual sport that I can point towards Alaska and gravel roads.  But I don’t feel like I need a group or even a single companion to keep me company.  I have been riding for more than 40 years most of it alone and I am a little embarrassed  by all the new oldies trying to capture that rebel spirit in their dress and choice of bikes and their need to cluster. 

Have you heard of Sturgis? Half a million  bikes converge in one place.  It’s one thunderous continuous rumbling fart.  It is the mecca of wannabe rebels.  There are a few rebels in the bunch for sure but more probably just ignorant bellicose needfuls.  The rest are boomers desperately grabbing at their diminishing chances for physical mobility and machismo  when in 10-20 years they will have to give up their driver’s licenses.  Take note of the increasing number of 3 wheel motorcycles  hitting the roads with their added stability for those much too old or too fat to handle two wheels anymore.  They are even called trikes!  We are coming full circle back to toddlers.  Oh sure they say there’s the joy of the ride,  we live to ride and all that.  It is just the lemming like mentality that irks me.  It’s mostly sad.  What are we all looking for anyway?  We in our Airstream have been asked several times to join the Airstream caravaners of Wally Byaum, the founder of Airstream to take part in their events.  To belong.  Thanks but no thanks.  It’s hard enough to be yourself.  It’s almost impossible to be independent.  There is much in society that you have to be a part of, that threatens you if you do not participate or share the same need.   With one’s dependence on others inescapable it disturbs me that almost all of us seek even further immersion into this amoebic absorption. 

Do I care what others think? Probably.  Do I want to care what others think?  No.

Is there no difference between me and them?

That’s the rub.

Oil rig

Jo and I went for a three mile walk on the beach for a few moments of childlike wonderment at the infinite variety of little stones.  It was good to spend a whole day just sitting by the beach.  The stars were brilliant last night and Orion stood up upon the seas horizon.  The ocean’s  breeze washed thru the length of the Airstream cooling our brows while we toasted beneath quilts of down. The Pacific Ocean is home to me.  I hope to be within sight of or at least within smell of its salty shores when I go.

Morning's First light

Las Cruses to The Pacific Ocean

Indio, California

 The Pacific Ocean

From LasCruses we poked along US101 at a steady 60mph on an economy run to Indio, California.  The New Mexico and Arizona  air was as cloudless clear and as crisp as I remember from our previous trips as we powered through the two states.  As usual it was late and close to darkness by the time we pulled into Indio looking for the Riverside Community Park where there was supposed to be some RV sites.  There were none.  The Park was torn apart for re landscaping.  What to do?  There was no Wall Mart in  town but there was a nice treed public parking lot next to the park and adjacent to the police department.  At that time of the day one has no energy to go looking for another campground miles away so we stayed under the sodium vapor lights and beneath some mature trees.  It actually was a fairly private and well landscaped parking lot so we did not feel too deprived.  The police never bothered us although I found it hard to believe that they would miss a 25’ silver tube and truck next to their station.

Joshua tree

Next morning the rising sun lit up the surrounding  rounded mountains a deep rusty violet red that lasted for only a few minutes until the siennas bled through.   

After JoAnn talked with Cristy and Hugh by phone last night we decided to take a side trip to Joshua Trees National Park to see some of the oldest living trees on earth and lots of train sized boulders stacked by the shrinking away of soils.  The sky was blue and we enjoyed a brisk hike within Hidden Valley, about a mile in circumference with only one entry.  It was a self contained desert hideaway surrounded by rock walls.

Hidden Valley

aluminium and stone

We pushed on non stop towards the Pacific Ocean until there it glittered and spread!  After over 15,000 miles we were back on the West Coast.  We headed for Topa Canyon State Park in the foothills of Simi Valley and contacted Jo’s nephew Casey and his new wife Chelee for a get together in the morning.  But first thing in the morning we discovered a flat tire with a nail.  I could not get the spare to drop so we would have to take the flat off and bring it in to town and still keep our rendezvous.  Casey and Chelee to the rescue.  They came out in two vehicles to the Canyon and brought us and the tire into town.  Leaving the flat at Just Tires we had brunch at an egg place that because it was Sunday morning was jammed with people waiting outside.  After fixing the tire they took us back out to Topa Canyon and we agreed to stop by later in the day to see the house they bought and were remodeling. Casey is an amazing young man, very focused.  A former eagle scout who earned money for his flying lessons by buying and selling antique tractors and buying enough time to solo before his mother even knew about it!  As a graduate in aeronautical engineering he got a job at Boeing as a virtual employee doing all his work from home computers as well as holding another job as a helicopter systems inspector banking over ten thousand dollars in flight time in only 7 months.  The guy has a great head for facts and figures as an engineer should.  It was a very illuminating evening but time came  to say adios to Casey, Chelee and their two terrier mutts Piper and Cessna.

  

Chellee, Casey & Jo

Texas to Las Cruses

Jovitas Mex Bar and Grill Cornell Hurds Band's hang, Austin

TEXAS

11/22-11/25

Texas.....Texas...

Always been ambiguous about Texas and Texans.  After all George Bush? 

Then there’s the size.  We’ve talked a lot lately and heard a few jokes about how long it will take to drive across this state.  This morning on Hwy 10 West from Austin near Junction we spent the night by the Llano River ( pronounced eeano). The speed limit right after the Llano River on Hwy 10 reads 80 mph!  I believe that’s the first time I’ve seen that speed at least legally.  How can they allow this?  Well its the Texan 3 mile squint or stare.  I look down this freeway and I can clearly see straight as an arrow a point of roadway 3 miles away on the horizon.  The roads are smooth as possible.  There is nothing out here to infringe upon that 3 mile one point perspective.  No bill boards, no fast food chains, no strip malls, just three miles of clear views down the freeway.  One looks a long distance in the Lone Star State.  Its Texas Zen.  The hum of the tires, the focus of one point perspective, the fix of cruise control, the somnambulant drifting mind.   Its a zen lack of distraction.  Texas is a zen of openness.

To a person the people of Texas have been congenial and polite to a fault.  I have slipped in my Mams and Sirs into all my address to people and have felt comfortable and good doing so.  The return of respect comes with the civility of greetings and goodbyes.  Yes sir, yes mam.  Try it for a day or two and you should begin to feel better about yourself.

Austin.  Our first target in Texas was Austin.  From the border of Louisiana having spent that night at a Wall Mart at Lake George we crossed the border into Texas and departed Hwy 10 and eased north west on Hwy 71 for McKinney Falls State part just outside of Austin.  The landscape was dry with a lot of scrubby oak but not parched dry. At camp there was a dry breeze.  Not a moist cool Florida breeze but a dry Texas  Llano breeze and it was comfortable to the skin.  In fact it began to get under my skin with its gentleness and envelopment.  The lack of flying insects added to the overall feeling of mellowness.  We got up early enough the first day to go into Austin about 13 miles away.

Pulling tail thru Texas

Austin, a little crazy, aggressive, musical and eccentric college town is also the capitol of as well as the oldest city in Texas.  It’s a town of contradictions.

We looked up the Jovita Grill and Bar that serves as the home base of the Cornell Hurd Band that plays C&W Swing.  CHB is the original band of my x-brother and law, Frankie, that started in California 40 years ago.  Frankie no longer plays with them and has not for more than a decade but Cornell is still going strong after the usual hard knocks to become an Austin institution.

Hoping to hear them play we missed out as they were on the road until a Thursday and we arrived on a Monday.  That was a little too long of a wait for our restless souls.

After getting the truck’s transmission and engine oils taken care of the next morning we headed westward and almost got out beyond the city limits when we spotted the original “Central Market” grocery store.  With Thanksgiving coming and not much in the larder we stopped.  There is a Central Market in Poulsbo near our home that was based on this store in Austin but this store is huge, packed with all foods and it must have been staffed with 75-100 employees  all who knew their jobs and departments.  Even those working the aisles knew their business.  It was a chaotic madhouse but it was great.  We happened upon some in store made in the bakery only once a year pure butterscotch cream cups.  Jeeze! 

Las Cruses, New Mexico

All stocked up for an Airstream Thanksgiving somewhere in the desert of perhaps Western Texas and continued our way on 71 West looking to hook up again with Hwy 10.

Texas......

Beyond the hill country we entered into a vast sea of open and scrubby plains.  This went on for hours.  Fortunately it was overcast so we were spared the West Texas heat though it reached 84 at one point.

Our goal was to try and make it to Las Cruces, New Mexico by evening from Junction Texas a little over 400 miles.  Our other goal was to have enough fuel and momentum to fly past the section of Hwy 10 that ran alongside the border of NW Mexico to foil kidnappers and gunmen.  We live such a dangerous life.  We made that and into El Paso the last major city in Texas.  What a dirty city.  Looking across the high border fence into the Mexican side we looked at a third world slum.  As bad and dirty as El Paso is it still must have looked like heaven to those willing risk their lives crossing the “Fence.”

Thanksgiving trailer style

Out of El Paso we floored it to Las Cruses in order to beat the sunset as we both hate being out on the roads after dark.  Our chances of getting lost, frustrated and pissed off goes up geometrically as twilight and evening darkness sets in when commuter traffic is at its most crowded, and most aggressive spit.

We made it up to the surrounding hillside KOA Campground with a view of the night lights of Las Cruses across the Rio Grande and backed by the deep purple mountains.  By the time we backed Airstream in it was dark and the temperature low 60’s, a 24 degree drop from just several hours ago.  It chilled us to the bone.

There was a new airstream next to us and the lady was so excited she wanted to talk.  So freezing my acorns and hugging myself we talked Airstreams.  Jo finally came out and we excused ourselves in order to finish setting up.  Cold.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are going to cook up the usual albeit at a much smaller “trailer” scale.

Talk around camp of 19 degrees in the morning! But there are crystal stars and a full moon 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Las Cruses full moon Thanksgiving Eve

On vision

 On Vision

11/18/10

If I may diverge a bit from the usual travelogue.  After more than 90 days on the road I would like to ruminate on human vision and how and why we see things.  I think we all need a break from the pattern of: I woke up, I did this, I saw this, I ate this, I went to sleep!  Perhaps it is being constrained by this formulaic outline that I have in the past revolted into various rants.  A friend said that my loud ranting in the face of human folly is acceptable. Yet, my rants will not lead to improvements in whatever it is that is bothering me at the time.  I am left instead with a feeling of impotence.  

So let me talk about my thoughts on vision and related themes of perception.

I have thought on and off about this for many years and without realizing it in print my thoughts have been unorganized and scattered.    I do not expect my  

posits to break any ground but rather hopefully clarify why I see what I see.

We all know that we cannot experience the actuality of what others are experiencing  but rather we can only experience the experiencing of the experience of others.  We are all prisoners of our own experience and our own visions.

Several days ago while looking at a wondrous sight I glanced at the camera in my hand and shook my head in the ineptitude in trying to replicate my vision let alone my experiential totality in that moment of time.

Now realizing the tenuousness of the statement “It’s a poor craftsman that blames his tools,”  I would come to a  back handed defense of the craftsman with inadequate tools.   I have been an amateur photographer for 50 years and have updated systems every 4 - 5 years.  Lately I have been moving towards smaller and lighter equipment as lenses and digitalization continue to improve in quality and become incorporated in popular point and shoots.   Point and shoot is a misnomer these digital days.  Speed, metering, and focus, have continued to leap forward so that most images can be quite good despite the lack of vision in those doing the point and shooting.   But, who is to say that the democratized images that are thus produced are any less meaningful than images that have been “professionally” composed and created that push the art towards art.  Still I find my photos lacking in the impact that comes from razor sharp clarity.  I know other systems have done me better in the past.  Perhaps the search for sharpness it a reaction to my aging eye sight.   So this got me thinking on the degradation of the image at each stage of replication.   I do not think that most of us completely trust that digitalization is capable of exact replication into some nth degree without some degradation.  We want to believe that our first initial vision is the most “pure.’ We are still reluctant to give up human control of the quality of perception.  At the very least we tell ourselves that it is our decision as to when we press the shutter, our decision, our choosing that maintains the humanness of control, the art, over digitalization.  Yet in the back of our minds we are nagged by the idea that our digitized vision is so democratized so replicable and deliverable that we no longer have real control and it is no longer ours.

And, there is still much that we as serious photographers will never be satisfied with.  Serious photographers are mostly never satisfied with the light given them.  It does not matter how much equipment they have the light is never just right.  Light is their excuse as well as their raison d’être.  We wish to change the vision before us with, shutter speeds, aperture openings, focal lengths, metering, iso settings, lens speed, filters, etc.  And still finding no satisfaction resort to Photoshop.  We will bend reality to our acceptable perception of vision. 

Why do we persist in needing the photo as recordation of our vision?  The still photo hangs around.  It is replicable.  It can be shared thru out humanity.  It does not matter whether it is a professional photo or not.  But photographers are not immune to artistic aspirations.  After all we all strive to find meaning in what we do for our own self serving validations.  Other wise why bother.

Photographers will elevate their craft to aspirations of art in the act of bringing themselves at the least self validation and at the most illusive  fame.

There are times when finding ourselves without a camera for whatever reason we do not trust our vision and our memory of that vision for future recall.  We need to recall.  We need to know that our memories can be depended upon to allow us to survive in the wilderness.  We need to remember what dangers look like.  We need to know what loved ones and family looks like since it is tragic but true that we can forget faces of loved ones given even a brief passage of time.  We are lost without our visual memory.

So the prudent thing to do would be to commit to memory that which we need to survive in this word and for the most part we do this to know what it is we need to live. How can we do this?   We study, we memorize, we bank away experience. We bank our experiences in song and story and in text and hard drives and film and technologies and a myriad other ways.   We tell ourself that knowledge is power and the more power we have the better our chances of living successfully for longer periods of time. 

Since we are creatures primarily of vision our other senses of perception have been relegated to secondary status.  We all know how our  diminished sense of smell can still drive us back intensely and almost completely  to some moment in the past but it no longer happens that often. We are startled when our other senses jump forward.  Our eyes are evolving larger and our ears and noses becoming smaller.  We humans are evolving into pure visual processing beings.

Who cares?  Physical evolution not in your lifetime, or your great great grand children right?  Yet look how we have changed in the last 300 years our biological health and physical bearing.  And time moves quicker the further it gets along.

How long can you hold a visual memory and as much of the encompassing other sensory inputs that accompany the moment?  Five minutes? 5 months? 5 years?  Probably only seconds.

There will always be a degree of degradation relative to the time elapsed from the moment visually held.  I am happy that I have a few such memories that are just as vivid as if they happened now.  How is this possible? I have no magical powers of recall.   I  remember scenes that had such an impact on me that as they were occurring  because I knew I had to remember what I was seeing and what I was feeling.  It was a conscious effort to take in everything and fix it in my mind, my ears, my nose, my skin.  I ticked off as many sensory inputs as I could and rolled each one around in my eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin.  I wanted to keep these moments for as long as I could.  I told myself aloud that I wanted this therefore I must  perform these exercises to increase my chances of training my neuro synapsis for recall.  After all we do this to learn how to  drive, perform athletics, do computations, speak and all that we do so why not be able to commit visions and attendant feelings and emotions in the same but deliberate way.

My children's birth come to mind, and a vision of Nicholas my son on the shores of Moran State Park’s Mountain Lake with the low angled sun firing up the emerald fir trees that towered behind him as from a distance he waved.  This vision is perfect, though not more than an instant long,  permanently fixed and I treasure it as replicable only in my visions being and not in a photograph.  We all have these but perhaps there has not been as conscious an effort to systematically hold on to these moments in most people.  I believe there are artists who are more adept, certainly than I am, at holding many more images as it is part of their reason for being, their catalog of life,  their soup, needed for the creation of their art.   The more dedicated they are to their art the more adept they are holding and recalling such visions.   Perhaps that is why they can be called “Men of Vision.”