PCH

The drive along the Pacific Coastal Highway began in the fog and ended in the fog. Here and there, were glimpses of brilliant sunshine. So much to see and do. We could spend six months and not scratch the surface.


North of Cambria we swung into the notorious Hearst Castle, an incredible piece of architecture build by a very wealthy and famous west coast businessman. The sign said "Experience the Dream". We are already living our dream so we turned around and headed up the road. Poor rich people... so much to take care of.

The Hearst Foundation donated 21 miles of coast to the state of California, undeveloped in perpetuity. Awesome country.



Big Sur and the roads that run through it are everything that has been written about it and more.



Traffic was not heavy, but there were caravans of travelers, many not from this country. We met and spoke with people from Holland, Belgium, Great Britain and this motorcycle formation from Japan. There was another motorcycle group of about 50 people from Germany, all driving Harley's and dressed in leathers. Guess the economy is still ok in some parts of the world, huh?

And then there were other travelers. Pelicans flying in formation and diving for schools of fish.


Elephant Seals by the hundreds, mostly females and juveniles, a few pups. The 5,000 pound males have left, swimming back to Alaska, dodging white sharks and Orca. 70% of the young don't survive that first year swim. But today they relaxed on the beach, making belching noises and mock fighting each other. And smell!! Almost as bad as Vulture poop...



The ground squirrels drove Sam and Lu absolutely crazy. They were aggressive little rodents and probably not the best thing to allow in your lap. I'll let you know if I develop any strange rashes...


We drove through the mountain passes and into Salinas Valley, home of John Steinbeck, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner in Literature. That's on the bucket list for tomorrow, but tonight we are holed up in a nice little Motel 6 with an awesome Mexican Restaurant next door. After last night Connie deserves a lot more than that. Hope she doesn't strangle me in my sleep... What a good girl. My partner.

Steinbeck wrote "Travels with Charley". My book could be "Travels with Connie".

Lobsters and Lessons

We headed out from a wonderful month in Palm Springs on Sunday after spending a couple nights with our good friends Larry, Helene, Brett and Mary (and Kelli and Makayla of course). Such a good time. Lobster cookouts (Thanks Craig. Had to teach these West Coasters how to eat one... can you imagine?), pool time, motor home repair projects, haircuts, leg and hand massages by Connie... (look out, Lee Higgins!). We sat beside the pool on Viminal Way and ate the best biscuits and gravy on the planet on Saturday (Mary, you're the bomb...) and struck out for the coast on Sunday morning. All good things must come to an end and our time together was special. Thanks ever so much friends.

The windmill farms in the Cochella Valley are quite a spectacle. They sprout up like dandelions and span 20 miles through the desert. Clean energy. There is hope.

The drive through LA was a hair raising experience even on a Sunday. The sports cars doing slalom runs through 6 lanes of traffic gave me cramps in my hands from gripping the wheel and a sore throat from screaming at them. And we thought Boston traffic was bad... Doesn't even come close. Connie decided to stop looking into the cars next to us filled with Hispanic young men wearing gang rags and covered with tattoos. A lesson in diversity and discretion.

Up the Venture Highway and on to Santa Barbara where the mountains were still smoldering and gray from the recent fires. Signs along the roadside said "Thank you Fire Fighters. You Rock!". We detoured off the 101 onto 154 and climbed up into the wine country. Great road and we smiled to remember our trip there with Katie and Ryan in January of 2006. "Smell this!"

We picked up The PCH, Pacific Coast Highway in San Luis Obispo and into Morro Bay where we checked in the Morro Bay State Park for a night of camping on the ocean. I was committed to make this camping thing an enjoyable experience for Connie as we hope to camp in the National Parks over the next month. We had picked up some fresh fish from a roadside stand and also some tomatoes, avocados (9 for a dollar Lynne!), some fresh cherries, garlic, lemon and strawberries. I worked furiously to get the campsite set up because Connie was hungry and when she is hungry, it becomes the top priority. Strike One.

Connie mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of bird droppings at our spot under the massive Eucalyptus trees, but I didn't pay any attention. Too busy being super camperboy. The temperature was 50 degrees and foggy. We had just left 108 degrees in Palm Springs. Connie does NOT like the cold. Strike two.

Dinner was good. Home made guacamole topping on garlic crusted grilled tuna, tomato soup and hot tea with honey. Dish duty, set up bedding, a walk on the cold coast and a glass (bottle?) of wine around a campfire... the mood was like the weather. Chilly and foggy. Connie slept in the van. I took the dogs and slept on the air mattress in the tent. Foul tip... staying alive, staying alive.

I awoke at 6:00AM to a gray and chilly dawn and the sound of birds calling. How pleasant I thought. I opened my eyes and stared through the nylon tent at the towering trees. What were those dark stains all over the tent? I quickly dressed and and stepped outside into the misty morn. The tent and the van were entirely covered with thick brown bird poop, so thick that I couldn't see through the windshield. The Tule was dripping. The tent was a toxic waste site. Above us was a roost of 8 or 10 Turkey Vultures. If I had my gun there would be fewer. We had been shit at and hit. Strike Three!

I opened the hatch and Connie said, "Who paint balled us!" We started to laugh through clenched teeth. "Pack the van. we're out of here." she announced. I threw away the old tent (Sorry John... collateral damage. At this point, it was all about survival.). Even before we got our morning coffee, we drove directly to a self service car wash before the poop ate the paint off the van (Brett, the polish job saved me buddy!). Considering what Turkey Vultures eat, it was perhaps the dirtiest job of my life and that is saying alot considering my sewerage treatment and diaper changing background. Game over.

Later that day. after passing on a tour of the Hearst Castle (poor rich people... so much stuff), after talking Connie out of buying a bus ticket back to Palm Springs, and after a fine breakfast in San Simeon, preparing for a drive through Big Sur, Connie smiled and said, "So, what have we learned here today?" We laughed all the way up the PCH.

Courage

Proud of our friends. Gentle healing Anna...

Beep beep

"Chaparral Cocks", as they are called by the locals, are lightning quick, fast enough to snatch dragon flies and hummingbirds out of midair.

Roadrunners can run up to 17 miles per hour, rarely fly because of their size and are meat eaters. They can catch and kill rattlesnakes and swallow them whole. Sometimes they can't swallow them all at once so they run around with half a snake dragging out of their beak.

The folks down the way have watched roadrunners flush morning doves out of the bushes hoping to have them bounce off windows so they can then rip them to shreds with their powerful legs/beak. They say birds are distant descendants from dinosaurs. Roadrunners are first cousins.

A mature male stand a foot tall and up to two feet long and make a call like shaking a can of ball bearings. Last night one jumped the heck out of me, calling from up on top of the RV and watching me cook spaghetti over the campstove... 10 feet away. Sam and Lu chased one for 50 feet before it disappeared in a flash of blinding speed. Just like the Willey Coyote being left behind in a cloud of dust... Beep Beep!

The Good Old Days

As I sit here in space number 72 of the Happy Travelers RV Park looking out the front window onto an amazing landscape of palm trees and jagged mountain peaks, I can see two multicolored flags flying over two separate sites down the road. And if I bend my neck around the corner, there are two more. I wonder why they feel the need to demonstrate their gayness. I don't understand gayness. Then again, I don't understand women and I have lived under the same roof with one or more for most of my life.

At an Italian restaurant the other night, two men and a woman sat across from us and we engaged in a friendly, free flow conversation for a few minutes. Connie speaks to everyone. And it is the rare person who does not return her smile or her happy chatter. I have coached her gently on this specifically following an occasion where she invited a mentally unstable, homeless man to join us for coffee and breakfast sandwiches. She said she didn't notice his ragged suitcase or his strong unwashed aroma. "He was all alone..." It's part of her charm. Anyhow... One of the men wanted to make sure we understood that he and the other guy were a couple. He told us proudly that they had been together for 32 years.

John and Dave were the spark plugs of the RV park last year, two professional business people who had been together for 22 years and now lived in a $500,000, deluxe, 40 foot land yacht with marble counters and wide screen plasma TV's. They were always bicycling around the park, playing cards at the pool or throwing dinner parties in the evening. They watched out for Connie last year when I had to dash back to Maine with Ryan's surgeries. The unofficial social directors of this community. The residents of Happy Travelers whispered sadly about their breakup this winter just before our arrival.

So why do intelligent men in long standing, loving relationships feel the need to fly a rainbow flag? Clearly it is not to flaunt their lifestyle or to advertise for sexual partners. Perhaps they are demonstrating fearlessness.

I remember well the days when some of the kitchen crew at Howard Johnson's, where I was a dishwasher, would tell stories about "bashing fags" at Old Orchard Beach. They thought it was good sport to isolate and intimidate homosexuals, perfectly justifiable. They were "disgusting"... "queers".

Gays suffered widespread discrimination in housing, in employment. And with the AIDS virus, many God fearing Christians claimed divine retribution. It's not just the Christians. I read a report recently of homosexual executions in the Muslim world, sanctioned by the mullahs, a holy Jihad against homosexuals.

When a class of people are brutalized by society for who they are, who they can not help but be, they can cower and be wiped of the face of the earth. Or they can stand up and defy the tyranny. Nations and races of people celebrate their courage throughout history in standing up to brutality. They fly their flags proudly with slogans like "Never again" and "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

Is the brightly colored windsock blowing in the 100 degree breeze across the way any different? Is it not a badge of courage, telling anyone who cares to listen that they are proud to have survived the centuries where societies tried to eliminate them and that, at least in this society, they will never allow things to return to "the good old days".

I will never understand what it is to be gay. But I recognize fearlessness... a decision to demonstrate courage in spite of feeling afraid... that I understand. And admire.

Tahquitz Canyon

We hiked up the east trail to keep in the shade... while it lasted. 105 degree heat (but "it's a dry heat" they say... whatever that means. Still feels like sitting in a oven...) yet the stream that ran down through the canyon from the snow melt on the mountain tops was cold and refreshing. Vegetation sprung from it's banks, a strip of oasis in the desert.


Brett is Larry and Helene's youngest, Dalonna's cousin, Kacee's uncle among many other things. He loves the desert and stopped often along the trail to marvel at the rocks, the lizards, the hardy plants thriving in this harsh environment.

The waterfall at the head of the canyon was a welcomed sight and we waded right in. I swam around the pool and felt the force of the water crashing on my head from 60 feet up. The water was cold, but nothing compared to swimming in the Atlantic in Maine. Along the back wall, behind the waterfall, were beautiful white quartz striations polished smooth within the basalt, a piece of Nature's graffiti, more beautiful than any piece of art we viewed the other night at the Palm Springs Art Museum. Awesome.


Always thinking ahead, Brett had packed a cooler with ice and beer back at the truck. Never tasted so good. Gotta love it.


As the 1970's group 'America' sang;

"I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain."

Never did understand those lyrics, but I guess they're true.
There's no rain.