the santa cruz runs again

well, everything worked out. lets just ge that out of the way. bradley called me and then we met up right outside the bar i had been at earlier. as it turned out, that bar was less than two blocks from his house and i parked my truck just around the corner from his house.

that was a strange coincidence. santa cruz isnt that big, but still, what are the odds. we walked back to his house and chatted for awhile, mostly about indymedia and the other projects he is working on. it was nice to hear stories from a person that is still active and still has some passion for the activist endeavors that he is a part of.

after sitting and chatting for awhile he showed me his garden, which was actually pretty spectacular. it is mostly succulents and cacti in containers on a concrete pad, but they were just so healthy and vibrant and diverse. he talked to me about them, telling me what they were some stories about where he acquired them.

his partner, christina, was also out there, harvesting some herbs and weeding a garden bed. it made me miss my garden and the spoils that it may deliver. she pulled up some bunched red onions, oregano, rosemary, and i think some salvia dorvinium or whatever it is called.

then we took a drive into the santa cruz mountains, we went to the city of felton up highway 9 and to fall creek. we hiked about one and a half miles through red woods into some old lime mill ruins. apparently they quarried some limestone and then melted it down right there to extract lime for mortar, and used that lime to build san francisco after a great fire or earthquake or something like that. it was interesting.

banana slug!

we also saw a ton of banana slugs! i dont like slugs, but they are an icon here. the university of california santa cruz calls itself the banana slugs. which is a hilarious name for college sports teams.

we drank some beers up there and then came back to the car and we optioned to take the long winding road back that would take us through the ucsc campus and just see more things.

along the way bradley remembered a thing called "moon rocks" which is a natural landscape area that people say is reminiscent of being on the moon. it was getting dark when we went out there, and technically it was trespassing.

we parked on the side of the road, bypassed a fence and then got lost in a forest for a bit. we were far from the ocean, but there was a ton of white sand all over the ground. in the darkening light it looked like snow. it was surreal. but that wasnt what we were looking for. we eventually had to cross a road and another fence and then we found the moon rocks.

me at fall creek

they are huge sanadstone hills that are pure white and kind of soft. the sand stone sheds easily and sometimes it feels like you have a great grip but then the sand loosens underneath you and you slide. kind of like walking on old shingles. many people go up them and there are footholds carved out of the hills and foot sized ravines that as we were going up didnt seem the serve a purpose. but we followed the footholds up and climbed a mountain basically, probably around 500 feet up and we were at the top of that one.

the sun had just set and the horizon held some dark purples and oranges in the fading. we could see to the south miles of these "moon rocks" and the ocean was far away. it was really quite astonishing. we laid up on the rocks and watched the stars for awhile and by then it was really dark. we started trying to descend.

i had my flashlight out and we were not doing a very good job finding our way back. the footholds were made for going up and not for going down, so it was a bit precarious. on some sides there was a sheer cliff, on others rises of moon rocks. and we had no real idea where we were going. then we ran into jamie.

jamie had brought his girlfriend up there for the sunset, and luckily she was as
inexperienced as us and was cautious going down. jamie knew the way, and we had a
flashlight, so we all got in a line and followed jamie. this is where we learned the meaning of those foot sized ravines. they are for sliding down the hills, you put one foot in front of the other and just let yourself slide down. over the years so many people had slid down that they carved out these ravines. it was really neat, but it was also hard to get down still. jamie was going pretty fast and bradley and i were pulling up the rear. there was a moment where i thought that he was trying to ditch us and take off with the flashlight.

he didnt. we made it to the bottom, and then walked on this pitch black road back toward the car. when we got there, it was still pitch back and we were about twenty feet from the car when these eyes starting shining in the distance in front of the car. i immediately thought that it was a coyote, i asked bradley and he said it was.

i didnt know what to do, so i pulled out the flashlight to try to scare it off, but it kept advancing. eventually it turned out to be stormy jack. a dog that lived in the house up the road. i walked him back toward where he lives and hopefully he made it.

bradley at fall creek

then we went back to bradleys, down highway 1 at night. all along the road were rvs and pickups and volvo's and other vehicles that could support someone living in them. bradley said that the sc police bust down the folks who live in their vehicles, so they come just outside the city limits and sleep on the side of the road. i wanted to join them.

so we made it back to his house and he invited me to stay on the futon, but i declined. i enjoy sleeping in the truck right now, and it had been a couple of days on the greyhound away from the bus blah blah blah. i drove out to highway 1 and parked. it was the best night of sleep in the truck yet! i barely ever woke up and slept until almost 7 in the morning!

and then i got up and sat in the back reading for awhile, got out and then into the front and i laughed out loud. it was just so hilarious the transition from home to driving vessel. it is really wonderful to be able to do that. i feel very good about it.

i had made some posts on sc craigslist inviting riders with me from sc to la, but i have changed my mind again. i was going to stay in sc for a couple of days, but since tiffany is leaving la on the 27th and i want to see her before then i decided to leave now and work my way slowly down highway 1, retracing the bike trip that steve and i did. i will drive today to one of the parks we slept at and stay there tonight, and then to santa barbara and stay there tomorrow, and then to la on the 23rd ish for a day or two.

then open road again. i probably wont have internet for posting updates until santa
barbara, so i may miss my first daily update. oh well!