okay, sb, i guess i am done with you.

this morning, at 2:am, i received a disturbing phone call. someone has started a blog called robinhatesbht.blogspot.com. i believe it was robin, little nate, anita, and someone else. i couldnt tell through the drunken slurs. but, a chance encounter stirs up some of my old friendships on the eve of my departure.

oh fate, could you have twisted the chapter more? i didnt answer the phone, because it was 2 am and i am trying not to get caught living in a pickup truck.

but i am leaving today. i dont really have anything more to do. i could explore more, like isla vista and the college, but no. after FNB i am going to head south. i will try to stay in oxnard/ventura or some state park along the way and then tomorrow enter the beast of los angeles.

i am not excited about entering one of the largest cities on the earth, but into the belly i will go.

my trucks first hiccup

i knew it would come at some point, but this early? c'mon! my truck is having a bit of a hiccup, and i am thinking about just holding its breath for awhile, see what happens.

a couple of days ago i stopped having power steering. it wasnt a problem for driving, but for parking it presented challenges. today, finally, i bought some power steering fluid and filled it up. unfortunately filling it up doesnt stop the fact that it is leaking.

so i went to a mechanic in carpinteria and had them assess the damages. apparently my power steering pump needs to be replaced, and that comes with a price tag of $250. i opted not to have them repair the truck.

they said that driving without power steering doesnt really cause any damage to the truck, but eventually it will become more than a small leak and apparently that fix is bigger than this fix.

still, i think if i continue filling it up with fluid every time i fill up with gas, things should work out okay.

on a lighter note, i spent the day touristing around santa barbara. i went to the museum of natural history and the botanic garden. i sneaked into both places and enjoyed my time there. the museum wasnt much to speak of, but the botanic garden was teeming with life and creatures which made it more interesting.

shortly after sneaking into the garden a largish yellow and black striped snake crossed my path. i was scared, but talked it away from me. there were also very many little lizards scampering around and chasing each other and doing pushups on the wall, very interesting.

the snake was this long!	see!
this is where all the lizards live.	palm tree doubles as fiddlehead fern?

tooling around santa barbara

well, day two in SB. this morning the city took down all of the bicycle flags and replaced them with american flags, apparently for memorial day. i liked the bicycle flags.

i was walking around downtown this morning and a restaurant had a help wanted sign out front. i thought about walking in and asking for the job, assuming it was something like dishwasher and i could be paid under the table. it isnt that i want to stop traveling, but i want to go slower and really experience more places, and i really like santa barbara.

this is a nice little town. i enjoy the atmosphere, the weather, and it has some personal history. i could see myself being here for awhile. i dont think that while will be right now, but i like it here. i am pretty sure i liked it here before, and i think that has hastened my appreciate this time.

last night i was at a bar called the tiburon tavern and i was just typing away, watching some of the lakers game, and the people there were interacting with me as if i were a regular. i chatted with some of the folks and it just felt regular, right.

so, i dont know. i doubt i will be here much longer than today and tonight, but i am not putting anythign out of the question.

the end of my past

me at gaviota

the end of shoreline park

our sleeping area at shoreline park

our tree at douglas preserve

under the tree at douglas preserve

my crazy cliff

i drove south today and started hitting some of the parks we stayed at. the first one that i was actually able to get to was gaviota. i remembered this from the train bridge that went over it. i went up to the train bridge and walked around for a bit. i found a ran over nickel and dime.

then i went to el capitan where we stayed for two days. i just walked down the beach and looked at the oil rigs out in the distance.

now, here i am in santa barbara. i was here before and (self-described) went crazy. looking back, i think i just broke under the pressure, but whatever.

so, apparently we rode our bikes for about two weeks from san francisco to santa barbara and i just wasnt ready for my life to be in tatters. i didnt have any kind of handle on living outside or living in the fringes, if only i had someone to show me a little bit of the way, some direction at that time i might have stuck it out. how different life would be then.

anyway, we ended our trip in santa barbara because we ran out of money and we made a pact to get jobs and be here for two months and then keep going south. i lasted maybe a month, probably not that and caught a bus to indiana.

today i visited some of the spots we "lived" at and some other places. when we rolled into sb we went first to a coffee shop called hot spots. it was early in the morning and we had absolutely no money. steve talked to the barista and she gave us some drinks for free and let us hang out there until the post office opened. i went there today and used their wireless.

i drove down state street to the wharf and took a right towards shoreline park. after about two miles, past the lemon trees that i would regularly pick from, i came to the very end of shoreline park. there is a small double fenced area right on a cliff to the ocean. in between the two fences was a tree that gave about three feet on either side. we chose that spot to sleep for the first few nights. we strung a tarp to blok the rain and cuddled up next to each other trying to sleep.

i went there today and it was moving. it was so small. there were huge nasturtiums growing all around there it was really a beautiful outlook area. i took a bunch of pictures there and then moved on. it went pretty quick.

next i went to the douglas family preserve. after a couple days at shoreline park we were found by some police officers early one morning and told that we couldnt stay there. i think we chatted for a bit and the cop said that we looked like smart kids and that he didnt think we needed to sleep outside, so he told us a new place to go for a bit. that was the douglas preserve.

so we rode up there and found a large tree that provided a large drapery for covering. we entered and we set up camp and we slept. wash rinse repeat. we both got jobs and continued living under this tree on another cliff.

i went there today and it wasnt as moving. i dont believe i ever just walked around that preserve, but i did today and it just wasnt as great. i went to the tree and took pictures inside and around it, i remembered where we stashed our gear and the sleeping arrangements. we were never hassled there for the few weeks i was there.

then i went to the natural foods store where we spent a bunch of time, looked across the street where we did our laundry. we would just spread our clothes on the railing outside to dry to save money. it was hilarious to just drive around and remember the things we would do and just how life was then. i kind of feel like i am continuing that journey now, with just a bit more sophistication.

after that i just went to the beach. i have been talking about how i need to slow down, and i just started a new book which is great, so i took it slow. i started to use the things that i brought with. like my folding chair, last night i used my camp stove and cook gear for the first time.

so things are going well. i am going to stay here tonight and then spend the day around delving deeper. and then i will go further south than i have ever been before (on the california coast) to los angeles.

some technical notes

before i get any further, i need to get some technical stuff out of the way. things that i need to remember and while i keep track, it will be reall easy to lose track if i dont document. so, when my trip started my odometer read 109,133 miles. on a 1987 ford pickup truck. the odometer actually only has five digits for the miles and a digit for the tenths of miles, i am simply assuming that it has turned over one time to be 100,000, unrealistically it could only be 9,133 miles, or 309,133 miles. the most realistic is 109,133 and thats what i'll stick with.

i filled up my tank five times now, by my count and have traveled 1,631 miles to san luis obispo. thats where i last filled up. i have consumed 64 gallons of gasoline and am filling up 12.8 gallons on average each fill up. my tank holds 15 gallons. the average price per gallon is $2.56. and i am spending an average of $32.77 for each fill up. i have spent a total of $163.66 on gas so far.

the numbers are a little skewed becasuse i factored in the last fill up which is gas i havent used yet, but using the flawed numbers above, i am getting: 25.5 mpg. and that, to me, is really good. i was hoping to get around 20 mpg, and the numbers are skewed to be a low average...which means i am actually doing better than that. i will try to do this every five tanks of gas to keep a running average.

the last time i went down big sur.

below are the collected writings in order from when steve and i left san francisco until we got to just outside santa barbara: el capitan beach. unfortunately i didnt date the entries... enjoy.

Yeah, so we left SF last night and rode BART to Colma, biked from there to San Carlos. Went in Safeway, slept outside of Safeway only to be awoken at 2:a.m. by a security guard. We went across the street to Albertson's and slept by the dumpster. I learned that it is really hard to sleep outside in the cold and I really got a strong feeling about homelessness and the way the homed look upon it. I concluded that I don't want to end up on the street. I don't think I slept too much over the course of the night, and that will make riding a lot today all the harder, we may go all the way to Santa Cruz today, depends on if we can make it there by 4 pm for FNB.

--

We didn't make it to FNB the next day, we made it to Boulder Creek (and we had to ascend and descend a huge hill to get there). There was a Natural Foods Store there, and friendly workers—especially Katie. She gave us some discounts and invited us to her apartment for dinner. Oh, how sweet it was. We had some toasted bread, amazing salad, and Quinot (?) with squash and pecans under maple syrup. It was very good. She let us set up camp in her backyard, which doubled as a Redwood Forest, it was magic(ally cold). Ah, yes, the weather. It got cold that night, not as bad as the night before, though. When we left the next morning we went to her work to say goodbye and thank-you. She gave us more bread and her phone number. Nice people are awesome. So we rode away, to Santa Cruz. When we got there we simply relaxed on the Boardwalk for a long time. Then we decided to go set up camp. About four miles out of Santa Cruz is New Brighton St. Beach. We set up camp, then headed back to town for FNB. On the corner of Water and Pacific, at the Town Clock, they were supposed to serve. Come 5:15, they hadn't and we had to leave to ensure getting to the tent before nightfall. And we did, with about half hour to spare. It was warmer than the night before, I fell asleep to the rhythm of the Rolling Ocean a quarter mile away. It was like a lullaby. Even with all of the discomfort, I slept decent. Until the rain. Recounting time is impossible. Even the date can be hard, but early early morning fierce wind and rain pounded our little tent. It is barely waterproof, and at 6.5' x 4' x 3' it is barely big enough for the both of us. If we touched the sides, water would seep in; I stayed dry, but Steve got a bit wet. That didn't dissipate for most of the day, and for most of the day we just sat in the tent. By the time we pack up tomorrow, we will have chalked up a good 36 hours in here. I have been out for barely a half-hour. The rain stopped recently, and the sun is fighting through the clouds, tonight could still be rough though. It could drive someone mad to be this enclosed for such a long time and little end in sight, but we did well. I honestly think we can handle most things very well. We mapped most of the trip, taking so many things into consideration, found towns with co-ops and the like that could serve as our base for the two-month leisure. We got things done and rode it out. I am going outside now, the sun has won. But, the rain will fight again.

--

So, this storm we are in is supposedly the worst of the season and isn't supposed to let up for at least three more days. That sucks. Camping in this rain and wind sucks. Last time some wild creature rummaged the dry bag and ate some of our filberts. That sucked. But, last night, we also ate at a beautiful natural foods restaurant in Capitola—Dharma's. We had vegan shakes and it was expensive, but that is okay. When you are down and out you don't have a budget. That is good, because we wouldn't keep to it if we had one. So, it is still raining today and we are just going to the next campsite. Good thing there are many campsites out here.

--

Life is rough. Last night raccoons tore through the dry bag and got everything wet. Sad. So we ride into Big Sur to do laundry. No l-mat. So we are now at Limekiln State Park. Yeah, we did 40 miles today over the rough terrain. Hopefully we'll hit San Simeon tomorrow to do laundry—we should, I foresee no problems. SO many times a day I feel like diving over the hill and rolling to my death in the ocean, but I always keep on going. I really don't know why. It could be some secret urge to win life, or maybe I just want to see my family again. At night, I get so cold, it is funny how CA is going through an energy crisis right now, because for the past 8 days I have not used power. I have, however, been subjected to power use. That is okay. I am living rustically, and I hate it. I guess it isn't really hate, but it really is rough. I was not ready for this at all. I never thought this was my fate. This is all brand new and beautiful and I love that, the nights suck though. I just wish I was at home (whatever that means) eating well, sleeping warm, doing good, and all that kind of stuff. I think in the past 10 days I have eaten one (1) hot meal, the rest has been cold granola, filberts and almonds. That is reality right now, that sucks. I could sit here and want want want, but I am not going to—everything will be better in Santa Barbara.

--

So we got to San Simeon today, they told us to go to Cambria. Morale, money, food, low. I really have no idea why I am out here. It is so cold, I feel like I am dead, that is the worst and all I can do is keep moving my feet; stopping only makes me colder. We figured out today that in the past 11 days, we have spent less than three hours indoors. Most of that was in Capitola—at Dharma's. That isn't good. I guess the best part is that, by the looks of the terrain, the big hills are over for awhile. That will make riding at least faster. We should be in Santa Barbara by the end of the week. That is positive. Right now, I am pretty sure it is the 13th of February, and riding a bike in February just isn't smart. IT MAKES NO SENSE. But, life is the same. Blah.

--

Rock-Bottom. It has been hit. We are at El Capitan for the second day . We had all of our hopes on tomorrow bailing us out. But that all faded, tomorrow is a holiday. So we dug through the Boy Scouts' trash and found a plethora of food. We found bread and salad and carrots and trail-mix-snacks and we found meat. We didn't eat the meat, we do have limits. Being vegan and believing vegan comes with all sorts of baggage. I am very proud to be vegan, but I may take a step down in the near future to lacto-vegetarian. That means I could eat eggs and milk and dairy (cheese). I wont eat egg straight up, soy milk is better than cow milk, and well cheese is a factor. I will probably still be mostly vegan, but every now and again I will eat a cheese pizza or a buttermilk biscuit or something. When your entire day is focused on nothing but thinking and eating, a lot of thought goes into food. I don't even feel bad about it, I feel good. This would be a conscious decision on my part and we don't even know what is happening. Anyway, Santa Barbara is thirty miles away and we will either go in there tomorrow or Tuesday, get money then eat a real meal then buy khaki pants then get jobs. That is how our next few days are looking. It isn't that bad, actually good—except how sore my body is. We have been camping for 12 nights straight, tonight is thirteen. We have had much bad luck, but goodness is on the horizon. I also have a few simple desires, that may or may not play out. I want to sleep on a bed sometime, I want to sit down and play Final Fantasy VIII on a playstation sometime, and SimCity, simple things that are usually taken for granted. I used to live really easy, and although people live much harder than I am now, I am living hard now and it sucks. I hate it. Just to get back to an Olympia or NY situation would be ideal. I will explore moving to Olympia or thereabouts with Tiffany whenever she is better. Living with her is easy and that is good. Next time I am settled somewhere (Santa Barbara or Chicago-land) I will get back in touch with her and explore some options.

rambling history of highway 1...

the gulls circling

5/20 9:05pm: well, here i am. and, fair warning, this post is history. i am in san simeon state park. i am sitting in the back of my truck, after watching the sun set over the pacific. it was beautiful. just before the sun made its final descent all the gulls starting circling overhead like they were swifts or something. silly birds.

i left from santa cruz with the intention of driving the 1 south, to relive/recreate the bike trip that steve and i took in 2001. my plan was to stop at two of the campgrounds that we stayed at on that trip and see what we missed.

see, when we did that bike trip i dont think we had any kind of plan. kind of like me now, our plan was just ride south, until we cant anymore or something changes. and i think when we were around here we knew things were changing, we were running out of money. (and this was well before we knew anything about dumpstering or obtaining food through means other than buying it...and generally buying it out to eat because we were hardcore vegan at the time and we werent shaking for anything.)

so around this time we were just riding our bikes and living off of lays potato chips and filberts. it was kind of the life. we were young and had nothing in front of us except the world. it was great. anyway, i am getting overrun my meta past and i am trying to make some points. just in case i miss them, one of them was that you cant change history, and the other was that we need to live for now and not for later.

the final descent

lets see if i can get it together. so, i wanted to go to the places we were at and do the things we didnt do, i wanted to see all of the things that we missed becasue we were naive or didnt care or whatever, i wanted to try to teach my self 8 years ago that you should do everything around you, and have some kind of purpose.

i think being in santa cruz and seeing bradley and driving around and doing things brought this on. when we were there, we just rode into town looking for food then quickly rode out. why couldnt we just see what was going on in town, why were we so secular?

so i was going to stay tonight in limekiln state park, one of the parks we stayed at before and i was going to go hiking in the forest and explore the area and nature and just appreciate my surroundings because i didnt do that at the time. but that park was closed. and i was angry about it. i fumed for a little bit as i was going on, but then i started thinking about what we did then and who we were, who i was, and consoled myself knowing that whatever i didnt do then, made me as much the person i am today as the things i did do.

so, there was no point in tryg to change what i did in the past, and no point in trying to change the things that have already happened, or try to make them better now by having different experiences. i need to get over that and see this as all new experience see it as a change to my life and, well, see it as a growth spurt.

and then! live for now. seriously. i am so much happier right now than i have been in years. a couple years ago emily got into birthingway, a midwifery college. around that time was when i started to just live life without any passion...and it is my own fault.

the school is hard to get into and we made a pact. if she got into school we would stay in portland for three years while she completed school and then we would move away and continue our lives. and if she didnt get into the school we would just leave then and start the continuation of our lives. i was and am happy that she got into school, happy for her but not happy for us or me.

i was ready and wanted to leave, i wanted to get busy with the rest of my life. and that impending period of stagnation i started looking as a bit dreadful. i didnt really want to be there and i was just going through the motions. i didnt see a way out. i was committed to emily and our partnership and felt that since we made a pact i would just have to grin and bear it.

that didnt turn out well for either of us. and i just sort of wrkinkled away. the friends that i did still have i just shyed away from, and i stopped be active. i just started to give up on life. and i didnt have to. i just couldnt convince myself that i could live a wonderful vibrant existence and still be in portland and everything could be the same. i worked myself into a corner and wasnt really even trying to get out of it.

and life just started to suck. i needed something different. and i just wasnt sure what that difference was, was it my relationship or my self confidence, was it me or the world around me?

anyway, this isnt where i intended this to go. but for some reason this explanation stuff just comes out.

i meant to talk about working and how the generations before me, like my dad and grandpa, the idea was that they work their entire life and then toward the twilight they get to do all the things that have built up as things they have always wanted to do. and then go do it. my dad is doing that right now. he got a mannequin, a boat, and bunch of trailers, and is starting to really do what he wanted to and live the life he wanted.

a fishing boat in monterey

i cant wait for that. there isnt a carrer or profession or pension or 401k that i have been working on. this is it. and it isnt like if i had any of those things it would make a bit of difference because all the money world has been collapsing for the last years.

i am kind of living the "live fast die young" ethos without trying to lie very fast or die very young. i am just trying to do all the things i want to when i want to, not store them up in a vault that may or may not eventually get unlocked. i am just taking advantage of the life and opportunities in front of me. they arent ideal, but things are working and i am living life right now and being happy. i am enjoying myself and my life.

i am also sitting in the back of a pick up truck in the middle of the california coast typing on a computer, in aplace where my cell phone doesnt even get service. so, i may have some things backwards. but i am living life, and i am happy. i dont want to change the past. i want to change the future.

the zombie town of mora tau / a fine ruins

i am heading south on the 1 and trying to get closer to the ocean. i see a road and exit that would do that, but i have already passed it. so i take the next one. and it is not what i want, i meander around trying to get to an oceanfront road. and all of a sudden i am encountered with the largest dead city i have ever seen.

there is a huge city 20-50 city blocks squared that is just dilapidated houses. they all look like group homes like it was a summer camp or something, but it is way too large for that, there are real streets and they have names, the houses all have numbers, and it is all fenced off. i drove around the side that i saw and looked for an entrance. i didnt find one that i could easily get into so i went further. and then there was more of it all fenced off and i went down another road.

fort ord zombie town

zombie barracks

zombie street

zombie pole

branch of zombies

zombie row

there is found a entrance that i could squeeze through. i got through the fence and all of a sudden, i was scared. it was completely dead in there, it looked as if there hadnt been anyone in there for quite some time. so i walked into one of the house. there was bedding and a pan in there, like someone was there last night. i was freaked out, so i got out of there quick. then i just walked up the road snapping photos of it all.

i wanted to go into one of the larger hall style buildings, but what if there were zombies in there or something? they were just waiting for me to come in so they could eat me. or really, worse, what if i came across real people that were living in there? i would be freaked out. would i run, would i try to converse? i dont know.

i will try to find more info on this.

there will be zombies! i learned that it is fort ord. a decommissioned military testing site and barracks. the military used this plce for artillery testing, they shot big guns into the dunes. they decomissioned to barracks cit in 1994 and it has just been growing decrepid since then.

my first bike trip / my lack of discipline

5/20 11:28am: so i was driving along down highway 1 and thoughts of the bike trip steve and i had just started flooding my mind, and then, something i had completely forgotten popped into my head. my first bike trip, with steve, circa 1997.

why, i do not remember, i think we were riding out to the city of one of steves online girlfriends, i could be wrong, but it was late at night, and steve probably had the idea to go on a bike ride. at that age i was up for anything and had very little care in the world. especially no care for rules and really no rules at all.

i think my stepmom, bobbie, tried to impose rules at somepoint...because she cared. but i didnt and didnt follow them and they were quickly forgotten. so, when an idea like riding bikes throughout the night comes up there isnt a hesitation, i follow. i had a decrepit bike. really, no something you would want to casually ride on a multi-use path let alone riding on bad city streets at one in the morning. or on the expressway.

because in indiana/illinois people get around using the expressways. so, that being the quickest route to our destination we rode our bikes onto the expressway toward south chicago i believe. that didnt last long. eventually we were pulled over by a police oficer and told to leave the expressway, non-motorized traffic not allowed.

so we did, where were we? i dont know maybe harvey illinois or something. maybe not close to there yet, i think thats where we ended up. somewhere along the way i got a flat tire and just kept riding. seriously, why not? so we rode our bikes for hours, into the daylight and i am pretty sure we came to harvey and steve went to his online gf's house but i dont remember him actually doing anything there, just going to the house and then we found a payphone.

at around 7 or 8 in the morning i called my dad and said, look i dont know exactly where we are, but we rode our bikes all night long and could you come get us. my dad, being great, did. no questions really just okay, i will be there in a little bit. thats the kind of discipline i grew up on. never having to explain myself or my actions, and always believing that my dad or someone would be there to bail me out.

so really, i grew up not really having any consequences for my actions. that turned out good and bad. bad, because i dont really express myself well or feel like i have to explain myself or the situations i am in, i expect people to just understand them without explnation. or maybe to not even attempt to understand them, for them to just be and whatever they are for them to be normal.

the good is that i just had an open horizon. i was never really held back from doing anything or felt that i had restraints. anything that i wanted to do i could do and usually did do. that led to a lack of discipline, and when you are 12-17 sometimes direction and boundaries are good, they help shape a person.

but i just had me and my experiences, tv, and the few friends i had until i was 16 to bounce life off of and just chart it. here i am now.

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!

on the road to santa cruz.

well, here i am. i have made it to santa cruz california. really, not that big of a deal, but this is my first scheduled stop.

i headed south out of sacto on highway 160, mostly because i was having trouble finding i-5 and the map said that 160 would get me to i-5 eventually. it was a nice drive, right along the sacramento river. eventually there were signs to get to i-5 and i took the first one. i probably should have stayed on the smaller highway longer, but oh well.

i was on i-5 headed towards san francisco, and i wanted to avoid it altogether...well, maybe i wanted to see it over the horizon and then just turn away. i didnt ever see it. the expressway system around the bay area is the most congested and thick i have ever seen. maybe until i get to la. but there are layers on layers of downtown bypass expressways, and of course i got a bit lost. and i was running out of gas at the time.

eventually i righted myself and found state highway 17 south to santa cruz and when i got here i just drove around a bit to see what was there. and i realized that i had been to SC before and it took me a very long time to remember when.

at first i thought it was with the clowns, who i caught a ride south with at some point, the year or reason i dont remember. but that is where my friend happy the clown came from.

anyway, i remembered it was from when steve and i rode our bikes south, we came to a spot in SC looking for food not bombs, and i dont think they ever showed so we rode back out to the coast where our camp was.

the boardwalk

so, that was all i had ever done here, so i drove around and went to the boardwalk. the boardwalk looks like fun, and i think i will spend the 17 bucks tomorrow for a five hour pass to ride the rides. there are some roller coasters and bumper cars, etc. i might just skip it, but if i plan to be here a couple of day i gotta fill my time somehow.

after the boardwalk i called bradley. i havent talked to him for years and i was nervous. but it was okay. he was at lunch and is going to call me when he gets done with work. then i dont know. maybe dinner, maybe partying. we are in a college town.

but so far santa cruz is nice. i am sitting at a bar and having some drinks. i didnt really get a good look for where to park for the night, maybe bradley can help with that. i have put some more photos up on the flickr page, so view them there!

lets take it back a couple days

like to the 17th. i had that day as an "extra" day in my life where i was in sacramento but couldnt really go too far because i had to catch the greyhound to portland the next day. i didnt want to spend ANOTHER day walking around sacto, because it is a dead town...and very hot.

so, i looked at the map and found somewhere else to go. that place was lake tahoe. i have heard about it, but didnt know anything about it. apparently it is a lake town that is surrounded by mountains. it was only 100 miles away so i went for it.

i got about 50 miles there and decided that it would take longer than i thought to get through the mountains to lake tahoe, and that once i got there i wouldnt have much to do because it is a resort town and i am not resorting.

big hill lookout @ el dorado

so i starting looking for something else, i wanted nature. i was just entering el dorado state forest, but there werent any signs for turnoffs/turnons so i just kept driving. another 15 miles and there was a brown highway sign saying that a picnic area was to my left. so i took it.

after miles of climbing i came to big hill lookout. it was a helipad during the fire season and also had a 30 foot tower that you could climb to get a panorama of the forest. i took the climb. it was a straight up metal rung ladder, a bit scary but well worth it.

i drove around and found a lake, i went to it and waded for a bit. it wasnt very exciting. then i drove higher into the mountains and found a mountain creek that was flowing! it was going very fast, and it was super cold.

that was actually to weirdest part of the day, it was about 100 degrees out, there was snow on the ground, and the water was freezing. it was crazy. i spent some time on huge rocks by the creek and tried dipping my feet, but i couldnt do it for very long. i took some pictures that you can see here.

then i drove back into the city, parked and walked the three miles to the bus station. i walked in the heat of the day about 103 degrees. it was ridiculous. as i do, i was about 2 hours early for the bus and walked all around downtown sacramento looking for a bar...or at least something that was open. and there was nothing but that big mall. no bars whatsoever. i was unhappy about it.

but i got over it and got the bus to portland. the rest, is history.

sacramento, please let me leave.

thankfully i made it through the greyhound experience and am safely in my truck again. the truck was right where i left it, it didnt appear as if anyone even glanced at it. i know my worries are mostly unfounded, but damn they are hard to shake.

so, now here i am ready to roll again. i am on my way to santa cruz today, it is only 150 miles away and i hope to stay there for the day and night, maybe more if it goes well.

the plain fact is that i need to slow down a bit. i am supposed to be doing about 400 miles a week and i have been doing about 300 a day. so. i know that the first week is about geting away from it all and just immersing myself in travel life, but i am going to try to slow my roll.

we'll see if that works, driving the open road is fun!

spend $160 to make $4000

seriously. i was on a roll. i was cruising, heading south and everything was great. i was learning some freedom and experiencing some life. then the bomb hits. in order to take steps forward i would first be required to step backward. how shitty.

but i did. i am in portland now, i have taken the steps backward and completed the "jobs skills" tests that were required of me to continue receiving my unemployment. and it was just that, i sat at a computer and took a reading comprehension test and then a math comprehension test. things i couldve easily done over email or something more in line with where i was at.

but, it is done now. i leave pdx in about three hours. then it is only 15 more hours on the greyhound to my truck, my home, and my future.

portland!

well, after 15 hours on the bus, i am in portland. yay? i am here for the next 8 hours. 3 of which will be at a jobs training. i got to take a shower, am doing some laundry, will lunch with emily, and then i will burn some cd's and get back on a greyhound bus.

the greyhound bus really sucks. traveling at night is usually better because there are less people and you have more of an opportunity to spread out, but really there isnt much spreading out to do. i think that riding a greyhound bus for 24 hours should be an experience everyone should have.

backtracking...

5/17 7pm: however, that road is heading north. perhaps it will offer some cooler temperatures, but i am not at all thrilled to have to be heading north on a greyhound bus. portland is the destination, money is the reason. there is a saying "you gotta spend money to make money" and that is precisely what i am doing.

i have to be in portland for a job skills training, if i do not attend my unemployment benefits will be discontinued. i sure hope this is the only one i have to do, becasue this is a pain.

the biggest pain is the dumb truck. i left it parked on the street at 33rd and I in sacramento california. it is the same place that i have been sleeping for the past two days and thats why i feel as comfortable as i do (not very) leaving it there. i didnt have any problems the two nights i was there, it is sandwiched between two apartment complexes so different vehicles should be accepted there with little question, and it will only be there for like 40 hours.

so, i am not thrilled about it, but it should be fine. it will be fine, i am slowly convincing myself. and if it isnt, i have no control over that now.