Southern CA Part II

Back in L.A. after my trip to Wisconsin, I braved the traffic along with all the hearty souls who were commuting home to the San Bernardino valley. My aim was Colton, CA, and a visit with my Peace Corps Madagascar friend, M!

Though the last time we saw each other was nine years ago in a land far, far away, she has been a faithful correspondent all these years and we picked up right where we left off with great conversations and walks around her neighborhood, Redlands, and Camp Seeley near Crestline. When we were trying to decide what to have for lunch one day, M recalled that I'd once written her a letter from my village in southern Mada telling her that I'd made a lunch of yam, what I was pretty sure were lima beans, and wild tomatoes (probably the only things I had available, and everything tastes good when you're hungry and the local market only happens once per week, five miles away!). Apparently after I wrote that to her, she went on a kick of eating sweet potatoes, white beans, and tomato sauce. Giddily, we decided on that for lunch. Don't knock it till you try it!

From Colton, I headed east (strange now to be heading east for the first time since June, when I got as far east as one can on this continent and so turned west) through hazy mountains and windmill colonies…

…and a quick look-see around Palm Springs…

…before heading into the wilds of beautiful Joshua Tree National Park.

I took up my umbrella as defense against the relentless sun and walked and walked and walked through   miles of the quiet of the desert. Check out the clear view of the San Andreas fault in this pic!--the dark ridge heading horizontally across the center of the picture.

When the sun was lower in the morning and evening, the shadows against the crazy rock formations were just amazing.

As was it to drive past a tarantula.

Maybe my favorite part of the park was the cholla cactus garden. And not just because I got to explore it as the relentless sun was finally dipping behind a mountainside.

Southern CA part 1

I could happily have spent another two weeks in the Bay Area hanging out with friends and family. (Apparently a 9-month road trip is not long enough.) But it was time to continue on south, for equally exciting onward plans. I took Hwy 1 through Big Sur, which was as gorgeous as I remember it being the first time I drove down the West Coast, 12 years ago.

My magic, dorky document where I keep lists of places on each continent and in each country that I should be sure to visit had at some point had, in the meantime, acquired a shout-out for the small oceanfront town of Cayucos. Can't remember who recommended it to me or when, but it was definitely worth a stop and a walk on its cozy beach. Wish--as I wish for almost everywhere I've gone on this trip--that I could have stayed a bit longer.

Down in Santa Barbara, I had dinner on the waterfront with family friends who love to go there for clam chowder and salad. Yum. And not a bad view from the restaurant's outdoor seating.

Fishermen unloading a haul of sea urchins:

And then it was on to Los Angeles. I know L.A. gets a bad rap and the traffic and smog suck. But to be honest, I really like L.A. When I visit a big city, I like to be there visiting a friend and to focus on exploring just one or two parts of the city. My friend C just moved here from Chicago, so we focused on her new neighborhood of Santa Monica, plus Koreatown.

In between trips to Santa Monica Yoga, we took a hike in Temescal Park, enjoying the eternal sunshine of the City of Angels (and the resulting view of it)...

...and hung out at C's awesome new place, a rental house attached to her landlord's home, in a veritable secret garden that you would never know is hidden behind the fence facing the sidewalk.

C and her fiancé, J, at Blue Plate Taco!

So, then, the Koreatown part. C and her friend R took me to a Korean day spa (Natura Sports Health Club--I recommend!) that was so fantastic we stayed for FIVE HOURS--soaking in the various hot tubs; lounging in the sauna rooms; getting vigorously scrubbed free of all our dead skin cells by strong, enthusiastic Korean women; sprawling on the heated floor watching Korean soap operas. It was AWESOME. Then, so relaxed we could barely form complete thoughts, much less sentences, the obvious next step was to go to a Korean grocery store to look for dinner.

The content of those jars, picturesque as they may be, wasn't it. But we did find way-too-good treats in the bakery section and take home some red snappers to bake up.

And we topped off what I will always remember as a darn near perfect day with a walk to Treats for frozen yogurt. We were happy.

North of the Bay

Backtracking a bit after my time in S.F., I headed north to see a slew of terrific people.

First, a yummy Thai dinner in Davis with my Peace Corps Madagascar friend E and her husband Y.

Then, a jaunt over to Elk Grove/Sacramento to spend a day with my cousin P, who introduced me to the horse(s) he loves despite their penchant for throwing him to the ground on occasion.

Though the horses live off-property, his house with his girlfriend and her daughter is a veritable menagerie, including four chinchillas. I got to see them take a bath (i.e., roll around in volcanic ash). Somehow, I don't think I've ever seen a chinchilla before, and they're so cute I can't believe they're not more popular pets.

From P's, I headed over to Santa Rosa to see his mother, my precious auntie who is also a P.

My two days with her went way too quickly, and before I knew it, it was time to head through miles of Sonoma County vineyards...

...over to Napa, where my great friend E lives with her husband and their two daughters.

While I stopped teaching, totally burned out after our two post-college years in Teach For America, E is a born kindergarten teacher and is still going strong at a progressive school in Napa. It was such fun to see her in action and spend a day with her adorable class.

We also got away for an evening in Calistoga. I floated in this pool at Indian Springs for about four hours. If I'd stayed in any longer, they'd have had to hoist my pruney body out with large machinery. Fantastic.

Again, too soon, it was time to say goodbye to E and family and get back in the Silver Bullet...

...southbound!

Bay Area

Oh, man. San Francisco. I know, I know: the traffic, the high cost of living, the threat of the land you're standing on breaking off into the ocean in an earthquake. It's not ideal in several ways. Despite that all, this city just does something to me. Plus, so many friends and family members have settled in this area. A visit was LOOOOONG overdue, and I've had such a great time revisiting old haunts from when I spent six months here in 2003, reconnecting with friends and cousins, etc.

Because of people's busy schedules, I'm doing a little backwards jog, starting out south of the bay and working my way north. In Half Moon Bay, I saw the most eerie sunset of my life...

...while having dinner with my sweet high school friend, L, and meeting her adorable daughter (also an L! a party of Ls!) for the first time.

From there, on to Mountain View to see college friend M (also known as Hummingbird because of her ever-busy, ever-on way of buzzing through life), who has also created a new human being, Z, since the last time I saw her.

She played hooky from work for a morning and we had a ridiculously fun time eating our way around Palo Alto until she had to return to her gainful employment. Then I rejoined SR, who had taken his own gainful employment to Watsonville for the week, for a bit of exploring Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz. I got to see the scene at the beach just one block from where he used to live, where surfers looked like sharks patrolling Monterrey Bay in the fading light.

Then I headed up to that city I love...

...to see another great college friend, C. If we're going by sheer numbers, she wins the reproduction prize, having created not one but THREE new people (courtesy of the big surprise of identical twin boys who arrived this past April) since I last saw her, five long years ago. Not only did we catch up, but I got to see the office where she still manages to work a nearly full-time schedule as a lawyer. (HOW do these amazing friends of mine do it? I feel plenty busy in my unemployed, childfree state. I literally cannot imagine how you all are juggling work, babies, and husbands.) AND I got the extra treat of getting to rock one of the twins to sleep before exchanging last hugs and tiptoeing out of the apartment to let sleep-deprived parents catch as many Zs as possible while the tres niños were all--miraculously, but I'm sure too temporarily--slumbering.

From the city, I headed to the East Bay, where my favorite (and, okay--only) brother, C, has just relocated from Seattle. He and his terrific wife (also a C) have a sweet house in Pleasanton, and when SR finished up his work in Watsonville and met back up with us, we were C & C's first official houseguests in their brand new digs.

The (free!) Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park drew us (and every hippie for miles) into the city, where the people-watching was rivaled only by the voices of Patty Griffin and Natalie Maines. At one point, we were perched on a steep hillside on the only tiny little plot of space we could find available among the overwhelming throng of people at one of the stages, surrounded by groups of strangers sharing joints with each other while three very young children to our left were passing a very large, live snake back and forth. What a scene.

So we got the full S.F. experience, and it was great, as ever, to spend time with my baby bro.

The next morning, we expanded the party by joining up with two cousins (and the wife and kids of my cousin A) from my mom's side of the family for a brunch in Lafayette. And by brunch, I mean the meal that comes between the time when these party animals open a bar and have a beer at 10 a.m. while catching the beginning of the Packers game, and when they return to the bar for a few more beers and the end of the game.

From here, I backtrack to see friends and family north of the S.F. Bay. You didn't think I was going to skip Napa, did you?

Lost Coast

After that great week of catching up with friends in Oregon, SR flew in from Denver to join me for another round of adventuring, south along the coast.

There's aren't many more dramatic arrivals at the Pacific than the view at Cannon Beach.

And headed south into California, the drama grows. No pun intended. This is redwood country, and they are mighty.

We stayed for a night in the appealing town of Arcata with my cousin B and his wife M, who live in a sweet house on a gorgeous property (complete with outdoor shower, sauna, chicken coop, greenhouse, raised garden beds, and an adjacent conservation causeway where they can walk through a redwood grove whenever they want).

It was hard to tear ourselves away from the offer of sauna time, but we had been to the Arcata BLM office to pick up our required bear canisters and were ready for our long-planned adventure--backpacking in the Lost Coast Wilderness. Not really into paying the shuttle fee necessary to do the entire, one-way hike, we instead drove down to Shelter Cove and hiked out to Big Flat and back over 5 days, 4 nights.

The walking on the beach was not easy, but the scenery and remoteness were totally worth it.

We had unbelievably lucky, brilliant, sunny weather for the first four days of our trip. So though we'd been planning to stay for a fifth night and sixth day, when on the fifth day the clouds rolled in, we decided to hike out the entire 8.5 miles and call it a trip with fond memories rather than rolling the dice with the rain. Good choice, as by the time we made it back to the trailhead parking lot, tired but grateful, it was hard to see where we'd come from, and the chilly drizzle soon reached us in our retreat.

Satisfied at having gotten to spend such great time on this stretch of wild, undeveloped coastline, we pointed the car to a pretty opposite environment: the metropolis of the San Francisco Bay area. Coming soon!