Travels with Pops

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE IN A PLACE I'VE NEVER BEEN

Part 1

Well, we pulled it off:
A grand loop of central California in one week.

Whales, Redwoods, Fox Forks, Snow, Sun, Seals, Solitary Stand of Sequoias, Starfish, Steinbeck, Sierra Nevada Beer on the Beach in Santa Barbara, Sea Otters near the site of The Sea Otter Mountain Bike Fest, Manzanita, Post Office Dirt Jumps, Thrashing a $5k Rented Mountain Bike at Soquel Demo, Sea Lion Stalking, California Newts, Half Dome, Doc's Western Biological Supply, Big Sur......

The game plan was to drive from LA to Kings Canyon/Sequoia, then head to Yosemite, then across the Central Valley to Santa Cruz, down the coast to San Luis Obispo, the fly out of LA, seeing as much as we could along the way.

Four general conclusions to begin with:
1) gas prices and general expenses in CA are about the same as they are in Ohio/Michigan. We paid as high as 4.39 to as low as 3.89 for a gallon of gas - not all that outrageous.
2) the ratio of cool people to cranky idiots was about the same as anywhere else we've been. If anything, people seemed just a little more genuinely nice in CA. We were expecting smarminess and got graciousness instead.
3) there is way too much to see and do: we could have spent a long time in any of the places we visited, and we certainly missed a lot.
4) we knew we had built a lot of driving into the itinerary, and the result ranged from white knuckle scary, to video game trance-inducing, nauseating "would you please slow the f*ck down" cranky creating, to wow....that is so cool....we gotta stop, and believe or not, iIdon't have to piss again, it's just sooooo cool and there we go bounding down or up the hill to another amazing, majestic scene.

And 5)
I can't believe how much of this trip was a journey back into my consciousness 

Day One

A Saturday-consuming flight from Cleveland with a two-hour stopover in Chicago. Arrive in LA in the late evening. The legendary traffic jams were finished for the day, and we headed north on 405 toward Castaic, sailing past signs that had me wondering what it would be like to have "a long day living in Reseda" and looking for "all the vampires standing in the shadows" on Ventura Boulevard. We were amazed at how many place names and roads we had heard of: Mulholland Drive, Simi Valley, Malibu, Pepperdine University, Sunset Boulevard, Wilshire Boulevard, Burbank, Santa Monica, Inglewood. Kinda strange how many times those LA places make it into our media and culture, and kinda fun to find out where they are.

Do you remember Bob Eubanks and the Newlywed Game or The Dating Game or Rowen and Martin's Laugh-In or Chuck Barris and The Gong Show? All produced, as far as I know, in that decadent, depraved area of our country. 

Stayed in the only dumpy hotel of the trip, a Days Inn at Castaic near the Six Flags amusement park. Stained carpet, lukewarm water.

Day Two: Bakersfield, an unintended pilgrimage

We hit it before sunrise, destination Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Parks, through Bakersfield and the Central Valley, then into the southern foothills of the Sierras. The sunrise and drive through the mountains was our first taste of spectacular:

Now, unlike my lovely Artemis, I actually paid attention during middle school social studies class, so I knew all about the Great Central Valley of California. The ghost of Ma Joad haunts the endless rows of grape vines and orange trees.

We made our way into the "hardscrabble" town of Bakersfield by early morning, fired up the "Bakersfield Sound" on Pandora, and drive by two more familiar names:

 

A classic

And if you were raised on HeeHaw like I was, then you know this guy:

 

We made a quick stop in that most American of all places, Wal-Mart, a place we just can't seem to avoid on our strange trips.

It was time to stock up on survival gear: beer, bagels, twizzlers, a cheap cooler, and some peanut butter.

Oh yeah, there was also the trivial matter of tire chains, supposedly required by law for those intrepid fools who bungle into the high country. We gave a half-assed shot at finding some: Wal-Mart had already rotated them out of stock for the season, so we called ahead to the next ubiquitous Wal-ly World Fart Mart, and they, too, had bagged them for the season.  So we checked with the gas station dude - the first of many refreshing encounters with people who didn't speak English - and he said there was some place somewhere.....etc. etc.

Note to reader:
I can read my lovely wife's mind.

I knew that she was as serious about finding a set of tires chains (at $120 a set) as I was, which was about equal to the chance of finding a damn grey whale in Morro Bay (which actually turns out to be a rather good bet, we would learn!)

The tire chains thing: apparently, you need them to avoid sliding off the road into oblivion and slow death when you're driving in the mountains on twisty roads with no guard rails when it snows high up in the mountains....and it will snow. Oh yes. Guaranteed. As sure as there is a Wal-Mart in Bakersfield. Or an Arby's in Inglewood.

At this point, I shall dispose with the cheap alliteration, and opt instead for the creation of suspense regarding said tires chains and our lack thereof, as we sallied forth, like yokels in Yosemite, onward, upward into the great wide open, into the sky so blue, into the wild, among Muir's sky mountains..   

Postscript

It amuses me (and concerns me a little, honestly) to think that I watched hours and hours of this stuff as a young person:

I'm a Pickin and I'm a Grinnin'


I'll be back with more stuff, right after this: