So. Morning comes to Carmel and Monterey, and thanks to the directions of the ever-helpful individuals at the Best Western, I'm presented a very basic map of the Monterey Peninsula and informed of how to get around; that is, take what's called the "17-mile drive." Not much for the whimsical in this part of the world, it seems, although when you've got this kind of scenery around, who cares what you're calling things? I mean, Pebble Beach is a damned boring name – and then you get to it and who cares what it's called. Anyway, for anyone keeping track, I did make use of this particular BW's pool and hot tub, as well as the free Internet. Then, back on the road. I didn't have far to go today so I felt free with the luxury of tooling around the peninsula, which was the point. 

The 17-mile drive is excellent, highly recommended; however, it requires that non-residents fork over $8 to get on it, which seems like a real gouging. I guess the state parks own it, or something. As advertised, it's 17 miles long, but when you can only go about 30 mph and you're winding around curves that'd make a calculus teacher dizzy it takes considerably longer than 15 minutes to drive. Plus, the "vista points" are all marked off and most are very much worth visiting – and they're on the correct side of the road, most of 'em. I pulled off a few times to just enjoy the scenery without taking pictures, knowing they'd all turn out looking alike – steep cliffs of furry looking greenery, that is, trees as far as you can see. Without the sense of expanse or depth, the photos aren't worth much. I took one of the first stop off – Huckleberry Hill, which meant I couldn't get "Moon River" out of my head for much of the morning – and looking at it now, that's the problem. It's all flat trees and far-away coastline. So, no waste on film there. I didn't stay long at the Hill or a few of the other stops, since they were doing pruning and the high whine of gasoline powered motors took away somewhat from the serenity of the surroundings. So I moved on. After meandering through trees and up to the Hill, the road dipped down again and ran along the coastline once more. This time, I got coast with a beautiful brilliant blue day, and wished I had brought a picnic lunch. (There are zero bodegas along the 17-mile stretch.) So I just got out and walked around. I'd already done the thing where I take off my sandals and walk into the ocean, so I knew that shit was ice cold. (When I'd done that a day or so earlier my feet got so cold so fast I almost forgot how to walk.) 
 

Heading back to the car, I realized with a small thrill that there was an actual California Highway Patrolman there! He drove a car, not a motorcycle, and looked zero like Erik Estrada, but you know, I just had to do something about it. (I have a history of posing with, or getting friends to pose with, cops. Not sure what's behind that.) Anyway, with my history of CHiP obsession, I knew I just had to do something. I interrupted his conversation with a colleague in a truck, and asked if I could get my picture taken. "I grew up watching CHiPs," I said as an excuse, feeling like a big doofy yo-yo as I did it, but he was very, very nice. He'd been doing this for 23 years and my guess was I wasn't the first Gen Xer who'd asked. "You're not going to put this up on the Internet and make fun of me," he asked, and I promised I wouldn't. (So it's up on the Internet without making fun of him, which I think is okay.) Alas, the guy in the truck didn't include the logo of the Patrol, which was one of the points of doing it in the first place. Anyway, he gave me his card (David Peelo, a name you bet got him in a lot of schoolyard fights) and even went into the car to present me with a CHiP pin! I felt like I'd gotten a lolly from the dentist. How rockin' is that? I also figured if I got stopped by a Patrolman I could wave the business card as if I'd been given a favor. Not that I would; that stuff has a way of backfiring, but it was a consideration.

 

I continued on the rest of the drive, of which there were no highlights to equal Officer David  ended up at the end of the drive, and veered off not to Highway One, but into the town of Pacific Grove, which again is one of these adorable coastal towns, somewhere between Paradise and New England. I'd bought a fabulous chocolate chip peanut butter cookie somewhere back a few days earlier, and the sticker on the plastic had said it was made at a particular place in Monterey, then gave a street. Strangely enough (since I still thought I was in Monterey; I didn't realize until later it was a peninsula and not a town per se) I parked the car within blocks of the place that made the cookie and swooped in, buying all they had in stock. (Four.) Then I took a long walk around town, dipping in stores and checking out antiques and all sorts of cute interesting potential purchases. 

This one antique store was more like a warehouse it was so big, and there was a large fat cat who sat up front sunning himself. There had been an article written up in a pet magazine about how he had been a stray that was now the de facto "owner" of the store, and the piece was laminated and set under the glass case up front. There were a few nice pieces, nothing that grabbed at first but nothing too overpriced.
 

never leaf me

I came across this really wonderful plate-cup-creamer set that had hand-painted ivy leaves and boughs (the handles of the cups and creamer were "branches") and I fell in love. I wandered the whole store, considering, then came back. They wanted $8 for each cup and $22 (!) for each plate, which was dessert-sized. I decided to spend up to $150 and figured in my head how much I could get out of what was there, then went up to the woman in charge, asking if she'd sell the lot for a set price. She would. Make an offer. So I said $130. Sold American! So now I'm the proud owner of the odd set (something like 8 plates and 6 cups and, of course, the creamer) made by a company called Metlox in the 1940s, hand-painted, very California.

I've taken to collecting for my interior design things with leaves and vine patterns, so they fit in perfectly, although I'm not about to display them. The woman said she'd include the shipping and tax once we had a bit more of a conversation, and there I had made my first totally unique purchase. She wrapped it all in bubble wrap and I was thrilled to have the car so I could tote them all around for the rest of my vacation. 
 

It was getting to late afternoon, so after a reluctant farewell to Pacific Grove, in which I could have spent another three or four days, I made a call to friends I was staying with that evening and drove off. Next stop: Bonny Doon, a tiny area tucked high in a hill just north of Santa Cruz. You go up a steep incline – over 5 miles it takes you from 14 ft. elevation to 1800 ft. elevation, and there's pretty much nothing but forest, forest, forest on either side of the road until you see a few scattered houses between the trees. Cecelia and Tom live in their recently-restored home, empty-nesters with two large dogs (Cherokee and Tatonka, who has a bit of a memory problem and forgot me a few minutes after I arrive and snarled, which took a few years off my life, but we made up and became friends) and occasional cats (Fox and Scully, only one of which I saw). We're friends from being Law & Order fanatics, and I've only met her once or twice, but she's very generous and naturally said I could stay over should I ever find myself in the area. Again, wish I had more time to hang out there – what a nice place. I maneuvered my way into their driveway, feeling sheltered by the almost complete canopy of redwood trees, and they grilled up a lovely dinner of salmon stuffed with crab (want to win me over? That's it). I gave them a soap dish I'd been carting since New York – I have one myself; it's a hand-made white clay dish with a track of road going through the center, a little clay cab on one rim and a run-over businessman across the road in the well of the dish. Heh. How New York can you get? We had a lovely discussion of the lingering merits of Law & Order and the end of The X-Files; Cecelia gave me the tour, explaining how they'd knocked down walls and made the walk-in closet more accessible. Tom's had major knee and back surgery so some of the accommodations are for him. The bathroom is spectacular – the floor tiles heat up, and the shower has jets from all sides. I had a room of my own, done up in nautical themes. After dinner they made me watch That 70s Show and Smallville, since they're huge fans. I'd seen the former a few times and the latter never; it was far from painful but this is the state of television: BOTH shows featured proms which were interrupted by tornadoes. I shit you not. Afterwards, we climbed in their hot tub outside and stared up at the perfect clear sky peeping through the tree canopy. When we weren't talking all you could hear was the water bubbling; the complete silence was perfect, still and lovely. They told me about their neighbors, including the weird Wicca one they've made a friendly acquaintance with. Most people out there, they explained, were environmentalists and eschewed things like generators, yet also tended to have guns in case. You know, in case. They had a gun tucked away somewhere themselves, but after Tatonka's snarl, I think that'd be enough to keep me at bay. I slept like a log that night and headed out reluctantly the next day. Neat couple – they've traveled extensively and taken great photos, which Cecelia has blown up to poster size, framed and hung on the walls. For a while she was putting some on cards to send to friends, too. While Tom recuperates they've been working out of the house together and amazingly are not sick of one another, which I heartily respect.

sample coastline     the hunters and two family members

Whilst at Bonny Doon I became aware of two things: One, that I had developed a lovely dark shade of tan on the back of one hand and part of my wrist, accented by the white space where I'd been wearing bracelets. That's what comes of using the window to air out the car and driving North on the West Coast – I now had one tan hand and one mediocre pale one. Alas, the downside to that little badge of honor was that the tan hand was also covered with itchy little bumps, quickly diagnosed as poison oak by Cecelia. I swan, if there's poison ivy or oak in the neighborhood I always, always, always get it. And I had to have gotten this by just driving by it – it wasn't on any other spot of my body (and thanks to diligence didn't get on any other spot) but the back of my hand, so it had to have wafted in. I drowned it in Cecelia's Cortisone and felt paranoid for the rest of the trip any time I itched anywhere.

Next stop: a long, long way away – Elk, the town which even local Californians say "huh?" to when you say you're going there. Basically, Elk was picked as a way station between Bonny Doon and Shelter Cove, because I figured I'd never want to do the whole trip in one day. Theoretically I could, but why kill yourself? And this proves the point about the unexpected being some of the most wonderful part of the journey: I think I liked Elk better than Shelter Cove. Then again, Elk had no weight of expectation on it.

The jog between Bonny Doon and San Francisco was just a little over an hour; I'd been concerned about going through a city that size and getting tangled up, but it turns out to have been utterly logical. I was hitting SF on the way back, so no big deal about missing anything. By this point I'd slipped into a nice rhythm and routine of drive, check out views, check out stores near the road, stop and rest, buy a soda to keep alert, find a place to pee, get back on the road. It was relaxing except when you were either trapped behind someone going the exact speed limit – which I was for several miles; when a dotted yellow line popped up on a long empty stretch I did what I'd never done before: I passed the sucker. The adrenaline rush was pretty heady; now I know why there are assholes on the road – or if someone starts tailgating you. I ended up going a bit faster than I wanted a lot of the time to avoid pissing off the locals, which was educational in and of itself, but quite often I pulled into turnouts to let them by. At one point I remember going up a steep, winding incline, only to curve off to the right at such an angle it was like making a full right-hand turn. Serious Route One action, man. It was everything they'd said it would be. What they didn't say was that there would be construction that would close down one lane entirely and force you and about ten other cars to sit and do nothing for about ten minutes at a time while the cars on the other side of the road got moving. This happened around a town called Jenner, several miles before and after, but that's about all I recall. Other times, the road would be blissfully empty and serene, and you could take long looks off to one side without fear of running off the road. I said "Hi" to just about anyone I met; I was a lot friendlier than I am in New York, and that's probably because the feeling was reciprocated everywhere I ended up. 

I drove pretty straight through San Fran and reveled in driving across the Golden Gate all by myself, and had a sad few moments thinking about an old ex-friend, Lise Strom, who I'd met in kindergarten, and who I'd kept up with as a pen pal after her family moved first to Idaho, then to New Mexico and finally to California over the next 10 years or so. She got odd after puberty; there was some weirdness about having a crush on a teacher in New Mexico that I had a feeling might have been reciprocal; then she got religion and I remember sending her an Amy Grant Live tape for a birthday present one year. Then her family invited me to go with them to Greece for two weeks, a kind of out of the blue thing that had me thrilled and listening to Greek language tapes, until mom made it clear that it wasn't going to happen. So they invited me to visit them in – I believe – San Rafael, CA when I was 15. 

We drove into San Francisco every day and I saw all sorts of very cool things, including Alcatraz (that's an all time amazing wondrous thing) and Chinatown (where Mrs. Strom told us there was an underground network of tunnels and such run by the Chinese there, which sounded terribly romantic but I never believed it fully – it's like those people who tell stories of where the Jews keep all the money) and at one point we were on a speedboat across the bay and I remember discovering with amazement salt on my forearms where the water had splashed and evaporated. That was the same week or so that silly Simon Le Bon capsized in his yacht, the Drum, and I remember seeing it on the news there. Lise and I got along great, from what I could tell; we had a few deep conversations and I told her about my friends at home, and I remember her asking something along the lines of what I wanted to do with my life, and when I said TV anchor (well, that was the idea at the time) she went into great interrogatory depth asking why, and the underlying implication seemed to be that that sort of thing had no meaning. In any case, it was a pretty good visit based on what I got out of it, and when I got home after a week or ten days we exchanged photos and then I got the equivalent of a Dear John letter from Lise. 
 

I don't remember much, only that it was a) typed (she always hand-wrote) b) Bible-thumpin' heavy – lots of scripture quoting and c) said that we'd obviously grown apart too much to keep in touch and have a nice life and bye. Which upset me incredibly. I was crushed. Nobody'd ever told me – much less a person I'd was friends with and who I'd never had a fight with – they suddenly wanted to stop being friends. And then it pissed me off. So I wrote her a long letter, also typed (how impersonal can you get? Cheez) and quoted her my scripture – Howard Jones, Thompson Twins, Depeche Mode, etc. I don't remember what I said, but I was pissed, and eventually her mom wrote my mom a letter saying that I'd been "hurtful" and mom told me not to let it get to me, that it wasn't worth it, and that was pretty much the end of it. I think Lise was vaguely scandalized in a Christian capital C way that a good friend of mine and then-crush had possible gay leanings; I don't know how much I understood at that point about Jez so I'm sure I wasn't exactly being scandalous. I tend to think that's where a lot of it went sour, with her at least. So off she went with her judgmental self and I have no idea where she is to this day. I thought briefly of looking up her last name in the yellow pages, but ended up speeding over the bride and had lunch in Sausalito, at a cool little place on the pier called the Cat and the Fiddle. Great onion rings! Still, I have missed Lise. How can you not have some affection for someone who spells her name as screwed up as yourself?

ah, you know, say what you like about 80s fashion,  it did have a certain style. Nevertheless, let's explicate:  white capezio shows a la Duran Duran; rolled up  cuffs and exposed socks;  my dad's old white shirt and the annie hall tie.  and aviator glasses dangling.  but who the hell made  me carry a pink freakin' bag! (and I do like the 80s mullet.)

Well. Once past Sausalito it was a pretty straight shot up the coast to Elk. Passed through a bunch of one-road (that is, the Highway) towns – gas, convenience, general store, bed and breakfast, maybe an antique store. All the same, all worth my time, and I buzzed on by – again, didn't know how long it would all take. I noticed something unexpected: The further I got from San Fran, the less Spanish the lay of the land. In fact, it almost seemed to get more colonial – a lot more Anglo, English and Irish references. I wouldn't mind speaking to an historian about that. And then there was Elk, exactly like the others. I'd found a place called the Griffin House (see? Anglo) on the Internet and made reservations. They had small "cottages" and I was very excited at the prospect of my own "cottage." I had to pull in a small driveway, which was lined in a horseshoe shape with the cottages, all with their own names, and then walked into the larger home on the main drag, which was actually a pub with the office and a kitchen in the back. 
 

the "matson," my cottage!  note water out the back window. sweet!

The woman in charge said that since I was just staying a night it seemed a shame to leave the cottage with the view vacant, and since no one would be staying in it, she let me in for no extra charge. Rockin! This was truly adorable – another wood burning stove, my own little living room space, a big bed, a footy tub (you bet I took a bath) and a sliding glass door that led into my own personal deck, which overlooked a spectacular cove and tall, arched rock formations. I settled in for another lovely sunset, had dinner delivered, took a bath and had a beer in the pub. The lady who ran things said they closed the pub at 10, but I prevailed upon her and, yes, I'm a freak, but she said it was fine – she let me stay and watch Law & Order on their one TV. (I had none in my room, and as I was informed, most of the town didn't, either. The young girl who waitressed there – she said she was 14 but looked 17 – said they didn't have one at her house, and most people who wanted TV had satellite, but even then most people just didn't watch TV.) I liked this town more and more. I was also informed as to the purpose of the strange sign I'd seen leading into town – a clearly hand-painted, rickety thing on the edge of the road that just read "Cocktails," and a dirt road leading up a hill. Apparently that's a local's home, he has satellite, and that's where the locals go for actual hard alcohol and barbecues and such. I think Elk is a very cool little place, and I'm already fixing a way to go back and just hang out for a while.

So. As it turns out, the road to Shelter Cove goes back to being all about the trees. Naturally, since this is the true start of redwood country, although I didn't see some proper big 'uns until I got to the Avenue of the Giants. 
 

But along the way, things became abruptly more touristy, yet a touristy that seemed straight out of the Ripley's Believe It Or Not! incredulity of the 50s or 60s. Strange "must see" wonders like the One-Log House (it's a home fashioned from the inside of a cabin; you go into a general store and ask for the day's combination; a big wood bear statue asks for a donation just outside the front door, you tap in the passcode and you're inside perhaps the inspiration for the Winnebago) have a sense of excited cheese that somehow feels innocent and therefore touching. At one point I passed by some kind of unexplained "Mystery" place, signs touting it with enormous question marks. I wasn't drawn in to that locale, but that set the tone for that section of the drive.

narrow living

The first place I came to was in Leggett. I had to make a pit stop anyway, and after all, who can resist driving through a tree, so I pulled off and did my little posy thing by asking the couple ahead of me to take the picture, and there I am with my trusty silver steed. I'm shocked that the tree lives despite the insult of having a car-sized square cut from it, but these redwoods kick ass, so I guess I shouldn't get too worked up. One of the few other solo tourist travelers I ran into asked me to take a picture of him going through the tree; we had a little conversation afterwards. He had an odd lilt to his voice that led me to think he was Canadian – turns out he was from the Netherlands, had bought his used Jeep car in Arizona and was driving up the coast like me, only he wasn't stopping any time soon – his ultimately destination was Alaska. Now, that's ambitious. Nice guy, didn't get a name. I went into the general store after that while keeping an eye on the various families and kids playing on the redwood stumps and "caves" dug out of some logs that were lying down, as if they were big jungle gyms. Which I guess they were. 

from the postcard

Inside the store I was totally taken in by souvenirs – I ended up with a solid redwood wood pin that's an initial and got one for Gabby, my neighbor who's looking after my stuff; I got postcards, I got ... a burl. Which I'd never heard of before, but after a little reading I realized a burl is a growth from the side of a redwood, looks like the equivalent of a tree wart, and eventually it spouts green shoots, which dangle until they reach the ground, where they can become new redwoods. I grabbed one and a redwood dish and some moss and I was set. (Currently, Mr. Burl is generating shoots in my very own home, after a little hit or miss – in the store the burls weren't covered, yet were moist, so I assumed if you sat them in the dish with water they'd soak it up, but my burl was drying after less than 12 hours, a big no-no. So I set a tupperware cracker container over the burl as a pseudo-terrarium and now he's doing fine, but I need a real terrarium to keep this up.) I also got a plant your own seeds in this moist thing and keep it in the refrigerator to grow your own redwood kit for a buck and a half, and that's also sitting and being moist in the refrigerator as we speak. Tell me I can grow a tree and I get inordinately excited.

Out of Legget, beyond the "Chandelier Tree," there was the One-Log Cabin, as previously described, the mystery place, and then there was a slightly larger one-street town, Redway. I knew that was the entrance to Shelter Cove, but I was halfway to Miranda (where my mom's friend Linda lives) before I realized I needed to double back. 
 

To get to Shelter Cove you make another one of these lefts (like Monterey/Carmel) off of the One, and start down an even narrower road. I'd heard all sorts of things about driving in the low gear, how not to burn out your brakes, etc. so all of this was rather stressful, but it wasn't quite as steep as I thought it might be. I still rode on the low gear a little bit of the time, fearful for the brakes, but the only thing worse than constantly speeding up and slowing down is going 35 down an incline. Snore. But after about a half hour of various winding, going up and down, staring through trees and feeling like I was truly off the grid, there was this large sign indicating I was in Shelter Cove. (I never found a "sign nailed to a redwood, signifying arrival: Welcome To The Lost Coast" the way Grey Eye Glances had.)

Immediately I came to a big general store, and as promised keys were waiting for me in the mailbox. I waved at the realtor who'd rented me the room, and followed her map down Cove Drive, or what have you. I think I wasn't quite prepared for the whole thing – I nearly got lost once or twice (there's an irony) and when I found the place it was just a house subdivided into various rooms, absolutely no amenities other than a coffee pot. I began to long for Elk. Plus, the boiler had exploded (the realtor said) and was just replaced, but the lower half of the house was rather damp still. Smelled it, too. There was a queer buzzing like an enormous, pissed off bee at the staircase window, but I never saw anything move. My room was good for only one thing: sleeping, although there were a few books and I ended up reading Nora Ephron's Heartburn (I nicked it, actually). I was the only person in the whole house, but there was no common room or anything. I got a little unpacked, remained unimpressed and went down the road to make a call to Linda, who I was meeting the next day. We made a plan for brunch. I'd only met her once before – she and my mom went to college together – but I'd been suitably impressed by her eccentric lifestyle (to say the least) to want to meet her again. She lives in the hills above Miranda and does what a lot of off-the-map ex-hippies do up in them thar hills, and she makes a good deal of money doing it. Plus, she and her partner (they got married a few years ago, she told me later) own the land. So they split their time between Hawaii and Miranda and now I have a place to visit should I make it to the islands. 
 

I kept hearing Paul Young's "Come Back And Stay"  but that's an inside video joke.

Having plenty of extra sunlight and daytime left, I changed and headed down to the black sand beach I'd read about online. Apparently the volcanic rock in the area means the sand here isn't typical, well, sand color. And quite a bit of it, as I discovered, wasn't sand – it was the greatest collection of black skipping stones I'd ever come across. There were all sorts of warnings not to go in the water, how it was very raw and ragged and would probably kill you, but I had no plans for that. I got down to the beach to walk around, discovered it was quite difficult to walk on shifting rocks – which became pebbles which became granular and eventually resembled something like sand – so I picked an indentation in the low cliff wall some quarter of a mile away and started walking. According to some of the trail information, people come and hike this part of the world – something like Kings something or other – and that you can only cross certain sections of the beach at low tide, etc.

There was a lighthouse – Gorda, I believe, though I may be confused – some miles down that was worth seeing, but the only way to get to it was to hike half a day from another even more windy, difficult-to-find road. I was noticing that although the scenery was pretty spectacular – hey, look! Waves actually crashing on the rocks! Caves! – I had come to the near-end of my trip, and was literally driving no further than this, and the whole thing felt a letdown. I think Shelter Cove got the brunt end of my trip fatigue; it probably is a lot nicer than I gave it credit for, but after wandering the beach and marveling at the waves and so forth, I realized there wasn't all that much to do. I did a little driving on the streets and saw a grey fox  cross my path, and while down on the beach I headed inland a bit to where a trickling stream ran along to the ocean; I took off my shoes and felt rather Huckleberry Finn about dabbling my feet in the (still icy cold) water, then headed back to my sleeping quarters. I was lonely for Elk all of a sudden. And I was supposed to be staying here one more night. 

So it began to get dark, and inexplicably the restaurant (the one restaurant I'd seen around) near my place was closed, so I had no way to get food or dinner or anything unless I wanted to drive those dark, winding roads back up to Redway (which I pretty much dismissed outright). Not that I'd fade away if I had no dinner; I still had an Oxnard orange and a cookie or two from Monterey anyway, but it was the principle. I drove down to see some of the houses nearer to the coast, and they were quite nice. The street names had me giggling – they were all nautical but whimsical at the same time: Hard to imagine giving out your address as being on "Clam Place" or "Eel Drive." I made up that last one, but that's the general tone. And then I came across a (very nice, would have been far better to stay here) hotel with a restaurant that was open. I got a lot of funny looks (or felt that way) coming in solo, but it was a meal, and a guy sat up front and played tunes on his guitar and it was generally nice. I thought if it had been friendlier I might have actually hung out at the bar – I was having a really displaced, separated feeling being here – but the whole place felt very off-putting. I can't say how much was me and how much was the place, but after eating I went back and read Nora and went to bed. By morning I knew I wasn't spending another night there. I had to drive all the way back to near Miranda to meet Linda, and coming back down the hill to this place was not terribly appealing. So I packed up, dropped the keys off at the general store mailbox with a note, and once I hit Redway made sure there was a Best Western for me in Ukiah. Or anywhere I damned well pleased. I felt immediately better. After placing the phone call, I sat in the car outside a grocery store and sipped a soda, preparing to go meet Linda. (We'd arranged to meet at the Chimney Inn, a cute little restaurant I'd stopped at the day previous when I made my wrong turnoff – it was situated next to the Chimney Redwood, another attraction a la One Log House – which was a Redwood, still living, which in the early 1900s had been gutted by a fire. Hence, Chimney. I stood inside – inside! – and looked up and around. In New York that much space would've been $1300 a month, easy.) Finally it was time to go so I put the car in gear and looked to reverse out of the spot – and there was a silver SUV, just like Linda said she drove. And a woman with frizzed-out blonde hair walked by – it was Linda! So I rolled down the window and we were astonished and she said she'd just finished her water aerobics class in nearby Bryce and now was picking up some groceries. 

So we caught up while she shopped and I met some of the locals, including one guy wearing a local volunteer fire department shirt, who proclaimed he hadn't paid taxes in about 18 years. He got a call from the IRS a few years ago saying he owed nearly $200K in back taxes; he told the lady on the phone, "You can put me in jail, but if you do my kids are going on welfare, so the government's going to have to pay for them anyway." He said he never heard from them again. It's redneck living, hippie style. Amusing. Linda was a bit terse, but interesting and seemed interested in me. She'd seemed to have given herself a lot of outs in case she thought I was a drip – I wasn't going to her place; the significant other got nervous about strangers being around; we were meeting just for lunch and she let me know a friend from the class was joining us – but it didn't really matter. 
 

After shopping we drove to the Chimney and had a nice conversation. She wants to write her memoirs but can't seem to find the time or the concentration (shock there), she's building a new place in Shelter Cove so now they'll have three places, and she explained how they pack the boxes they ship of the, achem, product, with books because one of the things the authorities look for are big boxes that don't weigh anything. She told me how she'd ended up where she was after growing up on Long Island, how she lived in Greenwich Village in the 60s, how she spent a summer on a shrimp boat in Montauk. I think there's definitely a book in all of it. As I left, we asked some bikers hanging out in the parking lot to take our picture, but this one at the Chimney came out better.

Know how after you complete a task, reach the goal, finish the project there's invariably a letdown and a sudden rush to get to the next thing? Leaving off with Linda, I knew I'd spend part of the day driving around the Avenue of the Giants – where the best redwoods are – but I also felt this strong desire to just get the fuck out of Dodge (so to speak) and be in San Francisco. I was already giving up my paid-for lodging for the night by not going back to Shelter Cove, but I justified that expense because Joey had saved me a night in a hotel back in L.A. But I wasn't all that up for staying in Ukiah, or whatever it was called, a big nothing city, just to get back in the car and drive again the next day. I was done. Or rather, done but wanting to see San Francisco again. Plus, ready cash was running low. It was time. I had to cancel the Ukiah (that's not quite the right name for the town, but whatever) reservation by 4pm if I didn't want to get charged, so I decided to see where I was by 3:30 and either make a call or not. So I did the Avenue of the Giants, which also deserved more time than I gave it, although trees is trees in the end. The AOTG is another narrow two-lane road with turnoffs into various parks, where you can get out and walk amongst the Giants. Taking Linda's advice I made several stopoffs in strategic locations, and it is true – the trees are bigger than you can even imagine. In the picture on the left, those are the roots – the roots, man! – of a fallen tree. In-fucking-credible. So is the fact that these guys are only a little younger than Christianity. And I have a little one in my refrigerator. I felt like I was in prehistoric times, and there were very few tourists around so it was blessedly silent and beautiful. I had to touch a lot of trees, just get a handprint on them to somehow feel connected. Hey, I'd have hugged if I could, that's how they affect you.

So after a few hours of doing that, I got on the 101 and booked south. I made excellent time – 85, not much traffic (though I'd been warned that Santa Rosa could be a bitch) and at 3:45 I found this really nothing little side town and parked outside the otherwise-empty courthouse, stood in a dirt parking lot and phoned Best Western to cancel, and San Francisco to get an extra night (not in that order). Both worked, and as I stood in the hot California sun on the phone I felt very Thelma and Louise. Back in the car, and drive, drive, drive. As I arrived in San Francisco not much later on the fog literally was rolling in, just as it had over Hearst Castle, and I had another thrill driving over the Golden Gate as we were shrouded in gray. 

It had been a long day driving, but the 101 really puts everything into perspective – this trip, were it not for the PCH, could have been done in a matter of a day or two. I'm not sorry I went via PCH, but the distances are very different when you're doing an average of 40 than when you're averaging 85. (Them Cali driver are fast, man!) Anyway, I had found on the internet a bed and breakfast booking agency – which as I seem to understand it now consists of a few people who own several B&Bs in the area – and headed to the location they had given me, near the Mission area of town. The home itself was lovely, a baby-blue gingerbread-style house the kind S.F. is famous for, but it was all hidden behind tall white gates. Inside, though, felt like I was about to go on a tour of the restored home of a famous person – sweeping staircase, high ceilings, brightly-colored walls, bay windows and lovely detailing not only in the architecture but in the interior design. The only unnerving thing was the motion-sensor lights; when you came in the lights went on; most of the way up the steps new ones flashed and the old ones doused. It made me feel a bit followed. A woman running the house greeted me warmly and showed me to a beautiful blue room with my own bathroom and shower – and I began not to regret at all fleeing Shelter Cove. Unfortunately, I was in a similar situation as the night before: Cash low, I was requiring AmEx to eat dinner, which meant I needed a restaurant that took AmEx or an open store. Having parked in a church parking lot designated by the B&B, I was afraid to go out roaming the city for food, and after a long day driving that was the last thing I wanted; I ended up wandering several blocks, finding no AmEx friendly restaurants and in fact some rather scary looking neighborhoods, and picked up some junk from a bodega, ate that and crashed on some very soft comforter and sheets.

Unfortunately, that was just the one extra night I'd booked; for the following two days I was situated at another, less classy-looking but still sufficient B&B a few blocks away, and in a better neighborhood for restaurants and classes of people. Wandering the streets of SF, I was struck by what a happy city it seems to be. Oh, I'm sure they've got all the same problems every large city does, but from the flair of the gay population to the purple/green/blue/pink painted houses all done up like dolls live inside I just got a warm happy satisfied feeling all over. I walked by a house once where they'd hung an oversized windchime and balloons; no particular reason I could discern, just to make things even prettier. The weather, however, was not cooperating and that fog which had rolled in the night before stuck around. Everyone reminded me that the best way to dress for SF is in layers. So I got a free city map, checked out of the first B&B and decided to visit places before dropping my stuff off at the new place. I had to fight with myself to do that, though; I like to be situated, have everything in order and then go out. I also realized that I was pretty tired of getting out and seeing and doing and driving. The euphoria that I think peaked in Elk was on the way down – ten days away from home and I'm more than ready to get back. So I felt rather that I was trudging through my last days of vacation on the one hand, while on the other it was totally cool to be back in San Francisco. I tried to do things I hadn't done – or didn't remember doing – the last time I was there, so no Alcatraz. (Although I heard from someone in the second B&B that they were going to suspend visits on the island after this year, due to not enough people going, which shocks me and now I wish I'd gone.) Instead, I headed as close as I could to Haight Street and worried about parking. Then I remembered that I walked all the hell over New York without blinking, and to stop being a baby about being so close, and ended up on a residential side street near Buena Vista Drive (I can't help it, I thought of Disney) which had, I swear, a virtual vertical angle to it. I parked with the wheels turned the way the other cars had it, put on the emergency brake and fully expected to either be towed or to find my steed rolled down into the ocean by the time I got back. Hoping for the best, I walked up and down Haight Street, which is chock-full of every hippie remnant type of store you can possibly think of, everything from drug paraphernalia to used clothes; still, I liked a lot of it. The quirky parts weren't New York quirky, which is saying something. I first walked by two guys who were having a garage sale, and got an old Look magazine with Peter O'Toole on the cover (Lawrence of Arabia). A small side note: Peter O'Toole in LoA is perfect. He is a god. What a beautiful, beautiful man. He outdoes Cary Grant in that one film.

After snagging the magazine, I just wandered – into an anarchist bookshop (where I bought a Martin Amis book for $2, proceeds going to programs to get prisoners to read), into a kitschy lesbian store where I found some cool cat glasses, into a Thai restaurant for pad thai, a favorite of mine. After that, naptime! So I located my car – still in its original location! – and found the next B&B, which caused me some consternation at first – the street is a dead end, so no parking there, and I was damned if I was going to waste another $10 to park in another church parking lot, so I got the keys and tried opening the front gate ... but it didn't work and didn't work. Why do keys fit into locks they don't then turn? How obnoxious. Then I realized the note enclosed in the envelope the keys had come in (they were in the mailbox) clearly stated to open the gate at the side of the house, which I did with no problem. Dropped off the stuff and went to find parking. And hallelujah, only about a 10 minute walk away, I found a place with no hourly restrictions and no meter. And no angle! Steed stayed right there the rest of the weekend.

I flaked most of the rest of the afternoon;  the weariness of being a tourist and general vacation malaise came over me so I read my book, got some dinner and ate on the small outdoor patio provided. I could hear everything that was going on in a nearby courtyard – they were obviously having some kind of outside party – which didn't die down until midnight, but it didn't matter: The B&B (which was empty most of the day, blessedly empty) had its own book collection, so I left my Heartburn and picked up this so-called "New York Times Bestseller" from the early 70s called Harvest Home. The idea being that this nice New York family with their young teen girl move to a small Connecticut farming town that seems mostly trapped in Mennonite/18th Century times. Not literally, it's not Tuck Everlasting, but it's all about herbs and following traditions and so on. And naturally things turn ugly, because it's a horror novel. But by the time I got to the denouement (the whole place is run by the women who pick a Harvest King every year and who kill him afterwards as a "sacrifice" and despite one guy who clearly saw it and was blinded by the ladies who lunch – er, in charge – the narrator insists on going to watch, sees his wife is the Harvest Queen (and yanno what the King and Queen have to do together in front of all the other witchy ladies) gets caught and they cut out his tongue AND blind him) I was laughing, since it's such a thinly-veiled male fear fantasy of the big bad women and their equal rights, trying to blind and silence the helpless men. What a joke. Still, it kept me reading, so it wasn't all bad. Point is, I got sucked in and nothing budged me except for dinner until the next day. [And oh, hey, look! It became a 1978 TV mini-series with Bette Davis! Who knew?]
 
 

By which time I was ready to be ambitious: One goal I'd had was to walk across the San Francisco bridge, and no one seemed to give me a good idea how to do such a thing. I mean, there were roads to take you to the bridge, but I was afraid to get stuck going over it again in the car. It's free leaving – but costs $3 to get back in, and why waste the money? So I headed as close as I could on the map – an abandoned fort, which has a lot of joggers and tourists but is a bit of a hike from the bridge – and that's when I learned there was a closer spot. Found that and did my hike. It was still very gray and foggy (natch) so there wasn't much to take pictures of, but it was very cool being up there amongst all that "international orange" (so the literature called it) colored metalwork. The sides of the bridge were full of people walking, jogging, biking, but after about the 1/3 point – where the sign's posted and there's a good overlook extension – they thin out and it's just us hardy people. I wanted the perspective, so I kept going, but the wind was really whipping and it was chilly as well as damp, plus noisy thanks to the speeding cars. I got most of the way to Sausalito, then turned and came back. Exciting and invigorating, but not necessarily something that needs to be done more than once.

thanks, lady, for walking into the photo windblown and satisfied

The nearby gift shop – how could I have doubted there would be a gift shop? – was chock full of souvenirs of every stripe, so I warmed up there then got back in the car and checked out the Japanese Tea Garden, which was beautiful but not very Zen due to being overrun with children pointing at the koi in the ponds. But after you wander around you can sit down for some lovely tea and Japanese cookies and crackers, which I did while continuing to read. (I get a lot of reading done.) Next day I got out early and took the elevated street cars – which were pretty much exactly like the elevated "T" of Boston, down to the green color – though the interiors were different. I walked up and down Chinatown, trying to find the restaurant where Lise, her mom and I ate, because I recalled the food being very good. And if I found the right one or not it didn't matter because the one I did find was totally yummy. I considered getting shark fin soup, but it was $38 and even on a vacation budget, I couldn't justify it. While walking, I passed by this strange man who stood on a box waving at everyone and calling out, "Happy! Happy! Be Happy!" he was also waving a sign in (I assumed) Chinese characters that I couldn't read, but he'd situated himself in an unfortunate location – right by another sign which said in English, "The Dali Lama Kept Slaves!" So it felt weird to be happy happy in the light of that. But he was a character.

Oh, the irony: Chinatown's entrance is on Bush. Be happy!

After that, I walked the considerable distance through little Italy and past the crookedest street in the world to the waterfront, then up to Ghiradelli square. When you walk into their shop to buy chocolate, there's a minion there shelling candies like Veruca Salt's daddy's employees and handing out the squares. Yummy! I did a little shopping there, indulging in my relatively new interest in collecting fox items. I've always liked foxes, and bought a Stieff stuffed one in Germany, plus Disney's Robin Hood was always a favorite of mine, but I never collected anything of them. Now I'm starting to gather photos and figurines. God only knows why. But they're such handsome animals. So while in this store devoted to all things animal, I overspent myself a bit. I'm fearful of that AmEx bill.

Went back to the B&B by catching the streetcar again and freshened up to meet a friend, Mike, for dinner. We went to this wonderful seafood restaurant back at the waterfront again, then ended up at Ghiradelli square again! But this time we stood in line and got huge ice cream sundaes and switched up. I like people who can get into the ice cream with me. I feel like Homer Simpson when confronted with it – there's that one episode where he gets the 150-scoop (or whatever) monster and literally dives into it face first. Anyway, Mike and I had a superb time, but I had to call it quits by 11 because of the flight the next day, and now my anxieties were situated on the car (it was still there; I'd checked before Chinatown), getting it to the airport (which I was only sort of sure where it was) and making the flight on time. All of which went without a hitch, and with only a little prodding I even got $50 taken off of my car rental fee, because they were trying to charge me for the one-way, when my printed-out email clearly stated there was no charge. Being organized really is an art form, I must say. 

So. That was the visit up the Pacific Coast Highway. I have now infected myself with wanting to drive all over places for my vacation, because now I know I can do it safely and because I can drive huge distances over long periods of time without falling asleep. Great trip!