Sad news on the S.S. Marge...my computer...the one that allows me to stay in contact with numerous friends and family, update this blog, check my facebook compulsively whenever I can find WiFi, has gotten a virus. It first became apparent at Lloyd's in Big Sur that something was amiss with my little red Acer netbook, probably having something to do with me trying to illegally download TV shows from a sketchy website. I knew it was wrong, but I was sick and couldn't read anymore and and and and....lesson learned. Once we got to L.A. and I booted the ol' girl up for the last time she just wouldn't go. As we speak my computer has flown its way home to MN to be handled...either it'll be fixed and sent back to me or my brother will likely take it into the backyard and stomp on it until it's completely dismantled "Office Space" style.
On the bright side though I happen to be staying with friends in San Diego that own computers and have access to WiFi...so here I am and I'm terribly sorry for the delay. Let's get you up to speed!!
When last we spoke I was busy falling in creeks and Tamara was doing a solo hike to more accessable hot springs in Big Sur. We reunited and it felt so good, spent a lovely time in SLO with Sark and his boys and then whisked off to head south again.
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| This is the "gum wall" in SLO, it an alley that is covered in chewed gum 3 inches think...kinda gross. |
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| Ish...but oddly fascinating |
We ended up just north of Santa Barbara at a campground called Refugio, which was RIGHT OFF THE BEACH!! It was quite the task hitching out of SLO since SoCal is less friendly with the hitching folk, but after a few hours of dancing on the street and waving to passers by we managed to string together enough rides to take us about 100 miles south. We spent a large majority of that time in a little town called Nipomo, I've seen JUST about all I need to of that town. We got out of our first rides truck and were greeted by some barbie in a sports car gawking at us and saying "WAAAAAAOOOOOOW!" loud enough for us to pick up her scent of toxic judgment mixed with her Dior perfume. Gross. We shook it off, trying to stay optimistic about our prospects, but after an hour with no ride our spirits were dwindling, as were the batteries on my iPod. Eventually a nice guy stopped and took us down the road a spell, where we were able to find another ride, almost immediately, the reminder of the way.
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| Tamara practicing at sunset |
We got dropped off right at the entrance of the campground and waltzed right in, pitched our tents with enough time to watch the sunset on this amazing spot. Tamara and I have made it standard practice to not pay for our camps site and instead wait for the ranger to approach us the following day. In Oregon, we almost never got out of paying, which is fine, since the charge to camp in a hiker/biker spot is only about $5, but I'm not going to go out of my way to do their job. More often than not, no one is even manning the ranger station and I feel like they aren't being paid to wander around NOT collecting money...so...that being said, we didn't have to pay. We woke up the next day to an amazing sunrise and spent the better part of the day laying on the beach, reading, writing, making sand mermaids...the usual.
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| Enjoying the beach, ya know...while MN get blasted with snow. |
We intended to stay another night, but at the last minute we decided that another night spent freezing (it gets SUPER cold at night) and listening to frat boys partying until 3am just wasn't in the cards. Luckily Tamara set up a couch surfing situation in Santa Barbara with a guy named Ricky.
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| Tamara made a wicked mermaid warrior lady |
Before we knew it we were back out on the highway, thumbs out, ready to move on. Remarkably, we were picked up almost instantly, being that it was well into the afternoon and there was no on ramp, I assumed we would be waiting for a while. LUCKILY, there were some Euro guys driving south and they offered to take us right to Ricky's place. Luca and Anestasio from Italy were swell chaps...very clean car with GPS and polite conversationalists, I think they might have been Italian mafia though. I can't be sure, but that was my inclination, after I asked them what they did for a living there was a pause, a look exchanged and then Anestasio simply said they worked for a multi-national corporation. Whatever...they didn't whack me so I'm down with the Don.
We were dropped off right at Ricky's front door in a little neighborhood just north of Santa Barbara called Isla Vista, this is where the UC-Santa Barbara Campus is...so right off the bat I could tell this was a young folk town. Ricky and his roommates don't actually go to school, but that doesn't stop them from living like sloven, hipster frat boys. We were greeted at the door by a curly haired, blond fella, whose name I never caught, but his generous giving of hugs to strangers endeared me to him and kind of made me want to run away all at the same time. We were then greeted by our host, Ricky...if Napolean Dynamite and Cesar Chavez ever had a baby, with an affinity for short shorts and bicycles, that baby would be Ricky.
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| This is Ricky in his beloved 1 man tent that he just HAD to show off. |
I loved him immediately. Ricky's house was a mish mash of chaos, punk rock, bike garage, co-op, surfer guy style...in a nutshell it was over stimulating and dirty and clashing and crazy and I loved it. I'm still not sure how many people he lived with and who they were and how the rent manages to get paid, but like most things on this trip I just sat back and watched it all unfold without interference. Ricky was quick to show us around town, the food co-op to get groceries, the fruit trees to steal fruit, the student co-op to steal internet and perhaps laundry services, and the free bin to steal clothes...I loved this place...I didn't really pay for anything. The Isla Vista free bin is the single most amazing part of this whole town, I was told by several people we met while there that they haven't had to buy clothes since they moved there because of this free bin. People are constantly rummaging through it to find the weather appropriate garments they need and will then come back later to drop off their old unused wardrobe. I found so many delightful things I wished I could take with me, but I limited my grabs to a hat that says "Skipper" on it, some rediculous comfy pants that say Argentina down the FRONT of the legs (not the sides, the FRONT) and a sports bra...I KNOW, I KNOW...I washed them all thoroughly.
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| Yo no soy marinero, soy CAPITAN! |
We stayed with Ricky for 2 nights, along with another couch surfer from San Diego named Devon who was making his way from Victoria, BC to San Diego and then eventually heading down to Argentina. He's traveling alone so he ran into a lot of the same people we did along the way, which was cool to hear about, but beyond our mutual cycling friends connection, Devon was a complete egotistical, narrow minded asshole...it's not really surprising that he's traveling solo after hearing some of his unfounded, bullheaded view points.
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| Doing laundry is quickly becoming my new favorite activity |
Day 2 with Ricky started with all of us heading to the farmers market in Goleta to watch Ricky play music in the hopes of getting some cash and scope out the produce the local farmers were slingin'. It was an all together funny experience, complete with me and Tamara trying to be back-up dancers for Ricky's Harrana (traditional Mexican folk instrument, think 7 stringed Ukulele) playing, until he told us to stop.
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| Busking with Ricky...moments before he told us to stop |
After the farmers market we bummed around town, went to the beach, attempted (and failed) wheelies and goofed off until the student co-op's annual circus started. The circus proved to be quite entertaining, complete with me almost being lit on fire thanks to the unchecked fire dancers. There was a severe lack of safety precautions during this show that had roughly 12-15 non-professional circus performers whirling chains, poles, ropes and hula hoops that were on fire, near crowds of people who were not briefed on the finer points of what to do if one should be set ablaze during the performance, but regardless I chose to sit on the ground at the very front of the stage, taking my chances with the pyro-centric performance.
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| A girl sitting next to me had a giant lady fro and her do was singed...I shit you not. |
Early the next day we set off from IV to find the 1 and head south to the dreaded L.A. Tamara and I weren't exactly thrilled to be going to L.A. After all the nature and amazing sights we've encountered of this trip, the idea of going to a city known for its ever expanding sprawl and crowds of plastic people made us feel a bit ill. We tried to stay positive though and marched on...all the way to the 1 where oddly enough we were picked up by Ricky's roommate who was headed south the Thousand Oaks, which is in the valley, just north of L.A. where we were able to catch a city bus all the way to downtown L.A. Our host for the next 2 days was an odd fellow by the name of Galen. Galen was a nice guy, but his years of being an L.A. resident had left him a bit callus with an air of smug superiority. He was really ashamed to be from a rural area of Oregon, making it clear that the first chance he got to leave he did and has stayed out ever since, swearing to himself he would never live in a city with less the 1 million people ever again...he literally said those very words. Luckily Galen was also a "hands off" sort of CS host and gave us a key to his place, showed us where we'd be sleeping and left us to figure the rest out. I should say here that we were only in L.A. for 1.5 days, having only 1 full day to actually explore L.A., our hosts loft was in downtown L.A., 2 blocks off of skid row and the only other area we were able to explore was Hollywood, so...armed with that knowledge...you can probably understand why I want to set L.A. on fire and watch it burn in the distance.
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| This was the only cool part of L.A. |
Gross...it was just dirty, smelly, concrete, awfulness that went for miles and miles and miles. Our first night I was screamed at by a passing cyclist who was biking down the street at 10pm with a huge cardboard box in tow and he was wondering why I was looking at him? Everyone we encountered seemed to have the same hardened, "lookin' out for number 1", mentality...something that I wasn't jiving with on any level. L.A. is also where my computer finally went kaput and I was unable to find an affordable place to fix it (surprising? I think not) so I just sent it home to mommy. One thing our host was good for was some insider info on the post office, he informed me about a little known way to ship things known as media mail. Granted it's for things like texts books or DVDs or things of that nature, but I boxed up that laptop, labeled it "textbook" and paid 3 dollars to ship it home! GO ME!
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| Hanging out on top of the Orpheum in DTLA |
We spent our final evening in L.A. at the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, for a reading by some art professor that mostly revolved around the color blue, a color for which she wrote an entire book about....IN-teresting. We were invited by another CS connection that we were almost going to stay with, a couple I fear we would have had a good time with and felt a pang of sadness that we were unable to get to know better. Scott and Andrew are a cute little artsy gay couple who work, go to school and live in L.A. and seem to be thriving...dammit...of course we had to stay with the aloof guy in a giant loft with bean bag beds instead of the intellectually stimulating gay couple who could have shown us COOL stuff in L.A. Scott is a photography student and the reading was by one of his art professors, that tied in with the current photography exhibit showcasing the work of William Eggleston. I had mixed feelings about the whole experience, but regardless it was nice to be surrounded by my art fellows and some gays to boot. We called it an early night because Tamara and I both had to wake up early the next day, Tamara to catch a flight to NYC to visit her love that she met while trekking in Nepal, while I had to catch the Greyhound to San Diego to stay with my friends, Shaina and Ali Mulvey.
Tamara was already off when I woke up at 5am and I hauled ass to catch the bus to the Greyhound station, with only minutes to spare when I got there. Nothing like calling it close to wake you up in the morning. I boarded the bus to San Diego and discovered that this was also the bus to Tijuana, so my busmates were a ragtag crew of frightened gringos and legit Mexicanos. I fell asleep almost immediately and woke up in a bit of a panic, making sure I had all my essentials, wallet, phone, camera, and kidneys...double check. Shortly there after I was dropped off in downtown San Diego awaiting the arrival of my ride, a Miss Shaina Mulvey, who in true Shaina fashion was late, but I love her all the same.
Keeping track of the days has never been a priority, but I think I've been here for about 5 days now and the weather has been a lot colder than I expected...mixed with a little rain. Shaina and Ali both work...Ali especially has been busy because on top of having 2 jobs, she's in a masters program for social work at SDSU. It's been really nice to be in a place that I know people and feel comfortable in...even if those people are the sisters of my ex-girlfriend...but whatever. I'll spend the thanksgiving holiday with the Mulvey's, wait for Tamara to catch up and then we'll make our next move...more than likely out to the desert to find the Sultan Sea and Slab City. The plan, as far as I can tell, is still Mexico, but the budget won't allow for any extravagant travel accommodations so we're hoping to score a ride from someone heading south once we get to Slab City. I'm not going to push it, if the universe wants me to go to Mexico I'll go, but if not, no big deal.
Being in San Diego has made me realize that this trip will eventually have to end...at least for period of time. I would love nothing more than to continue this journey, it's been life changing, mostly because I've had to rely on myself to get me this far. Prior to this I wasn't confident in my own ability to take care of myself, but this trip...this experience...has completely blown my mind. For 2 months I've been almost entirely self sufficient, it's quite amazing. I now feel confident that I would be able to go anywhere and do anything and not only survive, but flourish and for that I am truly grateful. Alas, the time is now coming for me to settle somewhere, find a job and start to repay my student loans that are coming out of deferment. As much as I want to run away from that commitment, I can't escape it...it's inevitable. I hope to squeeze out a few more weeks of fun before deciding where I'll post up. If I had to decide right now I would more than likely head back up to San Francisco. Despite all the crazy shit that went down there, I really loved that city...the sites, the people, the culture, the location...pretty much everything. Plus Lani is still there and I get weekly updates from her about just how much she loves it, which is really pulling me back. If I don't end up in San Fran, I'll likely head to Santa Cruz, although I haven't check the job situation. I guess what it comes down to, is I'll go anywhere and do anything for a least a period of time, just so I can make some headway on my loans. Alaska? Colorado? California? Neptune? SURE!
That's about it for now. Sorry there aren't pictures of San Diego...like I said...the computer thing, I don't have a cord to upload my photos on this computer, but as soon as I can I'll post them. Thanks for reading and if you have any feedback or advice, I'm SUPER open to suggestions. This sounds like it's the end, but I promise it's not.
Best,
Maggie
