7/30/99 -- I'm Going South, But the Ocean Is On My Right -- What's Up With That?

Image Gallery

Well, firstly, a massive shout out for Joanna and Brent, for putting Andy, Marc, and I up for a few nights (and myself for a few more) on like 4 hours of notice. They are righteous hosts and righteous people. Thanks, guys, you rule.

Ok, let's start where I last left off -- Felecia and Glen's place. They've got this little house in Eugene, OR, which they're not yet completely done moving into. The both of them telecommute -- what a racket, eh? We sat around their living room chatting for a while, and then Felecia and Glen left us to our own devices while they went out and shopped for dinner. That's when I uploaded my last update. We grilled up steak, chicken, peppers, and slices of this funky cornmeal-vegetable sausage-lookin' thing, too much to eat, and then went ahead and ate it all anyhow, and Glen busted out a selection of excellent beer -- some IPA I don't remember, a Scottish Heather Ale (amusingly inscribed on the bottle -- "Brewed in Scotland since 2000 BC"), and for dessert, a Peach Lambeck.

Dinner was great, and had we known then what we found out later that night, we'd have stuck around and spent the night, but alas, I could only sip the beer, since I had to drive the party to the Sand Dunes National Park, where were were to camp out that night. We stayed till about 8:30, I think, and took our leave. It was a beautiful night, following a beautiful day, without clouds in the sky, and we were all looking forward to spending the nights in the dunes, ya know, sand, surf, sky, stars, all that loveliness...

...DENIED!!! About 10-15 miles from the Coast we topped the coastal mountain range, and drove into a cloud. Fog, everywhere. Visibility, 100 -- 200 feet. We paid $6 to camp out on a beach in the Dunes National Park, and I had this smashing idea -- it was all dewy and misty out, but not raining, so my idea was to save the need for packing away a wet sandy tent, and instead just lay out a big tarp, put our pads and bags on the tarp, and cover our bags with our ponchos. Save time, effort, and possibly tent mildew and scrapage, wake up in the morning as the sun lifts off the fog, see the ocean, etc...

...DENIED!!! We woke up at 6:30 to a slightly more illuminated scene of a foggy beach. We were cold and damp, and just a wee bit sandy. Motivation was so low we had to actually get psyched to crawl out of wet sleeping bags. Man were we disappointed with the Dunes. We stopped for coffee, of course, and were told by a store attendant that the weather of the previous night and that morning was typical, and that it would be nice later on that day. We were unamused, and cursed the coastal Pacific Northwest, and took comfort in the notion that at least everyone else we were seeing on the road was going to their job, it being Tuesday, and we were headed to Crater Lake.

Crater Lake was, as expected, beautiful. To the right is a picture of it. It used to be Mount Mazama, a volcano half a million years old. About 7,700 years ago the secondary vents which had opened up over time and spewed out magma had weakened the cone so much it collapsed, creating the caldera which contains the lake. Volcanic activity continued after the massive collapse, creating an island in the center of the lake called Wizard Island, pictured below.

We gawked a little around the lake, and then hit the road. We spent the rest of the day making our way slowly over undivided highways towards Redwood National Park, which we arrived at pretty late. Now, the Redwoods are in clumps around that area, so there are a few distinct forests, some of which are National Forest, some of which are State Forest, some of which are NPS, and they are in a loose line down the coast of upper California, interspersed with towns. It was in one of those towns that we first discovered the least publicized aspect of California. I mean, I've heard about the babes, and the herb, and the weather, and the mellow, laid-back, "what's up, dude?" attitude... but I hadn't heard that they ream you on gasoline:
A buck ninety-five for frikkin gas?!?!? What the hell? (I've since found out it's all in the taxes -- clean air tax, for example.)

Well, we got a crappy camping spot in Redwoods, right next to the washroom, but we built a nice fire, and talked way into the night about some serious matters. For example, have you ever stopped to consider if you could pick out the best thing that's ever happened to you, or the worst thing? Pretty twisted, I know, but seriously, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you? Can you put your finger on one thing? How about the best thing, can you choose one? Now, presuming you can figure out what the worst thing that's ever happened to you (if you can't, for the purposes of this exercise, choose a random one from the top ten), think for a second how defining that terrible experience was, how much a part of you it is. How different your life would be if it hadn't happened. How much of what you are now would be lost if you could enact one of your "what if" scenarios.

In the morning we broke for San Francisco. We pretty much burned our way down there as fast as we could, since we were far away and wanted to be there by nightfall. But we did take a brief stop to take a short stop with the Redwood trees. We'd seen tons of them on the drive into the park, but hadn't really taken the time to see any attraction. We drove down the "Avenue of the Giants," a highway which parallels US 101 south for 30 miles through lots of Redwoods. There we stopped and checked out "The Immortal Tree" -- a Redwood which had sustained lighting, which blew 50 feet of the top, loggers, who gave up on it, a fire, which charred the base of the tree higher than my head reached on the trunk, and a flood, which also reached to above my head. To the right is a picture of it. In the full-sized version you can just about make out Marc standing to the right of the Winnebago at the base of the tree.

Around noontime we started sending out the "we are nigh" call via phone to those people who we wanted to see in San Francisco who's work numbers we had, figuring we had two nights in SF and didn't want to miss someone because they made plans for the evening during the day at the office. For those who's office phone numbers we didn't have, we hooked the laptop up to the Net with my cell phone and sent out email. Within a few hours we'd heard back from everyone -- score one for wireless communication. We had not worked out a place to crash in advance, figuring that we would either find a place with a friend, or if it was inconvenient, just head out to a campgrounds. After speaking with everyone, we decided to take a friend of Marc and Andy's, Cathy, up on her offer of crash space.

We did arrive in San Francisco that evening, thanks to my highly non-efficient (to the tune of 18 miles to the gallon) driving. Along the way we began to notice something. Californians are allergic to the three rightmost lanes in their ample, 5 lane highways. Man, is that annoying. I mean, what is the bloody point of having all 5 lanes if the drivers are treating it like a 3 lane? The whole way to San Francisco I was passing these heats of 50 cars or so, all doing the speed limit or below, in the leftmost three lanes, but without making the slightest effort to sort out who's going faster than whom using the "passing lane" concept. Seriously, I'd make my way (safely, of course!) past 50 cars, and then see that the highway is clear for another 4 miles. This of course, gets under my New York skin. Ok, I'm learning to mellow and deal. But there were a few times which I'll talk about later during which I was anything but mellow.

We picked up Ian Demskey from his summer apartment in Redwood City, a suburb of San Francisco, showered (ahhhh) and headed into SF to meet up with Cathy. I found San Francisco an easy city to get around, especially since we had an excellent AAA street map of just about all of SF proper. Everything they say about the intensity of the hilly streets, though, is 100% true -- it's really nuts, now you'll have 30 degree inclines and a stop sign right before the grade ends. Imagine what a pain in the ass it could be to head down to the store and change elevation by 60, maybe 80 feet? To the left is a moderate example. Very moderate compared to some places, but I didn't get a good pic of an extreme case, sorry. Also, there are streets which are four lanes, two in each direction, but the inner two lanes are both trolley tracks as well, and some streets have a little trolley station island in between the same-way lanes on both sides of the street, meaning that every few blocks the lanes are split by concrete for a block. Wacky, in my opinion. Also, is fosters this bad passing zone in the intersection right before the lanes separate.

So we met up with Cathy and went out to a local pub, and there we hung for a while, despite the fact that Marc and I had trouble finding two dollars worth of decent music on the jukebox. It was great to see Ian again, and he's pretty psyched essentially play testing games for Electronic Arts, getting free games now and again for testing them... he's riding a bike to work (borrowed from the.. what did he say, executive producer of Madden Football, a hot shit football game I've never played) and playing a lot of basketball and volleyball. Now, unfortunately, I was a dumbass and left my camera in my car often, so I'm low on pix here, but I have a few.

Here, to the right, is the Golden Gate Bridge, photographed by Andy, as we got into SF for the first time, on our way to pick up Ian. It was every bit as pretty as I'd imagined it. It was also very slow going over it when we passed through, as we were arriving on the very tail end of rush hour, and the GGB is always one of the last things to loosen up. After that day we learned to circumnavigate that whole area and downtown as well during our driving jaunts during the day.

The following day we got together with Brett Levine, another brother of Zete (oh, I can't remember if I've already mentioned that Marc and Andy are both members of Zeta Delta Xi, a co-ed frat at Brown U that I'm a member of? You can check out my home page for a brief description.). We hung with him and his friend Ben for lunch, then planned to meet again for dinner. He's still pretty into the rave scene, and has a sweet motorcycle, which I think is an especially excellent transport for SF, since he can park the bike on the street in front of his house (not in the gutter).

We went down to the Fisherman's Wharf, which was cool for its boats and the harbor, and the hundreds of overpriced outdoor seafood restaurants, but really irritating for the hoard of irritating tourists, stragglers, and, well, imagine if you will, a bunch of punk-dressed kids hanging around with a huge oak-tag sign which said "Pictures with Freaks for donations." Can you bloody believe that? No, I didn't take a picture of them just to spite them, more's the pity. But I did get a good pic of Andy at the local brew-pub we stopped in because it was $2 pint happy hour.

That night we got back together with Brett and Cathy and a few friends of Brett's, and had an excellent dinner of nothing but appetizer-sized plates which we all shared. There's a name for the style of food prep like that, but I forget what it is, but it's apparently popular on the west coast.

After dinner there we went to Cathy's favorite bar in SF, which had all night every night $2 pints of Guinness. So Marc and Andy and I'd had nothing but $2 pints all day, which we thought was cool. We finally hooked up with Nate Stahl there (another Zete), who brought Ian along with him. There was hearty Zete-style lovin' aplenty. Ian schooled me at the pool table. Nate's settling into his new job, having just left Network Appliances, and I just can't remember what he said his new job was. Hm, I'll have to ask him again later.

The following day was Friday, and we left the comforts of the city for Yosemite National Park. We we waaaay psyched -- the only chance we'd have for backcountry hiking on our vacation. To the left is pictured a typical scene of the mountains surrounding Yosemite Valley.

We got there early and picked out a campsite in an unimproved campgrounds, meaning that there was no washroom, and therefore, sweet bliss, no annoying 500-watt mercury-halide banish-the-night lights arrayed about it, ruining the night sky with light pollution.

After we chose our campsite out, we hurried up to drive a portion of the famous Yosemite Valley loop, past El Capitain, the "poster rock" of Yosemite National Park. The light was just not great for photographing it, but perfect for capturing the ridge opposite it:
Pretty, nae?

We also saw a great waterfall, Bridalvale Falls. After the loop, we went back to our campsite. We built a great big roaring fire, hot enough to melt a bottle, and when it died down we could see our campsite by the light of the nearly full moon (it was the 20th, full moon 7 days away).

Brief segue: when we arrived at Yosemite, Marc told me and Andy that he'd overheard an Associated Press reporter recording his wire over the phone, and that someone had been killed by a bear. He'd referred to it as a "Grizzly Murder." Ha! If you've been keeping up with the news, you know by now what our mistake was. Anyhow, although that phrasing puzzled me, none of us knew that there were only Black Bears in Yosemite, and had just heard the 5 second bear-safety spiel from the Ranger at the entrance gate, so were in the wrong frame of mind to understand that phrase for what it was.

We later learned that the grizzly murder was in fact just that, a woman who worked for the Yosemite Association of this or that was found beheaded a few days after going missing. As of this writing there is a suspect in custody, and they have an admission of guilt and a link to two or three other sadistic murders. Only this guy is himself a tragic story, the brother of a guy who was kidnapped and held for 7 years like an animal until he escaped, only to be killed by a car 5 years after escaping. I might have the numbers a little off there, but the general gist is there. What a terrible story all in all, eh? So if any of you readers have been keeping up with the news, you should know that Marc and Andy and I were in Yosemite when that all went down.

Anyhow, the following morning we all got up early and headed over to the part of Yosemite in which we were going backcountry hiking. Permits were free. We had chosen out a 14 - 16 mile loop on in the Eastern part of the Park, North of Yosemite Valley. Not rough at all for two days -- except we were starting at an elevation of 8800 feet, and were to change elevation by 1000 or more feet over a mile, a few times on the hike. We did the last of our provisioning at a typical "last-minute" store in Yosemite, and rented these funky "Bear Canisters" to put our food in. The ranger told us that a bear hanging -- putting all of your food in a bag and hanging it by a tree branch 25 feet off the ground, for those of you not in the know -- was not acceptable, and that if we used one, our food would get stolen by a bear for certain. Pictured left are me, wearing Andy's pack, and Marc, wearing mine.

We set off at 2pm, and wanted to reach a lake by 8pm. The first part of our hike was very easy going, quite flat. We had my big-ass external frame, and Andy's schweet REI internal frame, which was of much nicer construction, but smaller. So we took 20 minute or so shifts at wearing both packs or nothing.

The problem cropped up when we ran out of water. Over to the right you can see where the three of us were when we tried to replenish our water from the stream. See, you must purify of bacteria and protozoa (like gerardia) the water which runs through the streams in the backcountry, or boil it, least you wind up with some really bad gastric distress for a long time or worse. I'd brought my PUR Voyager filter pump, a gift from Adam, along, but when we broke it out, we found that it was slightly broken. Basically there's this sinking acorn-shaped prefilter which filters out large sediment (to protect the fine grain of the single-micron filter inside) which you attach by surgical tubing to the intake valve on the filter, and drop in the water. It's even got a foam ring which you can slide to various places along the tube, ensuring that the acorn will stay at a constant depth in the water. The problem was the intake valve was broken, and it would not prevent water from escaping from the intake hose. We spent a bunch of time figuring out that there was something wrong, a bunch of time figuring out what it was, a little time sussing out why it was busted, and then some time being bummed out that our hike was being curtailed. I mean, we could boil water each time we needed some pure water, but that's a big pain in the ass.

Then we found that without the acorn prefilter, the valve worked fine, meaning that the vacuum in the hose running from the acorn to the intake valve was enough to interfere with it's operation -- I need to send that thing to PUR for service. Anyhow, although continued use of the filter without the prefilter would eventually clog the filter before its proper time, it was fine to use for the purposes of getting the hell on with our hike.

We had lost at least an hour, but continued onwards, slowly realizing that we were not up to getting another 6 miles and a thousand feet up by sunset. S'all good though, we felt, and made camp an hour before sunset just at the base of the pass which we'd have taken up into the peaks. Plus, we all felt that the place we'd been when we were messing around with the filter was soooo nice that it had been a fine place to spend some time, and if that meant that our hike's plan had to change a little, well then the new plan was just as good.

A quick supper of mac and cheese later, we were all cozy around the biggest fire I've set in a long time, just Andy, Marc, Jack, and myself. Hah, ha, that was a lame little joke. That's Marc and Jack right there to the left, by the fire. I didn't quite capture the fire at its highest, at which point it was over 6 feet tall. There was enough light to see our tents by, which were 100 feet away.

Marc and Andy helped clarify my understanding of exactly what relation the actual position in space of the Sun Moon and Earth have to the phases and the rising and the setting and position in the sky of the Moon, which I've never gotten completely clear. Yeah, I definitely think I need to take an intro course on Astronomy in the Fall. Oh, and I was asking because the moon was at that point huge to the point that when we let the fire die down, we could again see our tents by its light. We we in a clearing on a small (4 acre?) level patch of level ground in the foothills of this ridge which we had been planning on getting up into, some of which was dirt and grass covered, some of which was uncovered rock. There were little rocks and boulders everywhere, and the whole scene was bathed in this silvery glow... sharp shadows and strong white faces on the rocks, and an even, hazy ground glow from the grass between the rocks. Just plain magic.

When we went to bed it was still before 1am, I think, and it was quite chilly away from the fire's heat. When we woke up the following morning (early, I first got up at 5:15! ...but then went back to sleep for an hour after seeing the sunrise), the inside of my rain fly was covered with condensed water.

We broke camp and made for the trailhead, hoping to get back early enough to get to SF by 8 or 9 that night. The hiking was much easier then, because we distributed the weight between the packs better, so that my pack wasn't soooo much heavier than Andy's, and we were a little sad that we didn't have at least 4 more days to hike, 'cause we were feeling like hardier hikers already, and by the end of those days we'd have gotten completely used to hiking at that altitude. We chewed up the return hike and were out well on schedule. Of course, then we had to endure the agonizingly traffic-laden road back to SF, seeing as how we were traveling back to SF from Yosemite on a Sunday afternoon, when everyone else is doing the same...

All in all, Yosemite had treated us very well indeed, and the weather had been perfect and cloudless.

8/2/99 -- Well, it's taken a few days just to write that last part. This is because I'm still chillin at Joanna and Brent's pad in Venice, and they're all encouraging me to hang out for a while. "Your presence doesn't interfere with our lifestyle at all," Joanna said, I think sensing that I'm a little uneasy about the possibility of overstaying my welcome. I've been here for a week now! Joanna's take on the matter is that I'm coming down off of a road mode, and I'm juicing up for my southern state journey back to the East coast. I feel that there must be some truth to her words, since I'm enjoying my stay here so much. Where better to rest a while than the farthest place I could be from home in the continental US?

So let's see... our faithful heroes were headed back to SF for a night to take advantage of Cathy's shower -- er, hospitality. That night there was some serious debate around Cathy's living room, with the lines being drawn around the role of raw technology in today's society. Cathy took the position that technology was responsible for the depersonalization of relationships in modern times, and that the convenience of communication leeched the dedication out of friendships, or something like that. She was therefore in John and Sylvia's camp, two characters in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, running from the "death force" that technology creates. I was arguing that the responsibility for maintaining adequately human relationships and harmony with the environs was the responsibility of the technology wielding humans, and that technology in and of itself is not to blame -- rather the relationship between humans and technology is what's at fault for what Cathy perceives. Any thoughts on the matter?

We talked about many other things, oh, let's see... oh yeah, does artistic integrity decrease with the profit the artist makes? I say no, there is no link, it's possible to be a sell-out and a serious artists at the same time. It just happens that they don't go hand in hand very often. Take the Bare Naked Ladies, for example, musicians that have been trying to sell out for 4 albums now, and they've finally succeeded with Stump. Or the South Park movie, which might me the crown jewel of the South Park years. Cashing in? For sure. Devoid of artistic merit, or integrity? Nope.

We finally retired, since the following day was Monday, and Cathy had to get to work, and we had to get on US1 and cruise the best road in the US, Big Sur from Monterey to San Louis Obispo, but early, since we wanted to be in LA that night. Marc and Andy both had flights out of LA on Wednesday.

So we did get up early with Cathy instead of sleeping in, and got the hell outta dodge, and as soon as we got the the coast it was frikkin foggy as hell the whole damned way down to San Louis Obispo. I was a little irritated that the Coastal Mountains of the Pacific had been so completely consistently negging the Traveling Trio on any kind of sunny weather whatsoever, and I'd heard particularly that Big Sur was an awesome drive, and I know that it's not always foggy on the coast, so what gives, and how come on the one day I'd get to drive on it for a few years, it winds up being all foggy?

We enjoyed the drive for what it was anyhow, and anyhow I'll have plenty of opportunities to drive Big Sur when I move out here after college, for a few years. Along the way we were witness to the most heinous gas pricing I've ever seen in my entire life. Contemplate the number in the photo to the left. I did a tipple take when I saw it. No, you're reading it correctly, that's two dollars and eighty-nine and nine tenths cents for each gallon of gas. What's sort of amusing was the expression on the face of the guy who hadn't checked the number on the pump when he told the attendant to fill up his tank, when I offhandedly mentioned the extraordinary price of the gas, small-talk like. "What do you mean," he asked, and when I told him, he was like, "What? You mean two dollars and eighty nine cents?" and I said yes, and he actually asked me the same question exactly word for word just 'cause he needed a little verification before he was ready to rock his world with the vastness and the depth of the evil afoot.

I'd just asked for $6 of gas.

Along the way to LA was Hearst Castle, this... well, it's not quite beyond description in the depth of it's extravagance, but it's close. Some early 20th uber-millionaire son of a millionaire had a dream about this lavish mansion, see, and so he spent millions and millions of dollars building the house (and rebuilding it), and furnishing it with priceless antiques from around the world, occasionally building actual antique European building parts into the rooms of the house. There were a few particularly notable things about the construction. Firstly, he employed as master architect a woman, quite possibly the first ever female architect (having see the house, I can vouch for the quality of her design...). [UPDATE: I hear from Jenyon that she wasnt' the first by any means. For example, a chateau in the Loire Valley was designed and built by a woman before the existance of the US.] Secondly, he decreed that none of the living Oak trees on the property to be cleared would be destroyed, so thousands of dollars were spent relocating them.

The guy who built the castle, I think his name was William Hearst, was a quite the mid-century rich guy. Remember The Fountainhead? Think Gail Waynand. Media mogul, film producer, philanthropist, community man, etc.

We didn't have a chance to see the castle up close, since you couldn't walk around on your own, you had to take an official tour, and there just wasn't time for that. We strolled through the museum of the castle at the visitor center, where I learned the stuff I was just saying. I saw a telegram from Hearst to his architect which read something like this: "Please advise on the usability of Venetian mosaic ceiling stop dimensions are 7 meters by 5 meters stop" There are apparently Grecian vases... I believe that's BC, and that means mega super-duper antique.

The Trio proceeded at speed down to LA, reaching out and touching two more Zetes on the way down -- Josh Barry and Joanna White. When we got in touch with Josh, he had no idea we were on the coast at all. Whoops, heh. But he started working out his schedule as best he could, and we met up with him at his place at 7:30 ish. Like an ass I didn't get any photos of him while I saw him. We caught up a wee and headed out to play some fooze, a pastime which all of us particularly enjoy. On our way, we heard from Joanna, who asked that we crash by her while we were in LA. After Josh and the Trio supped on the 3rd street promenade, we all headed down to Joanna and her boyfriend Brent's place, in lovely Venice, and there was much rejoicing. It was a Monday night. Sadly, Josh's boyfriend, who's been living with him for the past...month, did hey say? was headed home to NY that week, and they were slated for time together, so he had to take off. Jo and Brent have an excellent home. They said that they threw an Austin Powers party a few weeks ago and that they didn't need to decorate for it.

Ok, it's time to call an end to this update, I'm still only up to last Monday, and there's stuff to say about my stay in Venice and LA, but that will need to be in the next update. Stay tuned for tales of how I've been loafing away the days by the sea here in Joanna and Brent's place. Meanwhile, stay in trouble.

Image Gallery