Frisco

I’ve been to San Francisco before, but never on my own, always with company to wander the tourist sites with…so this time things were a bit different. This time I feel like I can now say I’ve been to SF – went to a great show, wandered the streets, saw great views and gardens, and said a prayer of thanks at every stop sign that I learned to drive in a stick shift in Seattle. And all things have to be right with my karma as I had no problems finding street parking wherever I went. I would just pull up and there would be a spot right in front, across the street, or just down the block. So now that I have written that, it’s probably a good thing I’m leaving as my karma is now broken.


So as highlights go, my stop at City Lights bookstore filled some space in me that needed to be inspired. As the hangout and haunt of the beat generation, it is everything that an independent bookstore should be. It’s a place where guttural thoughts waft off the shelves and the history in the floorboards creak, where the books stand upright among each other in equality not laid out in glorified glossy pyramids. There was just something about walking through the door that stripped the air of chaos, yet left me totally blank and entirely humbled. So, are there words? Not really, but as someone who loves to stand in front of a bookshelf just to pet the covers, it is a stop that will carry me.

In the land of giants

I can cross another national park off the list. I am down in California, well central and northern parts because at this time the southern parts are going up in smoke. My October jaunt started in San Louis Obispo with my sister where I saw dolphins for the first time in my life. We were walking around Avila beach and out in the bay there were five or six dolphins feeding and playing. Somehow I thought all the animated and watercolor paintings of dolphins breaching and leaping seemed a little too idyllic and therefore must be romanticized or fantasized, but certainly not in truth. And it was a pleasant sort of image adjustment to know that really and truly that is what dolphins look like playing.

From SLO, I drove out to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. It was a pretty drive with fall colors and vineyards, but in all my 14,000 miles of driving, I can now say I made myself car sick. I drove the windiest road I have been on yet – 180 turn after 180 through forest and rock and farm. Those kind of roads always look so picturesque in the car commercials, but I can say they are not so much fun in real life.

Another new thing for me was visiting a national park in non-tourist season. The “winter” is when they do their road maintenance and close the lodges. Thus all the well traveled scenic roads with overviews you usually can hop out of your car, walk down a short path, and view the spectacular scenes were not accessible by car. To get to Moro Rock in Sequoia NP was a five mile hike round trip. But the view was amazing and I was the only one around.



The walk up the rock was another story though. I’ve never been very big with heights so this narrow staircase up the rock was not really my cup of tea. I made it up about halfway, which was fine with me. I figured that I could see the view on both sides and I was already above everything else around, how much more was a few feet going to improve my view.

Sequoia NP is home to the largest tree on Earth. It is called General Sherman. It’s scared and burned and missing most of it’s top it seemed. But, it is not the largest for its height but by its sheer girth – as you can see. The amazing thing about the tree was not the scars from forest fire or lightening, but that the old sepia photos of loggers and mountain men standing around the tree from 1900s had the same burn marks.

There were many amazing trees with fire scars and trees that reached amazing heights, but this one was my favorite. Burned completely on one side and full of life on the other. Just shows how resilient the tree is and unpredictable fire is.

Distracted in America

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted and really there should be no excuse for that, but if you are going to have one it better be amusing. I haven’t posted because I’ve been a little distract by…oh…I don’t know…what am I going to do with my life now. But when I get distracted I tend to collect stories, ponder oddities, and do some pretty stupid things.

I’ve spent some time, too much time, in local public libraries watching in fear of the immense self-righteous and indignant attitudes of pre-teens. My particular favorite story was listening to one girl tell her friends about this boy/kid who got in her way and showed her no respect. With an incensed head bob, she told all her friends about it to make herself feel vindicated. And my favorite part, her friend looked at her and said, “He’s a four year old. He’s supposed to be stupid.”

Among the oddities to ponder, I drove behind this Budget rental truck on my drive down south again. I drove behind it for much too long as it was going incredibly slow, but the back of the truck was spray painted on the roll up door. It said, “Runaway wifes. Laugh but u might be next.” Now first I thought, they spelled wives wrong. Then I laughed. Next I started to wonder…if your wife really did runaway and you were moving your stuff in the budget rental truck would you really paint that on the back of the truck? Would you? And then I thought, what if the person driving the truck didn’t write that. They rented the truck and pulled the door down to find it painted with that and had to drive down the road. The only thing that would make this better would be to know who was driving the truck. But I pulled around the truck still deep in thought and forgot to look. I told you I was distracted.

And the grand daddy of all distracted moments just happened and inspired this entire rant. I just sat down in a café on the beach in CA, pulled out my work and such, (I have been freelancing) when I grabbed my drink to shake it up forgetting that I had already removed the cap. I flung green machine super food smoothie all over myself, green guck– in my hair, down my back, in my lap, in both my bags, all over my books, in my ear, and the kicker of all is that I went to the bathroom to wash off my shirt (which was made much easier by just stripping it off and putting it in the sink) I had smoothie in my bra. How does that happen? I stuck my shirt in the sink to rinse it off and then… no hand driers to blow it dry. What’s happened to environmentally friendly – I mean really.