North on the 101

We leave behind our clippers and our shovels, and our shivering sojourns across the moonlit grass, and drive north on the 101. Open rolling hills with vineyards give way to towering trees, and trucks filled with loads of giant logs. We pass through tiny towns, and trailer encampments tucked among the redwoods, everything dripping and mossy and green. Small sodden shacks are hidden everywhere, smoke trailing out of chimneys, trash melting in yards. I picture shotguns leaning in corners, rabbit pelts dangling from rafters, and butchered deer stockpiled in freezers. I imagine outlaws and survivalists and fugitives from civilization of every make and model. I hear banjos in my head.

We stop in Arcata for the night, home to Humboldt University. A sweetly pungent herbal odor permeates the air. The Howard Johnson's feels like a five star luxury retreat. I take a long hot shower and let the water just run. When I get up in the middle of the night I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the proximity of the modern and miraculous motel plumbing. No outerwear required.

The next day the road climbs up high over rivers and streams. Sunlight filters through dense forests. The highway hugs the coast as we cross into Oregon. Every bend in the road is more beautiful than the last. It's windy and rocky and wild. Campgrounds and parks are everywhere. Chainsaw wood carvings are for sale in the stores.

We arrive at The Itty Bitty Inn in North Bend, and Rik the innkeeper greets us with open arms. He bustles us into our room and makes sure everything is just so. He whisks away the vase with the Oregon flowers and fills it with fresh water. He notices our Oregon chocolate sample is missing and scurries away for a new one. He explains how the coffee in the little glass jar was freshly ground that morning, and that if we prefer a French press to the drip coffee maker that he has one we can use. He calls us by our first names, and talks with his hands. He is passionately exuberantly and genuinely glad that we have come to spend the night at his inn. Gary tells him stories about our work exchange and Rik wraps him in a bear hug and says, "Duuude! Welcome home."

And the next day, as we're checking out, Rik tells Gary, "Duude, you should move here, the real estate's cheap, you could open some kind of eco-tourist place." And his hug is so long and so strong and so real that we tell him we'll be back to visit one day. He says, "Duude, I'm so glad you came." And our waitress at breakfast is so attentive and kind that we write her a note to say thank you. And the light is just right as we drive that day through the ravishing valley of the river named Umpqua.

Rik and Gary

The Pacific Coast Highway

The truth is that I got a little carsick on the Pacific Coast Highway.  Not puking on the side of the road carsick.  Just sitting as still as you can trying not to move your head or look around too much hoping it will go away carsick.  I think I have some inner ear issues.  I used to get seasick bobbing in the water at the edge of the ocean.  And I really can't do boats.  But it was totally worth it.  The Pacific Coast Highway that is.  It is as beautiful as everyone says it is.

We have been up and down this road four times in the last three years.  The first time was after Jason graduated from SciArc in 2012.  Gary, Jason and I took a road trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco.  Then we did the crazy fly to Los Angeles and buy a Jetta and drive it to San Bruno trip in the fall of 2014.  The third time was San Bruno to L.A. in February of this year.  And then this last time, going the opposite way, from L.A. to Napa.  It is starting to feel almost familiar, this winding road on the edge of the ocean.  And it is always stunning, even in the fog.

We seem to have always driven Highway 1 in the off season.  Which is probably good.  I imagine long lines of cars in the summer on the narrow twisty road.  I imagine tailgaters wanting to go fast, when you might want to go slow.  This last trip up the coast we did one night in Pismo Beach, where we practically had the whole town to ourselves.  We did some sleeping and some eating and some walking.  Nothing major to report.  The biggest news of the day was stopping in Cayucos to buy some brown butter cookies.  Brown butter cookies are cookies worth stopping for.

The second night on the road we stayed in a place we have wondered about every time we have driven by.  A place called Lucia Lodge.  The lodge is tiny and sits out on a cliff in Big Sur.  There are only 10 rooms.  Four of them are little cabins perched out there on the edge overlooking the ocean.

We reserved cabin #7 - the fourth one in from the end.  This was going to be our big splurge.  It was 'mid-season' according to their website, and they were charging $255 for one night.  We were hoping the experience would match the price.

Check-in was 3:00 and we wanted to take advantage of all the time we could on the edge of the cliff.  To enjoy the view.  And the peace and quiet.  The lodge has pictures online of people sitting in Adirondack chairs looking serenely out at the ocean.  We wanted to be those people.  We planned our arrival for right around 3 and went to get our key.  Sweet Avalon checked us in, and as we were heading out the door to find our cabin casually remarked, 'Oh, by the way, there is a little construction going on down there.  If you have any problems, please let me know.  I'll be here until 7.'

Now we are nice people, and don't like to make a fuss, but cabins nine and ten were being completely gutted.  There were power saws and hammers and construction guys walking past our door to the parking lot next to our cabin.  It soon became obvious that there would be no serene sitting.  We hiked back up the road and talked to sweet Avalon.  We were polite.  Just disappointed.  We almost packed up and drove on down the road.  But Avalon talked to her boss on the walkie talkie and they decided we could have dinner on the house and that they would comp half the price of the room.  We decided to stay.  We went back to our cabin and listened to the tile-cutting saw they had stationed outside.  We listened to the workmen spitting as they walked by on the way to their trucks.  We listened to all the sounds of a construction site for 3 hours.  And then we walked around the property and up the hill in the back to watch the sunset.  I tried to focus on all the good things around me.  I tried to let the rest go.

The noise stopped a little after 6.  And then we had a lovely dinner in the restaurant overlooking the ocean.  There were 2 other couples eating when we arrived, but after a few minutes they left, and we had the whole dining room to ourselves.  There was a fireplace and a friendly waitress.  After dinner we walked back to the cabin and had a little more wine.  It was quiet and dark and peaceful.  There was a coyote howling in the hills.  There was a flame in the gas fireplace.  We were glad we had stayed.

Next morning sweet Avalon's boss was at the checkout desk.  She was the one with all the power.  We shared our experience with her.  In a nice way of course.  And sweet Avalon's boss decided to comp our entire bill.  Except for the wine we had at dinner.  So the entire cost of our night on the cliff in Big Sur was equal to the cost of a few glasses of wine.  And a few days later, when Gary finally listened to his backlog of phone messages, we realized that the lodge had actually called to tell us about the construction, and ask if we wanted to reschedule our stay.  I felt bad.  But not that bad.

So, if you haven't driven the Pacific Coast Highway, it is definitely worth putting on the list.  Even if you get carsick.  And if you ever need to get hold of Gary, do not call and leave a message.  Text him.  And, most of all, remember to look for the good things in the middle of all the noise.

Big Sur selfie

In Los Angeles

There are a lot of cars in Los Angeles.  And a lot of people.  And there are a lot of people driving cars in Los Angeles.  There are a lot of things to do and see in Los Angeles.  And a lot of people doing and seeing them.  We were in Los Angeles driving our car and doing things and seeing things for nineteen days.  But that is not why we went there.  We didn't go to L.A. to drive around and do things.  We went there to hang out with Jason and Ana and experience what their life was like for a little while.  And we did that.  We felt a little bit of what it is like to live where they live and do what they do.  But we drove around and did stuff too.

We went to the Huntington Botanical Gardens and Art Collection in Pasadena

and saw beautiful famous paintings

and incredible assortments and arrangements of plants. 

There were photo opportunities at every step and so much to see that when closing time came we had to run to find the Blue Boy before we were kicked out.

Afterwards we ate at a build your own pizza place the kids really like called Blaze.

We went to Chinatown and saw things we did not understand.

We went to Olvera Street in the historic El Pueblo district and saw stalls packed with colorful things to buy.  We went to Avila Adobe, the oldest house in L.A., and read about the history of the city.  We drank Mexican juice and sat on the square and listened to the flutes in the band play Simon and Garfunkel.

We walked downtown and ate at the Nickel Diner.

We went into The Last Bookstore and spent a sleepy afternoon reading in the L.A. library.

We went to Los Feliz and ate at Fred 62 and saw Whiplash at Jason and Ana's favorite old teeny tiny movie theater and went into a bookstore with a tree growing in the middle of it.

We went to the recently gentrified Grand Central Market and ate at Eggslut and then went across the street and climbed the stairs next to the Angels Flight up to the little park where they filmed 500 Days of Summer, but you couldn't go sit on the famous bench because there was a fence to keep people out.

We drove to Malibu and went to beautiful Point Dume State Beach.  Ana and I sat on the beach talking while Jason and Gary went in the freezing cold water and surfed.  Jason on a board, Gary not.  Neither one had a wet suit.  Both survived.

And there were a lot of cars.  And a lot of people.  And a lot of people driving cars.  And it seemed like everything took just a little bit longer and was just a little bit harder and just a little bit more tiring because of all the cars.  And all the people.  And because at the back of your mind you knew that when you got home you would have to find a parking spot.  We learned a lot about parking spots.

We learned about red curbs and green curbs and when it was okay to park by the meters and when you had to move your car so they could clean the street.  We learned that the two lane street next to Jason's building was called the 'river' and the four lane street a block away was called the 'ocean'.  We learned that it was okay to park across the river and less okay if you had to park way across the ocean.  We learned about 'forever' spots where you could leave your car for days and about 'sharks' circling the blocks looking for open spaces.  We learned about wives taking out their lawn chairs to sit on the street and save spots for their husbands when they were on their way home from work.  We watched Jason look out his windows checking for spots when his girlfriend was on her way home.  If he saw a good one we saw him go outside and stand in it until she got there.

And all of this was good.  And all of this was interesting and new and different.  And all of this gave us a little better feel for L.A. and what it is.  And there were even better things.

Like the look of pure joy on Jason's face when he got out of the ocean at Point Dume.  Like sitting on the ancient red leather couch in the lobby of Jason's building after too many days of doing too many things and Jason coming to sit by me and both of us sitting quietly next to each other working on our computers.  Like the kids cooking their famous 'taco Tuesday' tacos for us.  Like my new favorite candy that Ana bought for us to try.  A candy that reminded her of her childhood growing up half in Mexico and half in Texas, and reminded me of the caramel frosting on the birthday cakes my mom made for me every year when I was growing up.  A candy called jamoncillo.

Like the night Jason was sad and I started playing his piano and then he joined me and then everyone was singing Hawaiian hymns and he wasn't sad anymore.  Like sitting by the open windows of the apartment every night watching the life of the street three stories below.  Like how it rained in L.A. where it never rains and Jason grabbed his bucket and put on his raincoat and went out in the rain to wash his car parked there on the street.  Like celebrating Jason's birthday with him for the first time in a very long time.  Like standing in the street in front of the apartment building on our last day there saving a prime parking spot while Gary ran to get the car.  How I stood there in the street as if it was something I did all the time and how brave I felt when I saw a shark circling and I stood my ground and how suddenly I felt like I was part of it all.

We didn't come to Los Angeles to go sight-seeing.  We came to Los Angeles to experience it.  We didn't come on the adventure to go sight-seeing.  We came on the adventure to collect experiences.  On one of our first nights in L.A. we parked the car and then found a better spot and reparked the car and everyone got out and then Gary got back in and adjusted the car some more so that it wouldn't be in a red zone or a green zone and we wouldn't get a ticket and everyone was standing on the sidewalk shivering in the dark in Westlake and Jason looked at me and said 'mom, you gave up your house for this', and in my mind I was thinking, strange as it may seem, that this is exactly what we gave up our house for.

The reason we came to Los Angeles

There will probably be some sight-seeing too.

The Story of the Stool

This is the story of the stool. It is also a story about walking around in an unfamiliar place and trying to figure it out. It's a story that starts with a green plastic pot and ends with a famous song. It's a story about doing things you'll never find in the "best of L.A." guide book. It's a story that has flowers and ducks and pastrami on rye. It has a Korean barbershop and our child asking,"Why?"  There are helpers in a park and a violin guy, and at the end of the day there are beers in a bar. This is the story of the stool. And everything else too.

One day we took the green plastic pot that used to have the dead palm in it and we walked for a mile and gave it to the Goodwill. Jason our son wanted to get rid of the pot. He wanted to get rid of lots of other things too. His purging gene had been awakened somehow by his recent trip to South America. Or maybe it was the book written by the crazy Japanese woman called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing that had inspired him. Either way, he had recently decided that he wanted to get rid of everything. Everything turned into a lot of things. He made a big pile. The pile was taking up precious floor space in his 450 square foot apartment that was our temporary home. We wanted to help him get some of that stuff out the door. We are almost certain we were inspired solely by the desire to be of service.

So one day, while Jason was at work, we took the empty plastic pot, and a no longer loved photo collage, and a brown paper grocery bag filled with other unwanted items, and we set out walking. We found the Goodwill with only minimal help from the satellites in the sky and dropped everything off. And then Gary saw The Stool. The biggest thing in Jason's discard pile back in the apartment was his giant black swivelly computer chair. He said it was too big and took up too much space. He said that from now on he was just going to stand up to work. He said he didn't need a chair at all anymore. We secretly disagreed with him. We thought he needed a place to sit down. We thought he needed The Stool. It was $5.99. It was small enough to slide under his work table and disappear. It was padded and sturdy. It was clearly perfect. We had to have it. We bought The Stool.

So now we had the stool, but our day had just begun. The apartment was a mile away. There was no other choice really. The stool became our companion. We took it to the bank with us. I sat outside and waited.

We carried the stool through the streets of Westlake. And when I say we, I mean Gary. Gary carried the stool through the streets of Westlake. It was the day before Valentine's Day and the sidewalks were blooming with flowers. The middle-aged Latina women had all set up shop. We walked through hundreds of flowers. Thousands of flowers. Pink and red and white everywhere you looked. There were roses and carnations and baby's breath. There were flowers in bouquets and flowers in arrangements in ceramic vases. There were single roses wrapped in cellophane in five gallon buckets. None of this had been here the day before. And now there were blocks and blocks of blooms. It all seemed to have sprung from nowhere. There were so many flowers I kept thinking to myself - who is going to buy all these? It seemed impossible that they would all be sold by the end of the next day. I worried about the entrepreneurs. How had they paid for all this stuff? How much money were they going to lose if they didn't sell everything? I wanted to take pictures, but I didn't. I was trying to pretend that all of this was something I saw every day. I tried not to stare. The vendors barely seemed to notice us. Maybe they knew we were not buyers. Maybe they see white women with Asian men carrying stools through their neighborhood all the time. I was fascinated by all the flowers, and the people selling them, but we did not seem to interest them at all.

We kept walking. As we walked we passed more people selling things on the sidewalks. There were colorful glass bongs and tables filled with gold jewelry. There was a blanket on the ground with a clarinet and a violin on it. I saw the violin and went over. Jason's birthday was a few days away and we had recently learned of his wish for a violin. A quiet brown man in a worn wool blazer materialized beside me and picked up the violin. He started to play. His fingers made a small vibrato. He smiled at us. We smiled at him. He told us $60. We smiled some more and walked away. Jason is in the making a big pile to get rid of  mood, not the let's buy more stuff mood. Gentle violin man said he would be there until seven if we changed our minds.

What was really on our minds was pastrami. There is a really famous deli in Westlake called Langer's. There are those that say that Langer's has the best pastrami sandwich in the entire country. The entire country. But Langer's was not listed in the L.A. guideboooks that Jason had in his apartment. It is not listed in the 2009 issue of Lonely Planet's Los Angeles Encounter book. It also does not appear in the 2010 edition of the DK Eyewitness Travel Los Angeles book. I assume the publishers of these books decided the location was not one they wanted to send unsuspecting tourists to. On their website Langer's proudly proclaims that they "pioneered" curb service. In other words, if you are too uncomfortable to get out of your car in this neighborhood, they will bring your food to you as you sit at the curb. They will also deliver your food to you by air if you are far away and have a craving. We needed to try this pastrami. The stool sat next to us in the booth.

It was great pastrami.

I have no way of knowing if it is the best pastrami in the country. But it was really good. The sandwiches were $15 and the clientele was almost exclusively Caucasian. Businessmen in suits. A young white woman and her two young children at the booth next to us. It felt strange to suddenly be in a sea of white people in the middle of Westlake. Langer's closes at 4pm every day. I am pretty sure the sea is gone by then. And the middle-aged Caucasian couple we passed on the way there will be long gone too. The wife clutching her purse just a little too tightly. Both of them hurrying past us all grim-faced and gray.

And after our sandwich, we were gone, out the door and across the street. Across the street from Langer's is MacArthur Park.

The famous park where someone left the cake out in the rain. This park is also not listed in any guidebooks in Jason's apartment. Because here it sits in the middle of Westlake. There is a lake in the middle of MacArthur Park. It's called West Lake. There is a fountain in the middle of the lake, and lots and lots of ducks. Jason often goes jogging here in the morning. They installed cameras in the park a few years ago, and from what I have been reading it is safer today than it was five years ago. I don't think I would go here at night, but it seemed perfectly fine during the day. I did hear a rumor that every time they clean the lake they find a body or two.

There were lots of people in the park when we walked through. Some of them lived there. Some of them were just hanging out conducting business. But there were lots of families too, and couples lying in the grass. Across the park we saw a group congregating. We went to investigate and found helpers. People helping people in MacArthur Park. The helpers were from The Dream Center. There was a van distributing food. There were piles of produce in white plastic bags and a line of people waiting patiently. Gary talked to the helper in charge to find out what it was all about. Young helper man told us we could volunteer if we wanted. There was always something to do. Some way to help. We filed the information away and walked on. We found a spot under a palm tree and sat on our Goodwill stool in MacArthur Park and just watched for a little while.

From the park we dragged the stool a few more blocks to Koreatown, where Gary got an eight dollar haircut. Gary does not speak Korean. Korean haircutter girl spoke little English. After a few false starts they figured it out. I was sitting on the stool inside the shop watching. Then we dropped the stool off at the apartment, walked downtown to meet Jason, and on the way home stopped in at Monty's for a beer. We told our son about our day. He shook his head and said, "But why?"  We tried to answer. We walked home through the streets of Westlake. It was Friday night and there were people everywhere, families and babies and happy kids running. A young man walked by holding a Valentine's Day flower arrangement. And after dinner that night we sat in Jason's apartment and sang along with Richard Harris. We sang MacArthur Park. We sang loud and long. And Jason liked the stool. And sat on it that very night.

There are just some days that make you feel more alive than others. There are just some days that fill you up and change you in ways you don't understand. Days you will never read about in your in-flight magazine. Days that are filled with life and color and everything human. And that is the story of the stool. It's just the story of a stool. And everything else too.