Driving the California Coast with Laura: Day 2

Point Montara-Santa Cruz-Big Sur-San Luis Obispo - Santa Barbara - LA - San Diego



The Jeep was surprisingly warm last night. We drifted in and out of sleep from about 6:30 AM until a San Mateo County Sheriff abruptly and without invitation opened the passenger side door around 9:30. The Sheriff ran our IDs and then took off; we put our shoes and jackets on to head down to the shore.



We spent the night on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and scrambled down the ledge at dawn the next day to where the waves were breaking violently on the shore. We frolicked like Nevada kids are prone to do upon arriving at the Pacific, eventually tiring ourselves out and making our way to Santa Cruz for breakfast.

After eating donuts at Ferrel’s Donuts and remarking our own feral visages, we headed into town for Christmas shopping. This was largely successful, but the day's crowning event was the decision to purchase the hats that will no doubt come to mark the trip for me. Mine is a fedora, Laura's is a flapper hat. From there we made our way through Monterrey, Carmel, and down through the first portion of my favorite place: Big Sur.

Camping in Big Sur was peaceful. We placed perishable items outside of the car to keep cool during the night, and in the morning when we opened the door of "Club Jeep" the bag holding those items was torn to shreds. Strangely, none of the food had been so much as touched. We looked halfheartedly for tracks before getting confused and continuing down the road for coffee.


Throughout the day, as we continued along the Pacific Coast Highway, we walked around and Laura took pictures. I am anxious to see how they all come out, and I have a feeling I will be pleasantly surprised. I’ll be sure to load some of them onto my Chronicle as soon as possible. Our new hats added greatly to the quality of the photographs.

We spent a good deal of time in San Luis Obispo, watching people walk by our coffee shop and doing some window shopping ourselves. I managed to finish my Dad's Christmas present while sitting next to a loud insane woman talking to herself at the coffee shop; I think the quality of the gift may reflect this distraction.

The last stop for the night was just south of Santa Barbara, nothing noteworthy. A standard McDonald’s breakfast followed in the morning, and then we drove straight through to San Diego, taking the 101 through LA to avoid the misery of navigating that city.


We’re staying with my friend and fraternity brother in Del Mar for the evening. DJ has a beautiful house and has been more than gracious since we arrived. It is hard for me to believe that we got here around noon; the day and ensuing evening went so fast! I hope to see Grandma Ringler again tomorrow.

"Bear Meat" By Primo Levi

"I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head."



Read the Entire Article Here.

Whitman, America.

Levi's new ad campaign utilizes some really cool Whitman poems and original imagery.

Hat Day.

(More To Come)

The Lights and Buzz

Driving the California Coast with Laura: Day 1, Reno-San Francisco-Pacifica-ish

We have been talking about this trip for at least a semester, if not longer. Something to get away after school gets out, and our first extended trip together. Laura arrived at my house at 8:15 AM as I hurried to finish the packing that I hadn’t done for this trip. In fact, my preparations had really only begun about thirty minutes before her arrival. We loaded my two bags into the back seat and took off for San Francisco on I-80, a clear drive on a nearly cloudless day.

When we arrived in the city we decided to visit the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, also known as the SFMOMA. I particularly enjoyed the installations displayed outdoors on the roof, built to withstand the weather and to be changed by the elements. The pieces that evolved unabashedly with time, and no one would ever “touch them up” to avoid the natural effects that fell upon them. I like that.

We went to the grocery store to get a picnic dinner for the beach, and hit the sand just as the sun set. We enjoyed a simple sandwich-and-soup dinner, watching the waves break and talking until the sky was completely dark. It wasn't until midway through dinner that we realized that less than a quarter mile away was where we had finished the Bay to Breakers race in May, our first time spent together after I got back from my bicycle trip.

After dinner we continued down the coast for about twenty minutes before pulling off at an overlook where we set up our "fort" in the back of the Jeep. On top of a climbing pad and goose-down cover, warmly surrounded by sleeping bags, we slept.

Thank You Mr. Armstrong (or the advice I heeded, and that which I should have),

Breathe in. Breathe out. Read to the next page. Read to the end of the Chapter. Outline until 7:00, then to Chipotle for dinner. You can listen to one song if you finish this case. Be in bed by 3:00, wake up by 10:00.

Before I left for Boyd Law in early August, I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish by the end of the semester: run a half marathon, play a new sport, join a ping pong club, get a 3.8 GPA, etc.

Now that list is thumb-tacked on the wall above my desk like a demented joke. By the first week in December my goals had become more fundamental: Remember to eat dinner. Brief those cases you haven’t looked at for a while. Remember to sleep. Memorize the elements to those obscure causes of action. Don’t lose it. Try to run today. Maybe run tomorrow. Ok, definitely try to run by the end of the week.

As I packed the last of my things early this morning I glanced up at the list for the last time, and noticed that I had fulfilled only one of the 15+ goals:

10. Make one new good friend.

It wasn’t high on the list. It wasn’t the first thing on my mind when I sat down to write down what I wanted back in August. My GPA was a higher priority. I can’t remember now, but it may have been the highest. In retrospect, it should have been last on the list. The tenth should have been the first.

I received a much-appreciated letter from Ross Armstrong in August, right as I arrived in Las Vegas. Ross is a third year law student at Willamette. When I was a freshman undergraduate, Ross agreed to be my campaign manager when I ran for Student Senate. Ross’ knowledge, guidance, and credibility pushed me into a position I could never have achieved alone; needless to say, I take his advice very seriously.

I re-read his letter this morning, and realized that I had only followed half of it. There are two sections: “Class Success” and “Self Success.” I followed the class advice, but neglected the “self.” Looking at it now, he was entirely correct about how to stay happy and to enjoy life while taking in a large amount of new information. The key is people. Friends will pick you up when you fall behind, and if they can’t help then friends will at least suffer with you.

When the time comes for me to write someone a letter I’ll repeat a lot of the advice that Ross gave me, but I will put “Self Success” first on the list. Then I’ll put “Class Success.” Then I’ll put “Self Success” again, just so that it is the first and last thing the reader remembers. (I learned that in my Lawyering Process course.)

Legal systems are human creations, constructed to maintain order within human social structures. There is nothing natural about a legal system, and therefore studying law without human contact is without merit as well as exceedingly boring. Law is a discipline that is best realized when it is debated, reformulated, and settled, over coffee or in a group study room. The more voices, the merrier.

There are numerous rules and laws, but all are subservient to the Golden Rule. This rule, the basis of Law second only to the human beings themselves, is simple and ancient. It is found in nearly every religion and culture. The Book of the Dead used it as the test of worthiness in crossing over to the afterlife; "He sought for others the good he desired for himself. Let him pass.”

My first semester was as much about learning what to do as much as it was about learning what not to do. It was about trying to see where a behavior or repercussion was treated in the past, is currently being treated, and will be treated in the future, and deciding why it is beneficial for society or else destructive to society. In essence, it’s about trying to do the right thing even under tremendous pressure, and using mental tools other than animalistic emotion to reconcile the “big picture” with the “little picture” and realizing that you will almost always be coming up short in one way or another. At least that’s how it seems to me.

I am so grateful for my fellow students, my professors, Laura, family, Ross, friends, Chipotle, and the workers at the Balance Café.

(Before)




(After)

Snapshot Entry

I stumbled upon, while looking at my files from this past semester, this entry dated Novemer 19, 2009. I concluded it today (December 14, 2009) in the way I would have back then:


My little chronicle, so long it has been since I've visited you! Not surprisingly you are just the way I left you, though I have changed a great deal since our Spring love affair.

I don't have time right now to write an entry. I don't have time for much of anything at all it seems, but I am going to write this all the same in case I ever reminisce and wonder how my first semester at Boyd Law really felt. I want to have something to go off of if some bright-eyed young 1L-to-be asks me what he or she can expect.


In truth, my first semester is most like a marathon dance competition. I showed up with my shoes shined and my clothes ironed. Just like my classmates, I felt suave and smart because I had been accepted, I was on my way!

The first dance is a slow waltz through late August and early September. Compared to the break-dance competition I had fretted over and feared, there was nothing to it. There was a string quartet playing; my classmates and I laughed and joked as we made our way slowly around the dance floor, sipping cocktails and feeling ultra-cool because now we were doing something (even if it was learning which hunter should keep a dead fox back in 1888).

Somewhere in October, the string quartet drifted and out was replaced by a disc jockey. I didn’t really notice at the time. I was getting a little tired, maybe missing a step here and there, but nothing to worry about. The class danced on.

The DJ slowly picked up the volume. One song moved seamlessly into the next; the tempo picks up slowly throughout the song, and increases from one song to the next.

Now you're dancing to a heavy house beat in mid-November, trying to keep up with the beat, but when you look around everyone else is double-stepping to the beat! This makes you think that you should be four-stepping to get ahead and keep your scholarship, and this in turn makes someone else eight-step to a beat that, under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t even want to dance to! And everyone is doing it. And everyone is tired.

This was before Finals Preparation had even begun.

The Lonesome Polecats Skip Warped Tour

Roughly June 23-28, 2009:

I fitted Eli to ride on the Giant on a Monday evening. The next day we arranged supplies, mostly foraging through Flipside leftovers. By Wednesday we were ready to ride south on Highway 395, hugging the Eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range all the way to Yosemite.

It was Eli’s first significant bicycle trip. It was also, I assume, the first time Eli rode a bike more than 15 miles. He was fearless; partially because he didn’t know any better and partially because, well, he’s Eli.

Departing from my Dad’s house in Northwest Reno we made our way across the Truckee Meadows Valley and into Washoe Valley. The scenic detour around Bower’s Mansion was calm and void of traffic. We traveled light because we only had one trailer, and made incredible time all things considered. As we stopped to have a quick drink on the southern end of Washoe Valley, I snapped a quick photo of a forlorn street sign that would come to represent the trip in its entirety: “Lonesome Polecat Road.”



I have done the Carson Loop and the Washoe Valley loop more often than I can count, both with Brandyn and alone, but the route we took to bypass the craziness of Carson City was one I had never taken before. A small two-lane bikeway skirted along the foothills of the Sierras, overlooking Carson City and the Nevada legislature.

We stopped for dinner in Gardnerville or Minden; I don’t remember which it was. I honestly can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. After dinner, things started to unravel a bit. I took off too quickly through town and lost sight of Eli. When I ran into a gas station to use the bathroom for no more than a minute flat, he managed to ride past me and out of view. I came out, looked in front and in back of me, and couldn’t see him.

Figuring he was lost, I rode back through town looking for him. Mindenerville is little more than a bulge in the otherwise slim Highway 395, bringing it out on either side for the town limits but not really leading anywhere, so I figured he couldn’t have gone too far. He was nowhere to be found.

I asked people walking, and the restaurant employees, and anyone I could if they had seen a neon shirt ride by. No one had seen him since we took off together. My blood pressure began to creep up, until I finally had to text Sam; “I lost Eli.”

With a gravitas I had only seen previously in The Shawshank Redemption, a torrential rain suddenly poured down from the Heavens. Eli had absolutely no gear with him, and had just put his cell phone into my bag for safe keeping. He had his clothes, his Ipod, his bicycle, and a piecemeal knowledge of survival techniques gathered primarily from The Lord of the Rings. I grew more anxious with each passing moment.

I finally managed to wave down a construction worker who loaded my bicycle into the back and drove me up the hill that led South out of town. Finally, to my relief, I saw Eli on the side of the road walking his bike. Tired from the long day's haul, we pulled off and made camp just off the road.

The next morning we rode into Topaz and ate a hearty breakfast at the Topaz Lodge after being sternly warned not to scratch the tile floor with our shoes. After the regular 12 cups of coffee and huge portions, we were ready to ride on. Riding with a full stomach, a full water bottle, and a happy heart is the only way to bicycle tour.





The weather throughout the day varied as the topography of the Sierras to our right varied. When they reached high into the heavens, they allowed for clouds to build up and sprinkle rain onto us. When the range would again fall back towards the valley, the sky would lighten and warm our backs. All you really needed was a light waterproof jacket to zip or unzip.

About 30 miles north of Bridgeport, it began to rain harder. I stopped with Eli and told him it would be best to get his rainproof coat out of his bag, an article of clothing I had specifically listed on my packing list. He agreed and fished a long sleeved T-shirt out of his bag. I waited for a moment to grab his jacket, but he indicated that he was ready to continue riding. I waited for a moment to see if he would get out his jacket. It was then that I realized that the long sleeved shirt was his jacket, or at least what he had packed in case of bad weather.

I hoped for the best from the weather, knowing that the long sleeved shirt wouldn't do much if the rain picked up. The rain did pick up, and began pouring buckets as lightning splintered the sky all around us, followed almost immediately by deafening thunder. I was getting cold, and Eli looked frozen. He yelled at me through the hurricane that we would have to stop and make camp where we were, because he "WAS GOING TO CATCH PNEUMONIA!!"

The valley was steep on both sides of the road, and without supplies the camping would be miserable. I told him we'd have to keep moving to find a better place. With a look on his face like he wanted to rip me off my bike and pummel me for suggesting this trip, Eli turned up his IPod and trudged onward.


We arrived in Bridgeport frozen stiff. The first store we saw had a "Free Coffee" sign in the window, and we immediately took advantage of this. While in the store we asked about camping in the area, and a kind gentleman on a fishing trip gave us a ride up to his campground just north of town. The campground had warm showers and a community cabin where we played chess, ate our dinner, and were generally thankful to be out of the cold for a moment. That night we had a fire near our tent before sleeping soundly in a grassy field.


The next morning we stopped back in Bridgeport for coffee at the "Pony Espresso" and then continued on to Lee Vining, a small town on the eastern edge of Yosemite. We spent most of the afternoon people watching and resting at a gas station before ascending the first few miles of Tioga Pass to camp.


The next day, our last day of riding for the trip, was the soul-wrenching climb up Tioga Pass. Cars whizzed by on the skinny two-lane road that had been precariously dynamited into the side of the steep valley wall. Every few miles a huge boulder lay in the middle of the road as an ominous reminder that timing was everything on this climb, and that your helmet wouldn't do much good if one of these monoliths decided to pry itself loose as you rode by below at the wrong moment.


We reached Ellery Lake and spent the day at the Tioga Pass Resort, watching unhappy children who had been dragged on a sightseeing voyage by their parents and wealthy motorcycle tourists come and go. We narrated their stories to pass the time, talking amongst ourselves about what the downtrodden offspring must be thinking.


We desperately needed to bathe and make some effort to wash our acrid cycling jerseys that clung to us with residual sweat. As we tried to wash off in an icy creek that resulted from snow run off, I slipped and nearly lost every item of clothing I had brought with me. Luckily, Eli was able to collect the items as I howled and half rolled, half ran down the creek bed after my belongings.

The following day Laura arrived and the three of us drove into the Yosemite Valley to hike Half Dome. This is usually a day-long trek for people starting at 6 AM, and we were starting at around 11:30. I lead the Death March to the summit, and we arrived back at the car shortly after nightfall. Eli had his IPod in for the final three hours, and I was hesitant to shake him from his comatose state. Both Laura and Eli fell asleep almost immediately when we got back to the car, and I listened to a Neil Young Album alone as I watched the sun set for the second time that day: our drive out of the Valley allowed it to barely re-emerge before we got back to camp.

I was a little embarrassed to have Laura sleep in our tent, which three days earlier Eli had claimed “smelled like dog.” To say the tent smelled like dog is an insult to dogs, even very smelly ones. But we were all ready to sleep and promptly passed out after the long day. The next day I climbed with Laura for a while and Eli explored more of Tioga Pass.

The Los Angeles Show

We're in LA, trying to get to the venue!

I stowed away with Emma's band June Set Fire on their first out of state trip to LA. Lucas had an energy drink and is growing louder by the minute!