Days 46 through 56 - The Rushed Days, Part 1

I'll be straight forward with you: I've gotten so far behind on writing it's starting to not be fun, and no offense to you the reader, whom I always hope to entertain, but if it's no fun for me, it's not worth it. So for this 2 part catch up series, I'm going to change my writing style a little. There won't be nearly as much story telling, less vocabulary cleanup and probably quite a few non sequiturs, but who knows, maybe it'll be more entertaining. Either way, it's good to try new things.

* * * * *

Leaving the motel, I got off Highway 1 as soon as possible. I get it, it's beautiful, so is every other thing I've seen the past month and a half: get me to Los Angeles faster. Heading to the interstate, I see a field of oil pumpjacks, something I'd never seen before.

Interstate 5 is surprisingly bland and abandoned compared to the rest of California, so I decide it's okay to bump my speed up to 88 in a 70. The officer hiding behind an overpass disagrees. As soon as the lights come on I think, "God bless Texas lawmen who pull you over without probable cause!" My next thought is, "I don't remember the last time I saw a 'Speed Enforced By Radar' sign...I don't think I was properly warned for this stop, officer."

I have my information out and pointed at him before he gets to the car. Here we go...what ya doing sir, see you've been sleeping in your car, traveling you say, it's not sensible any human would want to do that, let me question you further. He's a nice cop though, and I respect how well he was hiding: he was on that overpass like white on rice on snow covered in bleach. He leaves my car to conduct some business. I see him on a phone, continually redialing. I figure he probably wants to get a warrant and doesn't have the signal to ask for it considering this is where we're at:

But I have no idea if police can get warrants over the phone, in which case I have no idea what he's doing. And yes, I took that picture while pulled over: he was on the phone a really long time. Coming back, he says, "You know, if you looked scruffy and dirty, it'd make sense, but you're clean cut, in nice clothes." Perhaps if I had a poorly grown hobo beard you would let me go? I explain to him I'm explicitly clean cut because most people don't trust a scruffy, dirty person, but he ask anyway, "Would you be willing to agree to a search of your vehicle?" "Yes, because I know you want to." He'd had the look on his face since 3 minutes into our meeting, and I was near the point of saying, "Dude, I know you wanna inspect my car, just do it."

He calls for another officer, "Just a safety thing. I don't think you're gonna do anything, but I have to have another officer here to watch while I give the inspection." That's understandable. We're pulled over by a fenced off field. While waiting for the officer, a guy on a four wheeler drives by, giving a look like he thinks something bad's about to happen, so I give him a big wave and smile: he's doesn't return the friendly greeting. The other officer comes, I talk to him a little, and he's an alright guy, too. They start the inspection, so I start looking in their car: seems fair. I was impressed; there was an AR-15 and a shotgun in the front seat. I didn't expect California officers to have that sort've fire power in their car. Their AR-15 only had a 10 round clip though: that made me laugh inside.

My inspection in Texas wasn't very thorough. The officer kept everything in my car, opened and closed bags real quick, but this guy makes a mess, pulling every bag out of my trunk and inspecting it thoroughly. He yells, "I promise I'll put this all back," while inspecting: I don't think he realized what he was in for when he chose to inspect me. Trying to put it back, he has no idea where to put things and neither do I: I packed it very thoughtfully many cities ago and don't remember how I did it, so I repack it later in the week.

After the car inspection, he ask me to empty my pockets and put my hands on the vehicle for a frisk. I signed a piece of paper agreeing to the car inspection but didn't realize it agreed to this and still question whether it did (I didn't get my own copy of the paper), but I've never been frisked by an officer before, so it's something new to experience. I'd been patted down, I think by TSA, but officers are much more thorough. He should've bought me dinner first, but I understand we'd wasted a lot of time already.

Done with the inspection and finding nothing, I wait in my car. It was a huge waste of my time, but I figure anything to help get out of a ticket. "Here's your citation, sir." You son of a bitch. Never mind, it was just a huge waste of my time. "Well, I guess getting pulled over in California is something you can add to the bucket list to tell everybody about." My instinctual response is, "Would you like to see my collection?" but grab the words and stuff them back in my mouth. "Haha, yep."

Reflecting, I finally think there are more good, fair cops then there are total dicks. My first time encountering the police involved climbing trees in a park, and anyone who knows that story knows it wasn't a good first impression with the law. I've got a friend who's an officer and he's a cool guy, but I've only dealt with him as a friend, so I could never use him as an excuse to like cops. But everybody who's pulled me over on this trip so far has been a nice, fair person to me for the most part.

Getting to LA, the first thing I do is see the Hollywood sign from Griffith Park Observatory:

You can also see LA smog from here. I'd heard LA had smog issues but had never seen it first hand. There are special gas pumps in California for preventing smog: they've got a plastic cone near the end of the nozzle to go over your car's gas cap lip so fumes don't leak out while you're pumping.

LA's interstate driving is more ridiculous than San Francisco's, but San Fran has LA on horrible city driving. It's nothing to shrug at though, so I fight my way to TCL Chinese Theatre.

I wanted to watch a movie there but they were having a premiere for Cesar Chavez. "How exciting," I thought. Then I read the names on the poster and didn't recognize any, so I left.

Walking Hollywood Boulevard, I realized I was on the Walk of Fame. There were lots of dedications so I didn't look at them all but decided to find one worth taking a picture of.

At night, I go to the Santa Monica Pier. The only reason I know or cared about the pier is because of the show Arrested Development.

The pier had some construction going on:

I eat dinner on the pier at a restaurant called Pier Burger. It's expensive for a burger place but very good.

I'm supposed to stay with my brother's friend Brian tonight. I text to ask where he's at and he says he's still at work but I could meet him there if I wanted to see the place. I have no idea what Brian does, but I've got nothing else to do. He calls me to give directions, and says, "Yeah, I'm still on duty, but I think I can get off early." On duty? I recognize that term...next he says to look for the jail: I know where this is going. Soon, I'm parking at the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department: Brian is a deputy sheriff. He goes to ask his boss if he can leave early and says I'm okay parked in a reserved space. I've gone from being pulled over, frisked, and inspected to being in a reserved spot at the nation's largest Sheriff's Department in less than 12 hours.

At Brian's place, he tells me his roommate is also a deputy sheriff. Days earlier he'd told me he, his roommate, and some others were going to Las Vegas for the weekend and asked if I wanted to come. I wasn't craving a trip to Vegas having just gone, but wasn't on a schedule either, so I agreed. The next day, we leave.

Here are the interesting things that happened in Las Vegas:

• I was given the nickname "Spider" because I'm a web developer. I'm now considering getting a tattoo of a spider on my back typing on a 4 keyboards.
• Being on the trip with 5 people of Hispanic descent, I amazed some of them by saying I'd never heard of ceviche.
• A guy who put one of the rooms on his credit card got charged 900$ in minifridge drinks because we were moving them around at one point. Apparently, there are sensors in the fridge that charge you when items are moved, but they don't uncharge when they're moved back. The hotel took off the charges after he told them.
• Roulette: I doubled my money on it...before losing it all. Luckily, only 20$ though.

I know that's a concise list to represent 3 days in Las Vegas, but nothing superbly interesting happened, though it was nice to go visit with people.

Coming back on a fourth day, I leave almost immediately for Ventura: I've gotta catch a ferry in the morning and LA interstates are too unpredictable to risk leaving tomorrow. On the way, my new car phone charger starts to fail me. The car charging situation is getting ridiculous and this trip will be really difficult without it. Testing different combinations, I finally find the one way I can charge my phone is to use the middle console plug, my old car charger, and plug my USB from my wall charger into the car charger's USB attachment: what is this I don't even.

I park near the back of a Ventura Walmart. Writing a little before sleeping, a Lexus like mine parks in the very back except it's black, has chrome rims, and is blasting rap music. "That's a drug dealer Lexus," I say to myself, surprised a Lexus sedan could be made to look like a drug dealer's car. Several minutes later, a truck with two women pulls up beside me. I look at them, they look at me, then they pass me, going over to the other Lexus instead. The passenger gets out, goes to the driver, gets back in the truck, and they leave. So I was right: it is a drug dealer Lexus. The girls must've just known to look for a Lexus and thought I was the one. I could tell what they were looking for by the way they pulled up and looked at me: it's not the first time it's happened. My friend Terrence and I were in Augusta, GA once and he said, "You know, people are gonna think we're selling drugs: that's the only reason a white guy and a black guy hang out in Augusta." "No way." "Yeah, seriously." Getting in Terrence's car, a van pulls up and an old woman with a breathing tube in the passenger's seat looked over, cracked her window, and stuck money out at us. We both stared at her in disbelief until she realized her mistake and told the driver to leave.

I'm not scared. I'm not nervous. I'm just annoyed and don't feel like having people trying to buy drugs from me all night...so I go to another motel.

The ferry I catch in the morning is headed for Santa Cruz, 1 of 5 islands that makes Channel Islands National Park. On the boat ride out with see some seals or sea lions and several dolphins.

After an hour ride, we're on the island, and I begin hiking Scorpion Canyon.

Wouldn't you know it...even though I can't find evidence it's a native species, the official animal of the National Park Service, the crow, managed to sneak out here.

My brother's friend Robbie lives in San Diego and says I'm good to come in tonight, so I hit the remaining Los Angeles spots on my way there, including the Queen Mary,...

...which I also only knew and cared about because of Arrested Development, and SpaceX:

For those who don't know, SpaceX is basically the new NASA. NASA contracts SpaceX to do things for them now, which is why I don't panic when I hear how NASA's budget has been cut: space travel has become a private industry, we don't need the government to run it all anymore. SpaceX was started by Elon Musk, who also started Tesla Motors and Paypal and was the inspiration for Tony Stark's persona in the Iron Man movies. SpaceX also plans to start a colony on Mars. To sum things up, SpaceX is to space geeks what sliced bread is to whoever decided that was the best thing.

SpaceX doesn't have tours, which I expected since they deal with very sensitive, life or death technology (unlike a certain search engine company). Around the entire building, which is pretty much an aircraft hangar, there's a tall fence with thick hedges grown against it: you can tell they don't want just anybody seeing in. Yet, while walking around the building, an employee exits through a side gate. After passing him, I look at the gate, still closing, just asking to be snuck into. Behind the hedges, even at night, you can hear welding tools in use: there are amazing things going on back there.

Finally, I'm headed for San Diego. The observant and/or stalking of you may have noticed I missed a few spots. I didn't go to the Price is Right or Conan O'Brien show because getting tickets for those involves more planning ahead than I was capable of doing. I also missed Orange County. I wanted to go to see why it was so popular...but mostly because it was where Arrested Development was set. So when I forgot to visit on my way out of LA, I didn't mind since I'd seen the Queen Mary and Santa Monica Pier.

I don't normally show pictures of my hosts because I like to keep people's lives private, but I'm hoping Robbie won't mind if I show you all a picture of him I found in the guest room...

...as Napoleon. I found it entertaining.

I'm in San Diego to visit the zoo: it's apparently one of, if not the, best zoos in the nation. Having never taken pictures at a zoo, I didn't realize how hard it is to get a good picture when there's almost always a window or bars between you and your target, so I saw a lot more than just these:

Ducks are the least interesting animals here, yet they're the only ones that remain free. Deep...

Lemme take a minute to talk about this guy:

This guy is the man. Well, technically he's a New World monkey, but he's a lot manlier than some male humans. Unlike the other primates that sit back and sleep all day, this Capuchin monkey is doing his damndest to get out of this zoo. Once he realizes the first knot won't come loose, he moves on to the next one...

...and that's something I can respect. Keep trying little freedom fighter!

I've heard things about guys with big feet, and I've heard things about guys with big hands. Is there anything about guys with big feet that look like big hands?

From this orangutans posture and facial expression, I can't tell if he's meditating or senile.

Almost every cat was up high. They don't seem to like staying low, I imagine to either avoid attention or keep a defensive position.

Those who follow the internet closely probably know the, "Honey badger don't give a s****," so I was excited to finally see one in real life. Imagine my surprise when I found he'd trapped himself in a burlap sack and spent the whole time writhing and making grunting noises. I've still yet to see a honey badger in real life.

These bears look drunk.

It's been a while since I was at a zoo, but I think this is the closest I've been to a rhinoceros and I had no idea how huge they were. Standing near this one reminded me of the triceratops scene in Jurassic Park. I have trouble believing the pen cables would hold if he tried to get out.

This camel grows a ganglier beard than me. I bet he wouldn't get inspected in California.

This is a California Condor. They're highly endangered. I'm not sure if I mentioned in my Grand Canyon post, but it's the only species that each one is named, because there are so few they're all tracked by humans. The San Diego Zoo is used to mate and train them. By "train," I don't mean teach them to do backflips: the zoo trains them for how to live in the modern world. For example, they set up fake power lines giving a small shock if the condors land on them so they know not to land on real power lines that could kill them when they're released into the wild.

...this is what my father trained me for.

San Diego Zoo is split into different areas. There's the Outback, Africa Rocks, the Lost Forest, etc. Then there's Panda Canyon. Pandas are very endangered, so there's a 15 minute wait to see them. I don't think it's that big a deal to see a creature that's endangered, so I save it for last, but it ends up being the best part of the zoo.

These are mama bear and papa bear respectively, the parents of one of the few surviving pandas to be born at a zoo. The baby wasn't around (I think they said it was in China), but the parents were there and lively. All these pandas do is sit in front of a constant crowd of people and eat bamboo. Most the zoo animals were either hiding or lazy: they'd just sit there with nothing to do but wait for their next feeding. The pandas were exciting though. They'd pick up the bamboo with their panda hands and tear it apart, eat it like a stick of beef jerky and then pick up another piece to do the same thing. It might not sound interesting, but I've got video I plan to post so you can see for yourself.

Is there irony in zoo security using a turtle shell for a tire wedge?

I head back to Robbie's to change my brake pads. I'm loosening a lugnut when it suddenly gets tighter. I figure it's stuck, so I crank on it some more and it finally loosens up...then it falls out with the lug nut stud still attached. I can not have a normal day. Luckily, Robbie's told me I can stay as long as I need, and I'll need a day to fix this. Tonight, I find a Mexican restaurant to taste ceviche: it's good. It's basically white fish, pico de gallo with extra onions, avocado, and lime juice, and I ate it using chips.

The next day I take my car to the shop to get the broken lugnut stud fixed. Robbie says I'm still okay to stay, but the next day I leave to Joshua Tree National Park.

Above is a Joshua Tree. They live in the desert and survive by having wide spread, very shallow, roots, so they grab water from a larger range than most plants. The National Park Service does a good job of conserving them, because they're everywhere. Also everywhere are giant mounds of rocks. The rocks were made underground as the result of volcanic activity, but as they cooled and crystallized, they started to crack into boulder sized pieces. The volcanic activity under them continued to push them upwards into hills. Once they stopped moving up, wind erosion blew the dirt off them to reveal the giant piles of rocks.

There are old tribal markings left on some of the rocks.

In the middle of the Mojave Desert, I can still see a snow covered mountain...

Below are ocotillo. They often look like a cactus because of their sharp points, but the points are made of wood and not needles.

While the park does a good job of preserving Joshua trees and rock piles, that's pretty much all there is. If you like bouldering though, it's a great place to go. I don't get to do it often, but it was a lot of fun to go off trail and climb any pile of rocks that looked worth it even though I'm not sure I was allowed to.

My next destination is supposed to be Phoenix, but my host, Katie, says she's having friends over for dinner tomorrow and going to a Renaissance Fair the next day, and I'm free to join both. I know Katie's cool, which means her husband's probably cool, which means there friends are probably cool, so the dinner would probably be fun and I've wanted to visit a Ren Fair a while. My Tuscan host, Rebecca, has her day off tomorrow though, so I decide to go to Tuscan first for the night. Rebecca works with horses and rents a room on the farm. I meet her roommate Josh, and between all of us, we agree cats are kind've assholes, even though Rebecca owns 3. The next day, Rebecca and I head to Saguaro National Park, which she swears is pronounced "say-wear-uh," but I refuse to change from "sag-oo-wear-uh": if cacti are gonna grow in this country, they need to learn our language.

Aside from her mispronunciation, I'm very lucky to have Rebecca with me: she seems to have a park guide's worth of knowledge. She teaches me these are palo verde trees:

Palo verdes pretty much wins at living in the desert. The green bark increases photosynthesis and the roots go so deep they grab water from far underground. Being the best survivor, the shade of this tree protects other plants, such as the saguaro, allowing them to survive. Without a nearby plant to shade it, a lot of plants die in the desert, so the palo verde is important to desert survival.

I thought this plant looked neat because of its color. Then Rebecca told me it was a Teddy-bear Cholla and being purple meant it was dead. Oh...

The Saguaro cacti are everywhere...

Hedgehog cactus:

Saguaro's often have holes from woodpeckers building nests in them.

Prickly pear and barrel cacti respectively:

Some cacti, I'm not sure about all of them, have a wooden structure called a skeleton under their flesh that gives them support. After they die, the flesh will fall off and you can see the skeletons.

The one on the right looks like a zombie cactus:

Thanks to Rebecca, the trip is very educational. Now it's time for Phoenix.

Arriving, I'm on the right street but can't find the house number. I see where I think it is with a blue car out front and text Katie if that's it. I go up to it before she text back and the door opens to a baby crying. Out west, instead of wire screen doors, there are metal screen doors, which I think are a lot better because they're more secure and don't tear apart so easily, but it's hard to see through them, so not knowing who opened the door, I wait until a male voice says

"Hello?"
"Is this [Katie's number]?"
"No, this is [another number]."
"Okay, thank you."

Katie text back saying, "Yes, that's it, a blue and black car." I don't see a blue and black car anywhere. I go back to GPS and type the zip code in this time thinking it's another Red Lobster situation. It points to a different address. "This must be it," I think. Driving there, I end up in the parking lot of a Costco. I text Katie, "Do you live across from a park or a Costco?" "A park." I go to the previous address. I decide to try the house next to the one I tried before: it's theirs. She'd gotten the street number a little mixed up, but I had no idea why she said to look for a blue and black car when their car looked completely black. It wasn't until after the weekend, I was driving out of town and realized, "Oooooooh, one blue car AND one black car!" Their friend's car was there when I arrived and it was blue: I was supposed to look for two cars. I was very happy when I finally figured it out.

I meet Katie's husband, Eric, and their friends, Jennifer and John. It doesn't take long to realize these are my kind of people. John has a Boeing t-shirt on, Eric makes jokes most people would consider inappropriate, Jennifer is brutally honest about how stupid she thinks several topics are, and Katie is still Katie, which make her cool as is. At one point we discuss the route of my trip and John says, "Wait...I want you to show me on a map so I can fully grasp this; I feel like there's a better way this could be done." A group that cares about the geographical efficiency of my route? Finally, I was hoping someone would ask.

We have a delicious dinner and dessert. Afterwards, John and Jennifer get ready to leave when John says, "Well, it was nice to meet you," and Jennifer says, "Yeah, it actually was nice to meet you." The word "actually" makes me think Jennifer expected me to be a total douchebag, but I'm glad I could sway her otherwise.

After they leave, Eric suggest finding a movie on Netflix. They let me pick, and I browse around until I find Old Boy. For those who haven't seen Old Boy, it's a foreign movie (though there was an American version) that's much more awkward to watch with other people than alone. I only realize this after starting to watch it with Katie and Eric. At the end, Eric says, "It's good they found a way to end it freaky: you don't wanna be inconsistent."

The next day, we go to pickup John who's going to the Renaissance Festival with us. My friend/ex-coworker Will and I had an argument about the nerdiness of people at RenFairs once. I told him the people who dressed up are getting way too into it, and he thought I was including the people who worked there and started defending them. By the time we had it sorted out, I agreed I would be interested in going to one, though I still thought the visitors who dressed up were too into it. So my eyes widen when John bounds out of his apartment in a men's girdle and cloak. Katie says, "John is really confident with himself." Laughs are shared by all, including John, and it helps me be more accepting of those who dress up for RenFairs.

There's quite a lot of people in the parking lot. Eric says, "I like that RenFairs are the perfect mix of nerds and white trash." I suppose we fall in the nerds category since we discuss potential cross universe costume ideas on the way in.

Inside the fair, we see jousting, throw axes, play high striker, watch a great balancing show, and I eat a turkey leg (a staple of RenFairs I'm told), before leaving and dropping John off. On the way back to Katie and Eric's, I mention I need to see the capitol still. I tell them I'd be happy to take them with me, and they decide to change directions and go there now, as well as adding a couple more things to the tour for me, such as a Jewish deli/bakery/restaurant...

...and a building that looks like an upside down pyramid:

Katie drives while Eric gives me commentary to the city: "There's 'A' mountain: it's got a big 'A' on it for ASU. Maybe if we're lucky we'll drive past the other side and you can see the 'A' from another angle: it looks pretty much the same. There's the first Starbucks: not really, that's somewhere in Seattle. There's a place that serves a really good hamburger." I don't learn a lot, but it's thrilling just to listen.

There are more memorials at the Phoenix capitol than I can keep track of, so I didn't try to memorize what they meant.

Hopefully some of my consistent readers will know what this is:

I remember this one was a September 11th memorial...

...because inside was a scrap of metal from the wreckage.

I'd never seen a memorial for police dogs before. Very unique:

The capitol itself is fairly humble and doesn't look too much like the U.S. capitol.

After our exploration, we discuss what to eat. Katie offers making matzo ball soup so I can try something Jewish. Eric demands negotiations on the grounds matzo ball soup isn't a complete meal. The case is settled when Katie agrees to add leftover chicken.

When we get home, before going in, they start discussing the overhanging tree in the front yard. I offer some help trimming it up because, surprisingly, I want to. Aside from Katie and Eric being great hosts and well deserving of my help, I have this unusual sensation to do yard work. Something about being procreative rather than traveling for a little while seems relaxing. So Eric and I trim up the tree and some bushes that were going into the neighbor's yard. At one point, we try taking down a branch that's too thick for the cutters to get around, so I grab my survival knife and chop it narrower. Much like my camping mattress was first used in a motel, my knife is being first used for suburban yard work.

Going inside, Katie ask,

"Okay, who wants a big spoon or a little spoon? Kobie?"
"Big spoon."
"Eric?"
"Big spoon."
"Eric! You always get the little spoon!"
"I'm competing with Kobie for masculinity."

For those wondering, matzo ball soup is good. Matzo is basically an unsalted saltine, and a matzo ball is matzo crumbled up and rolled into a ball with egg, butter, spices, etc., and the soup is basically broth and vegetables. Katie also offers me a piece of gefilte fish so I can try more Jew food, but it smells like tuna, which I don't care for, so I turn it down. Eric doesn't care for it either, but both Katie and their cats seem to love it.

Katie goes to bed early because she has to work the next day, but Eric and I stay up watching stand up comedy: it seemed a safer choice than letting me pick another movie.