Red Rover Ramblings: Loma Linda, CA to Santa Cruz, CA

Day 8 - Loma Linda, CA to West Hollywood, CA

A 60 mile ride through the concrete jungle and traffic will give anyone road rage, no matter how well-adjusted and fulfilled s/he is. Bob Ross would have been painting jagged angry clouds, mountains on fire, and vampire woodland creatures if he had to put up with this sort of commute. My homemade muffin breakfast and good vibrations from the Denay Jasperse household pulled me through the madness. Los Angeles is a fun city, but living more than 20 minutes from work could be a mental health hazard. Speaking of health hazards, the Los Angeles smog lived up to its legend. After just a few days, the back of my throat was sore and I would wheeze and feel light headed whenever doing so much as carrying my panniers more than 50 feet. So, lane splitting is legal in California, but the combination of an extra wide load due to the panniers and a tendency toward self-preservation, I decided to stay in the regular lanes like the rest of the chumps in cars. At least at first...
I arrived at my friend Gina's in West Hollywood an hour later than expected, thanks to traffic and lane closures due to the filming of a movie and a Domino's commercial along my route. It seemed like there was something being filmed every 3 blocks along Melrose Ave. I guess this is where all the magic happens.
I arrived, I apologized profusely for being late, then we drove down Hollywood Blvd toward one of Gina's favorite sushi restaurants. There was fantastic public art and street art along the way.

The benefits of a recession in a creative city

Gina and I ate sushi until we felt sick, and it was wonderful. I've never known Gina well--she is the sister of one of my best friends--but eel and avocado brought us close. She didn't scoff at my picky seafood choice politics or the accompanying sustainable seafood mini-guide that I keep in my wallet. She's a keeper. She is an actress and improv artist who is also writing her own screenplay and trying to get signed to do more commercial work. She is undecided about it--a career as a Kotex spokeswoman is likely not most actress' dream job, but it pays the bills in the meantime. She has a great attitude about it.

Food porn

Later that evening, I met up with my friends David and Denise, who happened to be traveling through LA en route to Antarctica, where they spend 6 months of the year (during the other 6 months, they travel around on motorcycles and engage in other envy-inspiring shenanigans--this time, it was my turn). They are some of my favorite people in the world, so it was a surprising random treat to be able to see them. My "shake-down ride for this trip was with them in Colorado over the 4th of July. We're already hatching plans for moto trips next year. I took a photo, but David looks really scary in it, like he's going to kill you, so I didn't include it here.
We met up for an hour or so at a pizza place in the Silver Lake neighborhood, which also happened to be the meeting place for that week's East Side Moto Babes gathering and ride. As they were getting ready to leave, the ESMB ladies started showing up. What a badass group of babes! Grit and sparkly fingernail polish, all rolled up into a beautiful rolling sisterhood of fury. Most of them ride vintage motorcycles, but there were some newer choppers and sportbikes thrown into the mix for flavor. It was co-ed night, so there were a few brave men that joined the group. One of them, Frank, gave me some great route suggestions, although his hand-drawn map looks more like a human digestive system than anything that is capable of being utilized as a navigation tool. Regardless, he had good suggestions.

Road map / human digestive system schematic

We rode to a bar, had a round of girlie drinks, shot the breeze along with some pool and talked about the club and how it was started. I took notes for starting an Austin-based ladies moto club. The male "groupies" were pretty entertaining as well. A couple of them were art directors for a drag queen makeover show called RuPaul's Drag Race. "I've come to terms with having pink glitter stuck to me. It's ubiquitous in my life," one of them admitted. It is LA, after all.

East Side Moto Babes. Stacie, Ana, me, Ezra, Jeanette.

Day 9 - West Hollywood, CA to Los Angeles area

The next morning, Gina and I had a banana duel at the local coffee shop before hiking in the Hollywood hills in Runyon Canyon. The people-watching was second to none. There were gay men wearing coordinated outfits walking their dogs (also having coordinated outfits), man-orexics, women with designer workout gear talking about how their celery diet has too many carbs for their metabolism type, all with coffee in one hand and a cell phone in the other--into which they were breaking up with their significant others or sharing juicy gossip about why someone did or didn't get a part in a movie. Gina just laughed and rolled her eyes at the drama and that's why we're friends. There were probably some well-known celebrities hiking around out there, but I didn't recognize any and don't really care. Celebrities are just people that a lot of other people have seen. It's weird to me when people turn into frenetic hyenas around the most minor of famous people. The exercise felt good, despite the effect that the smog had on my lungs.

On guard!

Runyon Canyon, the trail, western L.A., and what would be a view of the ocean were it not for the smog

I packed up my gear and headed out later that afternoon. My bike was having issues--a excessively squeaky suspension, a tendency to fall out of third gear, and an occasional misfiring--so I saw a mechanic and discovered that most of the issues were in my head. Not surprising. I was starting to get paranoid about the bike and the littlest changes in noise or feel were being exaggerated into major failures. It's funny how the most minor things can be amplified by nothing other than fear and an over-sensitive mind. The bike has no reason to fail. It was given a clean bill of health throughout the trip and I've been babying the hell out of it. I know I have a tendency to approach new situations with trepidation and a feeling of inevitable misfortune waiting for me, but I've been fighting that old habit and it's made all the difference. People always find what they are looking for. The more I relax and take heed of all of the wonderful things and people around me, the brighter the future seems.
Later that day, [CENSORED]

Day 10 - Los Angeles area to Santa Cruz, CA

That morning, I hit the road early and ran out of west. I finally made it to the coast and it felt great. When I saw the Pacific, I smiled inside my helmet. The cool ocean breeze kicked in and I felt chilled in my riding suit. The Austin climate has given me the heat tolerance of a lizard, but in exchange, I sold my soul to a snowman. I've lost my Minnesota cold tolerance. 25 years of snow angels, early morning windshield frost scraping, and 15 degree bicycle races are all for naught. It was probably 76 degrees and I was shivering uncontrollably. Of course, I could have put on the fleece that I had in my tank bag, but I was so happy to be on the road and riding, I ignored my body's discomforts. Bodies are a real pain in the ass sometimes--they need to be fed all the time, they get sick, they get sore and tired, they get gas at inconvenient times and places, and they wear out after about 76-79 years. I wish I was a floating consciousness, unattached to a body, like the amphibious people in Kurt Vonnegut's story Unready to Wear.
My route took me through Ventura, CA. Judging by the smell of that city, it is where the entire Los Angeles area sends its sewage. In a big ol' shit pipeline. That whole day was marked by smells, many of them foreign, and none of them as bad as that first wretched stank. North of Ventura, I smelled strawberries, roses, peas, smoked fish, broccoli, asparagus, seaweeds, tomatoes, and dozens of other sweet or earthy smells that I couldn't place--most of them hit like a gust of wind. I was in one of the most productive farming areas in the country, where much of the domestic produce is grown or processed, and the olfactory evidence was unmistakable.
Then, I really got near the coast...within a few hundred yards. The wind was howling and blowing the bike sideways. Neptune had sand in his crotch that day and he was taking it out on the coast. I stopped at a "Elephant Seal Viewing Area" and was afraid of even leaving my bike on its kickstand for fear of the wind blowing it over. "This is training for Patagonia," I thought to myself. Well, it turned out to be an awful place to see elephant seals. There was only one and I think it was dead. I guess they all all said "fuck this" and went to get margaritas in some calmer cove down the coast.

Thar she blows

Every mile up the coast beyond that was even more incredible than the last. Twisty roads, fog rolling over sunny hillsides, waves crashing onto the road, rock slides...this area felt so rugged and alive. This is sort of embarrassing to admit, but a few times I witnessed scenes so beautiful that I started to get tears in my eyes. I think California is turning me soft. Now I know how the "double rainbow guy" felt. Other times, the roads were so fun and winding that I squealed out loud like a piglet. I actually had to stop riding at one point because I was getting dizzy along the twisty roads, which is a good problem. It gave me time to botanize on the side of the road and investigate what seemed to be plants imported from bizarro-world. There were hundreds of mist-dependent dune plant species that I tried to identify using the one book I brought along on this trip: Wildflowers of the Pacific Coast States.