I took a bus to Seaside, and knew i was in small-town country now. Hiked to Cannon beach and was taken away by haystack rock which was about a thousand times more inspiring to see than the Space Needle was. On those wobbly hiker legs i stood roadside with thumb in the air and promptly gave up on hitching. Nevertheless, a very nice older woman picked me up and offered me some pot while we drove down the coast to one of the tiny and destitute looking- but in an incredibly beautiful setting- little towns where she lived. I declined the pot, which she only had for medical reasons anyways, but accepted her offer to drop me at the local bus stop which would take me through to the next bigger town. There i found a Starbucks (an institution which would continue to be my internet hub from city to city) and a department store which i walked around for hours before finding my way to the local Denny's, scarfing down a massive meal, and then settling in for the night to read a book. The next morning I found a local bus which would take me back to Portland, which it did, in time to take another bus through the night to San Francisco. With some thanks to a very uncomfortable bus-stop layover (where security would come ask you for your ticket the moment you started to drift off on the hard-floor as if only free-loading bums would do that) and two interesting and long-talking coach-mates I perhaps dozed for an hour. Perhaps. In San Francisco I had coffee with one of my new coach friends before finding a wonderful camera store which sold me a replacement wide-angle lens for the camera i had borrowed from my Dad. I knew i needed a smaller backpack, and after some considerable wandering around and discovery of some of the less romantic parts of the city I eventually bought one and after some more wandering around, found the hostel i had made a reservation at. I don't remember much of the rest of that day except that by the time sleep came i had had the same pair of shoes on for as long as I'd essentially been awake. Sixty some hours. Gross.
San Fransisco was beautiful after that. I ran across the big red bridge. I walked along the boardwalks and saw beautiful people smiling, enjoying the warm evening. I took a great tour of China Town. After eating otherwise poor-quality food everywhere on my adventure, I now couldn't hardly find bad-quality food if i wanted to. But then I went and left.
I loved the train to LA, excepting some annoying patrons. The scenery was great. And rail was more comfortable than bus coach by the length of an American Football field. I got off near UCLA, which smelled beautifully of blossoms or flowers of some kind. It was warm, and I saw many cute couples, some with roses in hand, walking arm in arm with their Valentine's day dates. I imagined that perhaps I'd find something to do on Valentines day somewhere- like singles bingo or something cheesy like that, but instead I had to catch a bus to Santa Monica, and LA's busses were not about to be as conducive as San Fran. By the time I was at my, relitavely expensive and generally blase hostel at SM I was ready to call it a day.
Sure the beach was alright, and I met a nice guy from New Mexico at Santa Monica, and I met a very interesting man dressed as a tree at Venice Beach, and a very funny TV writer who gave me a ride between the two, but by the time I caught a crazy bus to the crazier Greyhound Station, I was ready to get the $%&* out of Dodge... or in this case, Los Angeles. In hindsight, you really do need a car to get around that part of the state.
San Diego was supposed to be reconnassance time. I would gather my chits, consult my new maps, and plan my next move. I though i might go to Mexico for a few days. I had put a reservation on a car rental back in LA to get out and potentially into Joshua Tree or even Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon, but that was a few days away.
Now that i was in San Diego I began to hit rock bottom. I got a familiar diminishment in spirit which warned me i might need to go home sooner than my plane was booked for- some two weeks away. I would miss seeing Arizona, but I was missing my drive more. I think I was ready to admit that I'm not the lone ranger I've always epitomized. A good thing to know in any case. Pack animals we are, and I missed my pack. But I was also not self-disparaging about this fact. If i wanted to go home, I wasn't about to give myself a hard time about that. It had been a good run, and aside from the jets flying overhead all day, the hostel at Point Loma in San Diego was very nice and affordable; so I stayed a few days.
We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
C. S. Lewis
While in SD I ate some fantastic sea food at the beautiful harbour, rented bikes with new friends and rode to the top of point Loma, jammed out pop tunes on a piano and guitar at the hostel with a guy (I think he was from Minnesota) and saw the underwhelming but highly toted San Diego park. The hostel was also only a walk from the Airport, so I rearranged flights and got one that flew from there to Vancouver, and on my way out I saw the anti-submarine, navy-trained dolphins passing through the harbor.
My Flight bounced off Phoenix, which I'm told is not as interesting as Tuscon or Flagstaff, but at least i got to get into Arizona in some respect, and see its horizon for a moment before the light died.
I would like to drive that golden sea someday.
I went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sun down, for going out, I found, was really going in.
John Muir
So I returned much sooner than I'd anticipated, which was just as well since I really was pretty broke anyways- or so i realized once i surveyed my accounts. The dollar exchange rate had been cruel, and the fact that the currency exchange at the airport in Vancouver took me for an extra few dollars as a "fee" to change my greenbacks back to Canadian really annoyed me. I had to bunker down in the airport for the duration of the night to catch transit to the first ferry home, and when i did step outside (having abandoned all warm clothing in San Fransisco) I had to grit my teeth and second guess that I'd really wanted to be home again. I had, strangely, missed the cooler climate while in San Diego, but wearing shorts at 6 AM in February made me wonder if I had been delusional.
Its funny. Friends asked me what the deal was with the trip. Was I going to "find myself" or something? I never expected an epiphany to strike me on the road. I didn't expect nothing, but I didn't know what to expect except a change of scenery and lots of time by myself to be self-reflexive and breathe deeply. A change of scenery, I have come to belive now, can do a lot for ones psyche. I felt like I was just going through the motions so much of the time last year. I was living in a blur of time. I sometimes described my life like someone else was living it and i was just a spectator watching it go by. Clarity, however, found me on the road, though it never came like a beam of light or a Eureka. It came in a coming home and cleaning house. I suppose it came in realizing what I wanted, accepting who I was, and leaving some things behind for a new chapter. Three weeks in the wilderness, or whatever, and I get that?! Not exactly. I think maybe conlclusions build over time, but it takes a steppping back, out of the mundanity to get the clarity on it. It was upon stepping back into "my life" that I realized how this all would pan out.
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
Henry David Thoreau
I'm not saying i got it together. I still don't know much of what next month or next year holds, but I'm more confident in who i want to be next month and next year, I think.
Just to clear it up, although I called this short blog 'walking' I didn't walk everywhere. I walked from ship to bus to train to light rail to taxi to car to bicycle to bus to plane and covered distance that way. There was, however, lots of walking in between, and perhaps, more importantly, every trip begins and ends with a walk. There is something about walking I think, that people have done for millennia to figure things out, and it is this persistent idea that persists. Not to be confused with nomadicism, for in my story, as in most, the adventurer comes home, or finds home, or achieves something which he can bring back with him to revive his existence.
The car park and adjacent lot looked like nothing at all that day, but then nothing is what I'd expected of them. Perhaps that is the very essence, and beauty, of place, even if I can't define it. The way anywhere can take hold, and burrow deep within. The way it can dance when we allow it to. Which is why these days I prefer to think of place as wherever I happen to be and the relationship that can be brokered with it.
Julian Hoffman The Small Heart of Things
Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.
J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit
