part 2--the trip home
18. good byes. heather and i left around six thirty in the morning. i got up and started taking my stuff out in the low light of the house. i was packing stuff in my car and turned around and there was karey right beside me with some stuff to load. "didn't you see me right beside you in the house?" she asked when she saw my surprise. no i didn't, because obviously she was in stealth mode. vicki came out in her pjs and black high heal pumps. auntie sherry came out in her nightie with a button up denim top over it. we said our good-byes and gave our hugs.
19. getting out of LA. there was a thick marine layer, which means it was really sunny out but to us it was cloudy. we got gas and went straight for the pacific hwy. heather was driving because apparently i am determined not to drive in LA. we thought the pacific hwy would help us skirt the traffic. well it did, but it was a slow way to get out of LA anyways. it took three hours and we went through lots of poor communities where there was nary a white person and lots of mexicans. i told heather that poor down town communities inspire me photographically. ghettos--there's a lot of stories to tell. heather agreed and locked her door.
20. malibu home of the stars. we arrived in malibu glad to be rid of the clinging clasp of los angeles. malibu was definitely seperate. the hills were covered with palace like residences. "i wonder where barbie lives." i mused to heather. we were hungry. we had empty stomachs but full bladders so to speak. so the only grocery store in our path was a small town type one called lowe's. we stopped there and a nice lady directed us through the double doors in the back and up the stairs to the employee washroom. no one seemed to notice us. after that we could concentrate on foods. we bought sandwich supplies, fruit, chips and what i began to think of as 'malibu water' ( i still have part of jug sitting beside me on the freezer at this very moment. i carted it here all the way from malibu). in the line up at the cashier, there seemed to be a famous person behind us with his wife/girl friend. i say this because everyone was treating him like he was famous but neither heather nor i had any idea who he was.
21. fields of yellow flowers. we passed fields and fields of bursting with these wild yellow flowers. i thought it was so pretty and i wanted to take a picture of it before it disappeared from the landscape, but we kept coming on them unexpectedly. so i said to heather "the next field of flowers we stop at." "ok." she said. and so she slammed on the brakes the next time we saw one and i ran up a gravel road while she waited in the car. it was so quiet up in the field of flowers except for what seemed to me the jubulient chirping of many birds. i saw a lot of red winged black birds and almost got a shot of one, but he swooped away. then i ran back to heather happy. little did i know that those yellow wild flowers cover the green hills for miles and miles and miles. i know now though. we drove through so many pretty hills. there were no trees, they were green with yellow flowers and the sky was blue. and then on the other side of us was crashing blue waves and sandy beaches.
22. ventura surfers. our next stop was in ventura to take pictures of surfers. the marine layer was so thick there. the mist of it clung to the hills and everything was grey. the water and the sky, but the huge cresting waves were dotted by the black figures of surfers. we sat on a rock for a couple of minutes while i took pictures and breathed in the sea air. heather got excited about some animals but then she realized they were just squirrels and normal squirrels at that. i mocked her for this of course.
23. heather agrees to be relocated in santa barbara. we were there an hour later and it was a really beautiful city. lush and green and nice. heather has a obsession with palm trees which i forgot to mention previously. like in awe that they exist. santa barbara had a lot of nice well kept palm trees. (a well kept palm tree is important because neglected palms get these long beards and it looks so ugly). we followed a sign off the hwy to the santa barbara mission. we wanted to see a mission and here was our chance. i was trigger happy and kept thinking that the next building was the mission, but many of the buildings in the mission area were made to look mission-esque and i, the fool, was fooled often. the funniest time, was when we were almost there. "there it is!" i point excitedly towards a steeple. "that's made with cinder blocks!" says a disgusted heather. "it's not that old!" we pass it and i read out "the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints" haha. the mission was around the corner and up.
before leaving the car we made our sandwiches and ate them. katie will want to know so i'll tell you--the sandwiches were on sourdough bread, spread with hummus, sharp cheddar slices with different kinds of turkey slices. they were soooo yummy and hit the spot with a satifactory punch. i put some of the sweet onion maui chips inside mine. heather just ate hers seperate like.
next order of business: bathroom stop. there were 'restrooms' in the basement of the mission. i walked in after heather and she was giving me a significant look. that's because there were no doors on the stalls. there were only these plastic, mustard coloured curtains. very odd in my mind.
then we wandered around the grounds and took pictures. there was a cool old fountain with water lilies in it, an out door washing basin with a lion head spout that was really old, and they had beautiful interesting vegitaion and gardens. there wasn't much to see inside, unless you paid and we didn't feel like paying, but i heard monks singing through the doors of the gift shop. heather thought it was a tape, but i like to think it was the monks.
i really enjoyed our stop in santa barbara and heather really liked the city. she said if she had to relocate in the witness protection program she would go there. shhhhh. dont' tell anyone.
24. disfigurement. up to this point i was in denial, but i knew at santa barbara, that i was getting multiple cold sores on my lower lip. i didn't protect them on my birthday beach day and they got sunburned. i'd been having tingly numb lips but i was hoping that was just the sunburn and not a resulting disfigurement wound, but i was not that lucky. i'm never that lucky. but i had my cream and i annointed my festering wounds liberally again and again and they never got that big, although my lip looked a lot bigger to me and i had multiple blisters some going towards my inner lip so that my teeth hurt it all the time. but all in all it wasn't that bad and didn't cause me as much inner trauma as other times, especially when they're on my upper lip. that's worse for some reason.
25. home of split pea soup. that's what a sign said outside of a place called buellton.
26. vineyards. we left the heavy with grey oceanside for a while and low and behold drove into the sun and blue sky. we passed hills and hills and hills of vineyards.
28. sand dunes. we were coming up to pismo beach and i told heather how i read about it and the sand dunes there and she surprised me by wanting to stop. i mean i wanted to stop, but she was the one who was on a mission that we make it to monterey by night fall. but she wanted to stop and so we did. as we drove down to the beach we drove back into the marine layer. you could drive right down on the beach and drive along the beach if you wanted to, but we didn't. it was so neat there! the sand dunes went on forever and they were covered with this succulent type plant that had dark pink flowers. the sand was so soft and silky fine. we put some of it in heather's mug that she inadvertantly brought on the trip by leaving it in my trunk. we loved it there and could have stayed all day. heather said she would also relocate there purely for the sake of the dunes.
29. the elusive hearst castle. heather and i saw the signs for the hearst castle and we got all excited. but we never seemed to arrive at it and we'd think that we missed it. heather kept saying things like "if we missed it i'll be really mad." with a dark look on her face. but we finally got to the turn off for the hearst castle and we headed up the hill. we could see it way above us in remote hills. well our road went to this museum and didn't seem to go anywhere else and no signs pointed us onward so i sent heather inside to inquire. it turns out you have to pay big bucks to go further. you can't just drive by. you have to take a bus up there. we thought that this was ultra lame. i suggested we try to go further down the road to see if we could get any closer but heather didn't want to get into trouble. i said you can't get in trouble for driving down a road when there's no signs telling you not to. she said i was more adventurous than her. we let it go. i took a picture of it from far far far away.
30. pride and predjudice and elephant seals. instead we stopped at this place where you can see elephant seals. they were far away but i could see them. the beaches changed from big waves crashing on sandy shores, to rocky cliffs. actually it really reminded me of the scene in pride and predjudice (not the real one, ie. the a&e one, but the new one) where elizabeth is standing on the cliff dramatically with her dress blowing behind her.
31. windy roads. upon leaving the elephant seals i said to heather "i don't know why my dad said this was such a bad road and that it was all the same. i havent' found it that bad or too windy." not ten minutes later we started the windy roads portion of the trip. we would go up and around and around and down and up and around and down. the road was a contiual curve back and forth. i felt like i was slaloming. it was breath taking though. we were basically hugging the curves of the santa lucia mountains where they plunged into the sea. it was dazzling. the road was lonely. most of the time it seemed like it was just heather and in all this remote dangerous beauty and we by neccessity were going slow. most curves were 20 miles per hour or 15 and there were hardly any straight stretches. it seemed like none at all.
32. sunset beach state park. we passed montery. it wasn't like i expected. we found a campsite just as most of the light was fading in the farming community of watsonville, which was still along montery bay. it seemed like we drove through tons of farms to get to the park, and then it seemed like all the camp sites were up against these green houses of a neighbouring farm. "where's the beach?" i was stumped. "they lied to us." said a disallusioned heather. we picked a site in the south grouping by a big tree with large low branches. we set up the tent right away while we had some light. an unseen owl hooted over and over from his perch. we had to drive back to the gate of the park to pay for our site which was 25 dollars. when we got back, heather made herself a sandwich and i went to find the beach. it was totally dark now but there was a full moon and it was bright. i found a path through the vegetation behind the site right next to ours. i crossed a road and saw some picnic benches, a wood railing and a sign. i could hear the crashing waves. i walked up with this strange feeling in my stomach--a thrill like you get on the swing or like when you're very high. i was very high it turned out. there was a vast beach with pounding waves below me. in the low light it was kind of eerie but beautiful. i stared at the scene for a while and then went back to find heather. she was sitting in the car with her sand-oo-wee-chee. i joined her and made one for myself. then we changed and set things up and then i showed heather the beach. we read the sign by squinting. apparently this beach was part of the monterey bay national marine sanctuary, where there was the world's deepest or largest underwater canyons, and blue whales, for example. heather and i perked up at the blue whales. i didn't know there were blue whales down here! i said in wonder. the blue whale was always my favourite mammal when i was growing up simply because it was the biggest. jupiter was my favourite planet for the same reason. we watched what turned out to be the ranger drive along the beach with a spotlight and then we went back to the tent, i read in alma 18 or something by the light of the bike-light again, we talked and fell asleep.
in the morning we went exploring in our jammies. we went back to the beach and saw that there were stairs down to the beach. first we scanned the waters for blue whales but saw nothing. i suggested that some far away barey to be seen white boats were whales. i just wanted to see whales so badly. heather laughed at me. but she saw something black moving on the shore. could it be a seal we wondered? we went down to investigate. it was a long ways down but the cliff was covered with beautiful vegetaion. it was part of a "dunes re-vegetaion project" but these didn't seem like 'dunes' per se. they seemed like cliffs or steep hills. but what do i know. heather found a blossoming thistle which made her happy. the beach was long and reminded me a bit of long beach. pristine hardened shores like that. two guys were jogging along. it did turn out to be a seal. i walked as close as i dared to it. we didn't know if it was dead or sleeping but after a while i saw it take a deep breath. it was beautiful. we walked the beach for a while and of course took pictures and watched the sun come up over the steep hills. and then we pulled ourselves away.
33. pictures with cacti. the road out of the park was bordered with clusters of cacti on the edges of brown farm fields. we took pictures.
34. golden gate bridge! we got into san fran. around 11 in the morning. we were both in awe that we were in san fran. and then came the bridge. i was driving and heather was manically trying to snap shots of everything she could before it went past. luckily there was view point right after that you could pull over and take pictures to your heart's content, which is basically what we did. we took them from every angle we could think of and we walked out on the bridge part way and met some workers who work on the bridge and generally indulged in profound golden gate bridge euphoria. we could see alcatraz and i took pictures of a soaring hawk, and we saw a crazy dude in the middle of the straight paddling with his hands on what looked like a yellow surf board. we watched him for quite a while, wondering what was going on. eventually the coast guard showed up and although we can't say that we saw it happen, we believe he got picked up by them. i was wearing the cute oragamy crane earrings that elicia gave me for my birthday and they waved wildly in the wind and caught in my hair. we were there for around an hour and a half. i was near tears with gladness. it's something that happens to me.
35. more windy roads. after san fran we had more and more windy roads we crossed the coast ranges and saw lots more beautiful country with huge light houses and cliffs and sandy beaches. we drove through many small communities with signs that said "population 50" and stuff like that. the more north we got, the more the beaches began to look like the pictures i've seen of the oregon coast with the darker sand, and the huge rocks sitting on the beach. we stopped at one and took pictures. it was raining but we didn't care. the shrubs were windswept eastward.
36. garberville. it was just a small town that we stopped at to eat supper. one of the owners at heather's work told her to go out to eat with her girlfriend (moi) and it would be on him. we kept putting it off and now we were going to do it in garberville. we found the only likely place a cute little cafe with homemade fresh pasta. you order at the counter. so we took a while to decide and then went up and ordered. i wanted the raviloi but they didn't have it. he checked for me. so i changed to the black bean burrito. heather ordered the fettucinie cabonera. then we went to get drinks and heather asked the girl if they took credit cards. nope, they didn't. heather said "can you tell him not to do our order?" and we walked out. walked across the parking lot and had subway. the girl put lots of sauce on. it was good.
37. black bear on the hwy. we were so happy to be on a hwy with two lanes and with a speed limit of about 110 km/h. it had been so long. so we were going along shortly after garberville. we were going downhill and there was forrest on either side of the road. well all of a sudden a big black bear galloped (no he really galloped. he was giving it like no other.) across the road in front of us. well in one part of our respective brains we were like "wow, a black bear!" the other part was "oh my gosh we're going to hit that bear!!!" heather slammed on the brakes hard. my car's rear end slid up and to the side and we barely missed the bear who was, as heather said, probably on the other side of the road having a heart attack. we were having heart attacks of our own. heather was babbling. "sorry for swearing laura. sorry for swearing." then "uh oh laura, the oil light is on.... and he battery light..... the brakes aren't working!" "not at all??" i say in alarm as we are still heading downhill. "hardly at all!" says heather pumping the breaks to little effect. "the gas isn't really working either and the steering is funny." "laura..." we are still in the left lane and i point heather to the side of the road. not another car is in sight. we stop in silence. "what do you do now?" i say in a small helpless voice. "i don't know." says heather, "i don't know anything about cars." "me neither." i add although i know that both of us know this. we decide to say a prayer. i said it. i asked heavenly father to help us, pointing out that we didnt' know anything about cars and that we needed to get safely home and would he please make our car alright or send someone to help us. as i said that i felt a great feeling of love and comfort and i knew we'd be alright. we decided to look at the engine so heather popped the hood. this part was hilarious because we both just stood there blankly staring at the engine. "everything looks fine." i say to heather. she decides to check the oil even though i explain to her that i just had my oil changed before we left. as predicted the oil level is fine. heather gets back into the car and starts it up. everything works. i shut the hood and jump back in the car and we both feel very grateful and say a thank you prayer. heather has got the adrenalin shakes and goes under the speed limit for quite some time.
38. eureka tweekers. after our near death experience we felt justified in a motel. besides it was raining and we wanted to make as close to the red wood forrest as we could before we quit for the day. we got gas in eureka and the girl told heather that there wasn't really anywhere to stay further on, so we got a place at the motel 6. it only cost 56 dollars. the girl told heather to be careful because there were a lot of 'tweekers' in eureka, which we could only guess were druggies. the guy at the motel 6 was soooooooooooooooooooooo slow! he typed with one finger and there was a line up of people behind us. he was nice though. our bed spreads were bright, gaudy scenes from all over north american where they have motels. heather picked out toronto right away. we watched some tv before we went to sleep. i found a show about 'mormonism'. it was interesting. it had elder jensen (who i like) and some parts of interviews with elder packer too and steve's hero, richard bushman and lots of dissidents.
in the morning we saw just how sketchy this motel 6 was. there were a lot of shifty looking people around and they were eyeing us. or was it our imaginations? mebee. it was nice to sleep in a bed and have a shower though. that was nice.
39. redwood forrest. was beautiful and amazing. we hugged trees and oohed and ahhed and went on our way. we didn't find the tree you can drive through though.
40. world's largest elk herd. we drove by them lounging on an unfenced grassy field in front of a little red school house. we drove right up to them and they merely looked at us with mild curiosity as they lay about the lush green grass and chewed handfuls of it.
41. paul bunyun and his faithful ox blue. they were ginormous and hilarious. they both welcomed us to a place called 'mystic trees'. we drove by so many crazy wood carving places in northern california, but none so huge.
42. country pride. that was the name of the truck stop restaurant in oregon that we finally spent dave's money on. it cost a whopping 26 dollars. we both found it pretty funny that this fancy pants guy with a beamer offers us the world and we ate and country pride. as sarah would say "i felt like she had given me the moon and i didn't know what to do with it."
we left the coast after the redwood forrest and drove the rest of the way home on the i5, where nothing more that interesting happened besides a lot of rain showers, some rainbows and wowing heather by picking up a pen with my toes while driving. we got home at ten at night.
19. getting out of LA. there was a thick marine layer, which means it was really sunny out but to us it was cloudy. we got gas and went straight for the pacific hwy. heather was driving because apparently i am determined not to drive in LA. we thought the pacific hwy would help us skirt the traffic. well it did, but it was a slow way to get out of LA anyways. it took three hours and we went through lots of poor communities where there was nary a white person and lots of mexicans. i told heather that poor down town communities inspire me photographically. ghettos--there's a lot of stories to tell. heather agreed and locked her door.
20. malibu home of the stars. we arrived in malibu glad to be rid of the clinging clasp of los angeles. malibu was definitely seperate. the hills were covered with palace like residences. "i wonder where barbie lives." i mused to heather. we were hungry. we had empty stomachs but full bladders so to speak. so the only grocery store in our path was a small town type one called lowe's. we stopped there and a nice lady directed us through the double doors in the back and up the stairs to the employee washroom. no one seemed to notice us. after that we could concentrate on foods. we bought sandwich supplies, fruit, chips and what i began to think of as 'malibu water' ( i still have part of jug sitting beside me on the freezer at this very moment. i carted it here all the way from malibu). in the line up at the cashier, there seemed to be a famous person behind us with his wife/girl friend. i say this because everyone was treating him like he was famous but neither heather nor i had any idea who he was.
21. fields of yellow flowers. we passed fields and fields of bursting with these wild yellow flowers. i thought it was so pretty and i wanted to take a picture of it before it disappeared from the landscape, but we kept coming on them unexpectedly. so i said to heather "the next field of flowers we stop at." "ok." she said. and so she slammed on the brakes the next time we saw one and i ran up a gravel road while she waited in the car. it was so quiet up in the field of flowers except for what seemed to me the jubulient chirping of many birds. i saw a lot of red winged black birds and almost got a shot of one, but he swooped away. then i ran back to heather happy. little did i know that those yellow wild flowers cover the green hills for miles and miles and miles. i know now though. we drove through so many pretty hills. there were no trees, they were green with yellow flowers and the sky was blue. and then on the other side of us was crashing blue waves and sandy beaches.
22. ventura surfers. our next stop was in ventura to take pictures of surfers. the marine layer was so thick there. the mist of it clung to the hills and everything was grey. the water and the sky, but the huge cresting waves were dotted by the black figures of surfers. we sat on a rock for a couple of minutes while i took pictures and breathed in the sea air. heather got excited about some animals but then she realized they were just squirrels and normal squirrels at that. i mocked her for this of course.
23. heather agrees to be relocated in santa barbara. we were there an hour later and it was a really beautiful city. lush and green and nice. heather has a obsession with palm trees which i forgot to mention previously. like in awe that they exist. santa barbara had a lot of nice well kept palm trees. (a well kept palm tree is important because neglected palms get these long beards and it looks so ugly). we followed a sign off the hwy to the santa barbara mission. we wanted to see a mission and here was our chance. i was trigger happy and kept thinking that the next building was the mission, but many of the buildings in the mission area were made to look mission-esque and i, the fool, was fooled often. the funniest time, was when we were almost there. "there it is!" i point excitedly towards a steeple. "that's made with cinder blocks!" says a disgusted heather. "it's not that old!" we pass it and i read out "the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints" haha. the mission was around the corner and up.
before leaving the car we made our sandwiches and ate them. katie will want to know so i'll tell you--the sandwiches were on sourdough bread, spread with hummus, sharp cheddar slices with different kinds of turkey slices. they were soooo yummy and hit the spot with a satifactory punch. i put some of the sweet onion maui chips inside mine. heather just ate hers seperate like.
next order of business: bathroom stop. there were 'restrooms' in the basement of the mission. i walked in after heather and she was giving me a significant look. that's because there were no doors on the stalls. there were only these plastic, mustard coloured curtains. very odd in my mind.
then we wandered around the grounds and took pictures. there was a cool old fountain with water lilies in it, an out door washing basin with a lion head spout that was really old, and they had beautiful interesting vegitaion and gardens. there wasn't much to see inside, unless you paid and we didn't feel like paying, but i heard monks singing through the doors of the gift shop. heather thought it was a tape, but i like to think it was the monks.
i really enjoyed our stop in santa barbara and heather really liked the city. she said if she had to relocate in the witness protection program she would go there. shhhhh. dont' tell anyone.
24. disfigurement. up to this point i was in denial, but i knew at santa barbara, that i was getting multiple cold sores on my lower lip. i didn't protect them on my birthday beach day and they got sunburned. i'd been having tingly numb lips but i was hoping that was just the sunburn and not a resulting disfigurement wound, but i was not that lucky. i'm never that lucky. but i had my cream and i annointed my festering wounds liberally again and again and they never got that big, although my lip looked a lot bigger to me and i had multiple blisters some going towards my inner lip so that my teeth hurt it all the time. but all in all it wasn't that bad and didn't cause me as much inner trauma as other times, especially when they're on my upper lip. that's worse for some reason.
25. home of split pea soup. that's what a sign said outside of a place called buellton.
26. vineyards. we left the heavy with grey oceanside for a while and low and behold drove into the sun and blue sky. we passed hills and hills and hills of vineyards.
28. sand dunes. we were coming up to pismo beach and i told heather how i read about it and the sand dunes there and she surprised me by wanting to stop. i mean i wanted to stop, but she was the one who was on a mission that we make it to monterey by night fall. but she wanted to stop and so we did. as we drove down to the beach we drove back into the marine layer. you could drive right down on the beach and drive along the beach if you wanted to, but we didn't. it was so neat there! the sand dunes went on forever and they were covered with this succulent type plant that had dark pink flowers. the sand was so soft and silky fine. we put some of it in heather's mug that she inadvertantly brought on the trip by leaving it in my trunk. we loved it there and could have stayed all day. heather said she would also relocate there purely for the sake of the dunes.
29. the elusive hearst castle. heather and i saw the signs for the hearst castle and we got all excited. but we never seemed to arrive at it and we'd think that we missed it. heather kept saying things like "if we missed it i'll be really mad." with a dark look on her face. but we finally got to the turn off for the hearst castle and we headed up the hill. we could see it way above us in remote hills. well our road went to this museum and didn't seem to go anywhere else and no signs pointed us onward so i sent heather inside to inquire. it turns out you have to pay big bucks to go further. you can't just drive by. you have to take a bus up there. we thought that this was ultra lame. i suggested we try to go further down the road to see if we could get any closer but heather didn't want to get into trouble. i said you can't get in trouble for driving down a road when there's no signs telling you not to. she said i was more adventurous than her. we let it go. i took a picture of it from far far far away.
30. pride and predjudice and elephant seals. instead we stopped at this place where you can see elephant seals. they were far away but i could see them. the beaches changed from big waves crashing on sandy shores, to rocky cliffs. actually it really reminded me of the scene in pride and predjudice (not the real one, ie. the a&e one, but the new one) where elizabeth is standing on the cliff dramatically with her dress blowing behind her.
31. windy roads. upon leaving the elephant seals i said to heather "i don't know why my dad said this was such a bad road and that it was all the same. i havent' found it that bad or too windy." not ten minutes later we started the windy roads portion of the trip. we would go up and around and around and down and up and around and down. the road was a contiual curve back and forth. i felt like i was slaloming. it was breath taking though. we were basically hugging the curves of the santa lucia mountains where they plunged into the sea. it was dazzling. the road was lonely. most of the time it seemed like it was just heather and in all this remote dangerous beauty and we by neccessity were going slow. most curves were 20 miles per hour or 15 and there were hardly any straight stretches. it seemed like none at all.
32. sunset beach state park. we passed montery. it wasn't like i expected. we found a campsite just as most of the light was fading in the farming community of watsonville, which was still along montery bay. it seemed like we drove through tons of farms to get to the park, and then it seemed like all the camp sites were up against these green houses of a neighbouring farm. "where's the beach?" i was stumped. "they lied to us." said a disallusioned heather. we picked a site in the south grouping by a big tree with large low branches. we set up the tent right away while we had some light. an unseen owl hooted over and over from his perch. we had to drive back to the gate of the park to pay for our site which was 25 dollars. when we got back, heather made herself a sandwich and i went to find the beach. it was totally dark now but there was a full moon and it was bright. i found a path through the vegetation behind the site right next to ours. i crossed a road and saw some picnic benches, a wood railing and a sign. i could hear the crashing waves. i walked up with this strange feeling in my stomach--a thrill like you get on the swing or like when you're very high. i was very high it turned out. there was a vast beach with pounding waves below me. in the low light it was kind of eerie but beautiful. i stared at the scene for a while and then went back to find heather. she was sitting in the car with her sand-oo-wee-chee. i joined her and made one for myself. then we changed and set things up and then i showed heather the beach. we read the sign by squinting. apparently this beach was part of the monterey bay national marine sanctuary, where there was the world's deepest or largest underwater canyons, and blue whales, for example. heather and i perked up at the blue whales. i didn't know there were blue whales down here! i said in wonder. the blue whale was always my favourite mammal when i was growing up simply because it was the biggest. jupiter was my favourite planet for the same reason. we watched what turned out to be the ranger drive along the beach with a spotlight and then we went back to the tent, i read in alma 18 or something by the light of the bike-light again, we talked and fell asleep.
in the morning we went exploring in our jammies. we went back to the beach and saw that there were stairs down to the beach. first we scanned the waters for blue whales but saw nothing. i suggested that some far away barey to be seen white boats were whales. i just wanted to see whales so badly. heather laughed at me. but she saw something black moving on the shore. could it be a seal we wondered? we went down to investigate. it was a long ways down but the cliff was covered with beautiful vegetaion. it was part of a "dunes re-vegetaion project" but these didn't seem like 'dunes' per se. they seemed like cliffs or steep hills. but what do i know. heather found a blossoming thistle which made her happy. the beach was long and reminded me a bit of long beach. pristine hardened shores like that. two guys were jogging along. it did turn out to be a seal. i walked as close as i dared to it. we didn't know if it was dead or sleeping but after a while i saw it take a deep breath. it was beautiful. we walked the beach for a while and of course took pictures and watched the sun come up over the steep hills. and then we pulled ourselves away.
33. pictures with cacti. the road out of the park was bordered with clusters of cacti on the edges of brown farm fields. we took pictures.
34. golden gate bridge! we got into san fran. around 11 in the morning. we were both in awe that we were in san fran. and then came the bridge. i was driving and heather was manically trying to snap shots of everything she could before it went past. luckily there was view point right after that you could pull over and take pictures to your heart's content, which is basically what we did. we took them from every angle we could think of and we walked out on the bridge part way and met some workers who work on the bridge and generally indulged in profound golden gate bridge euphoria. we could see alcatraz and i took pictures of a soaring hawk, and we saw a crazy dude in the middle of the straight paddling with his hands on what looked like a yellow surf board. we watched him for quite a while, wondering what was going on. eventually the coast guard showed up and although we can't say that we saw it happen, we believe he got picked up by them. i was wearing the cute oragamy crane earrings that elicia gave me for my birthday and they waved wildly in the wind and caught in my hair. we were there for around an hour and a half. i was near tears with gladness. it's something that happens to me.
35. more windy roads. after san fran we had more and more windy roads we crossed the coast ranges and saw lots more beautiful country with huge light houses and cliffs and sandy beaches. we drove through many small communities with signs that said "population 50" and stuff like that. the more north we got, the more the beaches began to look like the pictures i've seen of the oregon coast with the darker sand, and the huge rocks sitting on the beach. we stopped at one and took pictures. it was raining but we didn't care. the shrubs were windswept eastward.
36. garberville. it was just a small town that we stopped at to eat supper. one of the owners at heather's work told her to go out to eat with her girlfriend (moi) and it would be on him. we kept putting it off and now we were going to do it in garberville. we found the only likely place a cute little cafe with homemade fresh pasta. you order at the counter. so we took a while to decide and then went up and ordered. i wanted the raviloi but they didn't have it. he checked for me. so i changed to the black bean burrito. heather ordered the fettucinie cabonera. then we went to get drinks and heather asked the girl if they took credit cards. nope, they didn't. heather said "can you tell him not to do our order?" and we walked out. walked across the parking lot and had subway. the girl put lots of sauce on. it was good.
37. black bear on the hwy. we were so happy to be on a hwy with two lanes and with a speed limit of about 110 km/h. it had been so long. so we were going along shortly after garberville. we were going downhill and there was forrest on either side of the road. well all of a sudden a big black bear galloped (no he really galloped. he was giving it like no other.) across the road in front of us. well in one part of our respective brains we were like "wow, a black bear!" the other part was "oh my gosh we're going to hit that bear!!!" heather slammed on the brakes hard. my car's rear end slid up and to the side and we barely missed the bear who was, as heather said, probably on the other side of the road having a heart attack. we were having heart attacks of our own. heather was babbling. "sorry for swearing laura. sorry for swearing." then "uh oh laura, the oil light is on.... and he battery light..... the brakes aren't working!" "not at all??" i say in alarm as we are still heading downhill. "hardly at all!" says heather pumping the breaks to little effect. "the gas isn't really working either and the steering is funny." "laura..." we are still in the left lane and i point heather to the side of the road. not another car is in sight. we stop in silence. "what do you do now?" i say in a small helpless voice. "i don't know." says heather, "i don't know anything about cars." "me neither." i add although i know that both of us know this. we decide to say a prayer. i said it. i asked heavenly father to help us, pointing out that we didnt' know anything about cars and that we needed to get safely home and would he please make our car alright or send someone to help us. as i said that i felt a great feeling of love and comfort and i knew we'd be alright. we decided to look at the engine so heather popped the hood. this part was hilarious because we both just stood there blankly staring at the engine. "everything looks fine." i say to heather. she decides to check the oil even though i explain to her that i just had my oil changed before we left. as predicted the oil level is fine. heather gets back into the car and starts it up. everything works. i shut the hood and jump back in the car and we both feel very grateful and say a thank you prayer. heather has got the adrenalin shakes and goes under the speed limit for quite some time.
38. eureka tweekers. after our near death experience we felt justified in a motel. besides it was raining and we wanted to make as close to the red wood forrest as we could before we quit for the day. we got gas in eureka and the girl told heather that there wasn't really anywhere to stay further on, so we got a place at the motel 6. it only cost 56 dollars. the girl told heather to be careful because there were a lot of 'tweekers' in eureka, which we could only guess were druggies. the guy at the motel 6 was soooooooooooooooooooooo slow! he typed with one finger and there was a line up of people behind us. he was nice though. our bed spreads were bright, gaudy scenes from all over north american where they have motels. heather picked out toronto right away. we watched some tv before we went to sleep. i found a show about 'mormonism'. it was interesting. it had elder jensen (who i like) and some parts of interviews with elder packer too and steve's hero, richard bushman and lots of dissidents.
in the morning we saw just how sketchy this motel 6 was. there were a lot of shifty looking people around and they were eyeing us. or was it our imaginations? mebee. it was nice to sleep in a bed and have a shower though. that was nice.
39. redwood forrest. was beautiful and amazing. we hugged trees and oohed and ahhed and went on our way. we didn't find the tree you can drive through though.
40. world's largest elk herd. we drove by them lounging on an unfenced grassy field in front of a little red school house. we drove right up to them and they merely looked at us with mild curiosity as they lay about the lush green grass and chewed handfuls of it.
41. paul bunyun and his faithful ox blue. they were ginormous and hilarious. they both welcomed us to a place called 'mystic trees'. we drove by so many crazy wood carving places in northern california, but none so huge.
42. country pride. that was the name of the truck stop restaurant in oregon that we finally spent dave's money on. it cost a whopping 26 dollars. we both found it pretty funny that this fancy pants guy with a beamer offers us the world and we ate and country pride. as sarah would say "i felt like she had given me the moon and i didn't know what to do with it."
we left the coast after the redwood forrest and drove the rest of the way home on the i5, where nothing more that interesting happened besides a lot of rain showers, some rainbows and wowing heather by picking up a pen with my toes while driving. we got home at ten at night.
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