Central Coast

Two years ago I made my first drive south of San Francisco in many, many years. I remember wondering why it had taken me so long, because I was really taken by the beaches just below San Luis Obispo (where I am writing this before I head out for Sacramento and Tahoe). It's really all about family for me in California and, at that time, everyone was up north. My nephew had lived in the Napa Valley or the East Bay of SF for years. My in-laws have been in Tahoe forever and my hometown is so far north you could call it Oregon. Now that Phil has relocated to Orange County (OC to the locals), I am going to be spending a lot of time in the area that I have just been visiting during the last few days - the Central Coast of California.

Spend the day at the beach or do a winery tour. Enjoy some fine dining ( I ate at one the restaurants used in the movie Sideways). A highlight for me was hiking on the Sedgewick Ranch, a 6,000 acre area that has been deeded to UC Santa Barbara for research. Google it. I'm sure that you could also get the lay of the land on horseback. I went into an old feed & grain in Santa Ynez that made it pretty obvious that a lot of folks are into horses and chickens around here. It's all rolling hills and oaks and it can get pretty warm, but the marine flow is nearby and tempers that heat. Take a drive on a curvy, mountain road and watch vistas of the Pacific. It's great!

I'm missing Bill. He knows what I mean about the light. Last evening I was in Santa Barbara at their waterfront with our old friend, Paul Rail, and he and I both felt like we were looking at a scene from a French Impressionist painting. I'm not sure that I captured it on my camera but at least I'll have a memory. We had been at a beach a little farther north for the afternoon watching people hang gliding off of the bluff. Oh, those teen-aged, bikini-clad surfer girls.

Once again, I am spending time on this blog when I should be getting on the road. Today I am driving up to Sacramento where I will stay with Bill's old college roommate and his wife, dear friends that we try to connect with every time we are close. Good cooks, too. Their son, Alex, and our Katy were born a few days apart. I suppose their house was built in the 50's, maybe older, in a typical Sacramento neighborhood with lots of big trees for shade because it is so frigging hot all of the time, although they might poo-p00 that. I can take a day or two of the valley heat and then I need to climb to a higher, cooler altitude and commune with the Sierras. That's where I am heading on Friday and will hang with Bill's sister and her husband for several days. I will read, cook, go to Fallen Leaf Lake for a swim and see the latest work on the landscaping at their new home. I'll share my latest tunes from my iPod and we will dance in the living room. It is my second home and I can already smell the pines.

If I Could Just Get Off Of This LA Freeway

I-5 to 605 to 210 from Laguna Niguel to Pasadena on a Sunday afternoon proved to be somewhat harrowing plus I needed diesel and ice and it's not like being out on the open road where you can see the gas stations well before the exit. My first try proved nil on both counts so I kept driving until my wonderful information unit in my car said that I only had 30 miles to empty and I was trying to keep up with the traffic and starting to maybe worry a little bit when I saw this really faded Mobil sign and I took the exit and got lucky. I don't even know how many towns I went by on that drive but I ended up at my Aunt Zella's sister's house in Altadena and all was good in the world. Yvonne and I are in-law relatives but I have know her since childhood and I have known about her house for almost 50 years. What a pleasure to finally visit this incredibly lush and beautiful place. I am amazed by the succulents in Southern California and Yvonne's were no exception (I took this photo from my bed when I woke up this morning.) If I hadn't just been swimming at my nephew's that morning, I would have jumped into her pool immediately it was that inviting. She cooked a delicious dinner and we played Tile Rummy, which I used to play with Zella, who I grew up next door to. I could write an entire blog on Zella and Yvonne who are icons to me. Let me just say that you would be amazed to find out Yvonne is 90 years old.

This morning I set out for Santa Barbara thinking that it would be straightforward because it was just up the coast aways and I could do it on my own without my GPS lady and I don't even have a map of California except for my road atlas because, hey, I'm a Californian. Oh, man. First I got turned around in Pasadena but that was cool because it is a tremendous old city with the most beautiful architecture and landscaping. I finally found the freeway ramp and I was off... kind of like playing a video game. Fast and furious, lots of lane changing, lots of splitting off to different freeways on the right and the left and I mostly was on the wrong side for where I probably should have gone and then I'm going north on 2 and I'm pretty sure that's wrong so I turn off and then there I am on the Glendale Freeway up on this hill looking down on the San Fernando Valley on one side and the very smoggy skyline of LA on the other and I am like in Los Angeles and I could go to Beverly Hills or Sherman Oaks or all kinds of places just like that. I am driving where Bill grew up. That's when I saw the Ventura Freeway sign and I thought that rang a bell so I took it and then decided to get off and look at my map and call Bill so I took the Forest Lawn exit. Forest Lawn? There was a sign that said Zoo so I turned in to find a parking lot and it was Griffith Park. Amazing! When I got Bill on the phone, he told me he fell out of a tree there when he was a kid and that his grandmother was buried in Forest Lawn. They used to go there on Sundays. He also confirmed that the Ventura Freeway would become Hwy 101 and I would be in Santa Barbara in about 90 minutes.

Oh, yes. Soon I was looking at the coastal mountain savannah of brown grass and oaks that runs all the way up California and a big smile was on my face. When I came around a bend near Oxnard it was suddenly all fog - I was home at last. Farther up the coast there were a lot of surfers out and the scenic beauty just got more and more tremendous. I went to summer school at UCSB in 1966 when I was still in high school and I have not been back since. I had forgotten how lovely a town it is and how stunning the scenery is with those mountains as a backdrop. I also had reunions with two brothers that I went to high school with and I will relate more about that later because I am going to bed now, ladies and gentlemen. I am in Santa Ynez at my friend Jolie's and you will read about this spot, too, in a later edition.

Family Time

I am about to depart, once again, but this time from my sister and her son's family. We have had a wonderful visit and I hate to break the spell. It's been grand to have two little children in my world again, to be singing lullabies and reading them to sleep. They have worn me out in the pool. I want to stay and be their nanny.

Nancy and I took them down to Escondido today to meet another cousin, who has made an oasis with her husband at the top of a hill. Avacado trees and peaches, tortoises and chickens, heirloom tomatoes and eggplant - and special places to sit and rest or meditate. Bill and Debby do a lot of traveling and it is reflected inside their home. It was exquisite. Then it was discovered that Bill brewed beer and that the Stone Brewery was just down the hill and that was that. We were in our cars and gone. What a place.... Simone and Dylan played in a creek by our outside table while folks enjoyed brews at two large bars, inside and out. It was a stunning place and the hops were just right. My duck tacos weren't bad, either.

I guess it's hot everywhere right now. I hope everyone is enjoying the peak of summer. I occasionally have these moments when I realize that I could be listening to the news and plugging in and that I am not going to for the ENTIRE SUMMER. I do know that D.C. had an earthquake that woke Maggie up and that they may have finally plugged that evil oil spill. The Tour de France is on every night here so I am watching the most beautiful scenery one could imagine and there seems to be some kind of golf tournament going on.

Tomorrow I am going to make the journey from Laguna Niguel to Altadena, perhaps a one hour drive, and visit Debby's mother, Yvonne, sister to Aunt Zella, who I grew up living next door to in Crescent City. Zella and Yvonne have been icons to me all my life - beautiful, intelligent, cosmopolitan, active, passionate - it has been two years since Zella died, just after her 90th birthday, and it is still hard for us to reconcile that she is gone. I look forward to soaking up stories and history and, if I know Yvonne, some really good wine.

I spent quite a bit of time this evening organizing photos and I hope to post an album soon so you can see much more than I have shown you so far. Tomorrow is Day 20 and I begin to climb slowly through the state of California.

SoCal I hardly knew you

It is a fact that I am a native Californian, but one that I have not always wanted to admit. After living in D.C. for 8 years it has become easier to "out" myself but, because my hometown is 20 miles from the Oregon border, I usually say I am from the Pacific Northwest and, since I went to college at OSU and spent most of my adult life in Oregon, I sometimes say I am an Oregonian.

Why such an issue? Because, if you tell most people you are from California they immediately think of all that is not where I am from: Hollywood, movie stars, la la land, freeways and suburban sprawl like you cannot believe, Valley girls and bad actors that become politicians. When I was a freshman in college, a foreign exchange student from Columbia in my dorm complex learned I was from California and immediately thought that I would sleep with him. Common lore puts Santa Barbara in Northern California. I am happy to include San Francisco, but please, Santa Barbara is so not in the north.

So, recently my nephew and his wife relocated to Orange County for employment reasons and we all shrieked and moaned but, hey, they have two beautiful children and so, here I am in Laguna Niguel examining the natives. Most of them wear bikinis or Hawaiian print surf wear. All of the architecture is Spanish looking and there are a lot of palm trees. It is really very lush. We went to the beach yesterday and I was overjoyed to put my feet into the Pacific and the sand felt pretty much like up north, just not as dark. It's very bright.

The housing developments and shopping centers are endless. I am recalling a high school speech tournament where we were given the subject of megalopalis ..... well, here it is. One town stretches into another and there is not a hint of agriculture or even the desert that this all rose from. It's all the same stores that you see all across this country, but somehow they have a different aura: you need to go in, you need to have what everyone else has and maybe first.

Family prevails and I am very happy to stay with them. Simone and Dylan are delightful children and they are keeping me very active. Soon I will drive north and start hitting the landscape that I am more attuned to. Maybe even Santa Barbara will be looking better.

By the Time I Get To Phoenix

..... I will have driven over 3,000 miles and taken 450 photos
..... I will have seen the hills of Appalachia, met the premier guitar builder in the land (Wayne Henderson) and visited the Carter Family Fold and a great-grandson of Maybelle Carter
..... I will have been to both the Bluebird Cafe and the Ryman Theater, seen the Grand Ol Opry and been in a swimsuit photo shoot at Nashville's Art Crawl in the Arcade AND toured Cheekwood Botanical Gardens during a Chihuly glass exhibit
.... I will have driven through the countryside of Tennessee on a sunny 4th of July Sunday and then landed in downtown Memphis for a whirlwind three days of music - both in museums and in the clubs - and met some very fine, warm people on Beale Street
..... I will have finally seen Fayetteville, Arkansas, a town that has interested me for many years, and the surrounding area in the Boston Mountains, which is very reminiscent of the Blue Ridge
.... I will have watched the hills recede and the plains approach in eastern Oklahoma, visited Woody Guthrie's hometown and been forced off the road in Oklahoma City by torrential rainstorms. That was good. I discovered the Red Cup, an amazing coffee shop with some great, old geezers sitting on the porch.
.... I will have set my eyes on the wide open spaces with grass and cattle and clouds forever in a blue sky and had the best BBQ ever in Amarillo, Texas
..... I will have been moved to tears by the landscapes that inspired Georgia O'Keefe and actually walked by her home plus visited friends who have built a paradise outside of Santa Fe
.... I will have been pulled off of the interstate once again by rain at Flagstaff, Arizona and found the most beautiful roadhouse with a dance floor and stage that makes me want to form a band right now!
..... Still in Flagstaff I met a young girl in line at a very new age coffee house who goes to St John's College in Annapolis and sails and then sat down next to a woman who is going to visit her sister in Laguna Niguel (my destination of sorts with my sister, where my nephew lives). OK. The second woman had just been to a metaphysical conference on earth's energies in Sedona and she has a massage business in Kawai. It was what you would call "trippy."
..... It's 4:30 Mountain Time and I have a 2-hour drive to Nancy's in Phoenix. Had to stay here in Flagstaff to watch the end of the World Cup..... wow.

Road Food

I am sitting in a cheap hotel off of I-40 somewhere in Oklahoma near the Texas border. I am pretty certain that I do not want to eat at any restaurant in town and that's OK because I have my dinner with me. Spinach salad with red pepper, red onion and a grilled chicken breast plus an Australian cabernet. Tomorrow I will snack on whole grain crackers with cheese, hummus and olives. The attached photo is of my breakfast, which was greatly improved by those adorable wine berries (wild raspberries) from the farmer's market in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I also found a great natural food store in Fayetteville where I could restock my cereal and soy milk.
I am more and more grossed out by restaurant fare where fries are the side no matter what the main course is. I'm constantly asking for substitutions and starting to watch what the people around me are eating. It's not pretty.
I love being on the South Beach diet but no potatoes and no white bread has made it very challenging on the road. Last night I ended up at a Denny's at 11:00 as my cooler was almost empty. Bad planning. After reading the menu back to front three times, I chose the "create your own" breakfast: two eggs, turkey bacon, fruit and grits - pretty sure that grits are borderline. I lived and promised my self I would be better prepared in the future.
Nashville and Memphis both proved to be excellent towns for dining experiences without totally busting my budget (it was the hip clothing store going out of business next to the restaurant that proved to be the problem), but having a cooler in the back of the car with my handy-dandy camping box has made eating on the road a lot of fun.
Now, finding the right coffee shop.... that's when the adventure begins.

Stuck in Memphis with the Delta Blues, Amen

I have checked out of my hotel, which I thought would get me motivated to drive West but then I was so torn over heading to Little Rock, which is the correct direction, and taking Hwy 61 south to the Crossroads and Clarkston, MS that I just stopped the car in the South Main Arts District so I could contemplate my next move. That was around noon and now it is almost 3:00. I discovered a whole different neighborhood from downtown and Beale Street even though Main Street runs throughout. There is a trolley that runs up and down Main and over to the Bluff, where you can walk on the river.

This neighborhood has the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel, where Dr. King was shot so that was powerful to walk around. I am already torn up over seeing some of the ghetto neighborhoods here in Memphis (where Stax is) so I decided to not go inside the museum. I had lunch at Beignet's, around the corner. Yum.... gator bites, fried green tomatoes and steamed shrimp with green salad. The Bloody Mary just seemed the right thing to do. Hey, people, I am on vacation here!

I leave Memphis this afternoon with a long list of what I did not get to see: the Gibson factory, Mud Island park, walking the Bluffs, Graceland, the Center for Southern Folklore, the Cotton Museum, the Underground Railroad museum, a photo exhibit at the art museum called Who Shot Rock. Here is what I did see:
Rock and Soul Museum - spent over 3 hours inside with an iPod to go along with the exhibits
Stax Museum - was there at least two hours. Isaac Hayes gold cadillac is worth the admission
Sun Recording Studios - more of a guided tour but the collection of instruments was awesome

I also did things like drive across town to a camera shop for some repair work, walk around Overton Park hoping to see the rock photography exhibit but the museum was closed, and, this morning, search for my phone somewhere on Beale Street. Good news is.... I found it!

Beale Street is so much better than the music strips in Nashville or New Orleans. I don't know how many blues muscians live in Memphis but it's got to be in the hundreds. There are bands in all of the clubs every night and most of what I heard was very good. I was told that the really top players won't show up until Thursday or Friday. Everyone thought I should stick around. Everyone being a small group of locals, some being guitar players in a band called Delta Time that I listened to two nights in a row at Rum Boogie. I am now friends with a man whose cousins played on Love and Happiness with Al Green at Hi Recording Studio. Now those are credentials!

I know that my friends in DC are suffering a heat wave, but it isn't exactly cool here. 90 degrees and thunderheads means it is very sticky. Maybe that's a good thing, because if it was cooler I would go walk on the river right now instead of getting in the car and motivating. I'm pretty sure Hwy 61 is out of the question if I want to make Fayetteville by dark.

Oh, yes. I stuck my head in a Folk Alliance non-profit shop and had a delightful conversation with two young women who filled me in on an entirely different music scene here in Memphis plus told me where to get good coffee in Fayetteville. Get this, they gave me a free sampler CD and who should be on it but Chico Schwall.... an old friend from Eugene. Get out of here! He's part of some big festival they have in Memphis in the winter. There is also a big blues congregation in January that sound interesting.

Signing off for now. Oh, yes. Beignet's may be on the food channel for their Mac and Cheese balls. They basically freeze it and then make balls, roll in crumbs and fry them up. Not on my diet but they sounded pretty darn good. Traveling with South Beach is the topic of another blog.

Take care and as absoutely everyone says to me.... be safe.