Visit a friend, go to the beach, put the kayak in the Atlantic
This was one of the first beach houses built in Ocean Hills, a subdivision of half acre lots between highway 12 and the ocean 5 miles south of the Virginia border, before they called the Outer Banks of North Carolina OBX.
The view in every direction looked like this.
There's a house on every lot these days and the view in every direction looks like this.
I won't give the details of my trip from Indiana except to say it was long and pleasant. If you are lucky enough to have kept a friendship for 50 or 60 years, it should be nourished with a visit. Maybe just to hang out.
We tested the waters on the Currituck Sound and inspected the wildlife. I wanted to be able to say that I had kayaked in both the Pacific and the Atlantic and I figured the sound would count. But when we got home we were only a block from the beach...
Then we snapped on the wheels from my kayak and rolled the little one down to the beach. We would take turns and help one another through the surf. Depending on the waves and wind, it can be easy or not. This mild day it was easy at low tide.
I am neck deep taking this picture.
This is the view from beyond the breakers and beyond the sandbar in the deep Atlantic. That's 8 million bucks worth of seaside cottages in the background and our little red rented kayak in the fore.
A friend stands by to help as I come in from the deep water. I need no help and can fall in the water all by myself.
We are super concious of the damage hurricanes cand do since Katrina. Ophelia is drenching the Outer Banks today. These lucky people have other homes where they can go when one is forecast.
No one thinks this playground can survive a direct hit by a Category 5 and most people who have given it the proper amount of thought think the dunes of the Outer Banks will return to a state similar to what is pictured here. Wild horses will graze again on sea oats and walk the beaches free. But it will be one of my favorite vacation spots as long as it is there and I am able.
Illinois Crossing
They don't need me in Kansas City where my mother-in-law is recuperates from a stroke and other ailments. When my wife decides to return home, the travel options are considered and a train to St. Louis wins her business. I will pick her up at the Amtrak Station and drive her back home to Indiana.
Fonder after her long absence, (tho we've been pretty fond for the last 50 years on average) I start out for the downtown St. Louis Station. Satellite radio blaring, I start out at least 1 hour early and transverse the state of Illinois squinting into the sun the whole way.
Disembodied voices surround me in the Pontiac and fill my head with pre-election notions about an Arab Prince and his judgments, about the judgments of the voices themselves and about the very fact that they are discussing what they are discussing when they are (which is now). This domestic intrigue does not seem to fit the images of just picked corn fields that pass my windows and it is a little crazy making. A stop for gas goes with the warning that it may contain more than 10 percent alcohol but I have faith that my General Motors fuel injectors will sense that and adjust. Converting a high performance engine to run on "fuel" instead of "gas" was quite a task 50 years ago and took amateur mechanics all morning to perform at the Terre Haute Drag Strip one Sunday sunday sunday. Once completed, it was the only car in its class and only had to attain the speed of 60mph in the .25 mile to claim a trophy. It was Jimmy Kellums and Walt Pygman slaving away on a 46 Ford Ragtop to make the conversion. They got their win, I think I remember right, but not on the first try and the sputtering Ragtop made me want to lean forward in my seat as if to help Jimmy toward the finish.
Driving alone in the country brings old memories like that back to me once the political accusations and defenses fade into background chatter. Speeding or slowing to avoid the clumps of cars and trucks that collect on the paved stream occupies a third thread. In computer terms, we multi-process as drivers and the fact that my fellow travelers are doing the same makes me wonder that the accident rate is at an acceptable rate (or is that something they are chattering about on another station?).
With my map securely folded and tucked into the glove box, I drive right to (I-70, I-55, I-64/US40) Market Street and to the Union Station. I've been here before in about 1958 and it seems to have been restored. It has everything. People are laughing and loving in the parking lot. Couples, Families, groups of teens. I walk past the signs that point to Hard Rock Cafe entrance, I pass a reflective pool and see fast foods and tourist shops on three levels inside the station. An information desk looks like an Airport traveler's aid stand. I have begun to suspect that Amtrak would not pay the rent required at this downtown pleasure mall. My eye catches a sign pointing to Hooters and I'm sure that there is no actual train station in this theme park but I ask anyway and am told that I'm 6 blocks off (courteously ignoring the temporal displacement).
The path from St. Louis Union Station (an homage to the great past of passenger rail) to the present Amtrak passenger depot takes me about 6 blocks. It skirts the edge of a giant sports palace that is open for business as I pass and I'm lucky that the hordes are within and not clogging the streets with their coming or going. A tiny sign points the way to the Amtrak and the road becomes less smooth. Smiling yuppies and their kids and pets do not flock to this neighborhood of warehouses and trucks. The road, if paved at all, needs great repair and one must dodge giant mail trucks jockeying for position at a mail transfer center.
A pencil thin man in a dark suit and stingy brimmed hat turns his face away from the light and drinks from a large bottle poorly concealed inside a small brown paper bag. He tucks his deception away Wily Coyote style so that no bulge shows and walks as if stumbling down hill toward the temporary structure that is the Amtrak Station.
I follow and look for a place to park amongst aging cars on a poor lot. A check of the board tells me that the train will come in a few minutes from Kansas City. Its few passengers will be replaced by the few waiting here and they will swap places with some folks going from Chicago to somewhere and so on. Some are off on great life changing adventures, some move from one place where they aren't wanted to another, some will do their duties someplace and, like my dear lady, come home to rest.
Judy, wheeled bag in tow, searches the crowd for me to take her home. She's been caring for every need of her stroke victim mother for weeks and needs a rest. I can see that she hasn't been caring for herself. Somehow, that endears me more to her than if she had hopped off the train perfectly coiffed with full make-up applied. I'd like to see her with her 40 year ago shape once again but I suppose she'd like me to lose this pot and grow back some forelocks too.
I'm glad to have her with me again. We drive across the Illinois darkness and listen to Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou duets as if for the first time.
She will rest and sleep as long as she likes today and it gives me a chance to write this.
January 29, 2004
Arizona Nature
On the last full day we were to stay there, January 27th, I sensed something wrong the moment I walked out of the condo. I stopped and looked around. It was sunny and cool like every other day I'd seen all month long but the difference was that there was no wind. No wind! All month the wind has come up at about 10am and blown hard enough to discourage all but the most fanatic kayaker but it was still today at 1pm.
As if there was no time to lose, I removed my kayak from storage and loaded her on top of the Pontiac. Judy went along for the ride to the island at Lake Havasu City and helped me hurry to get the kayak into the water. There was no sign that wind would begin to blow but we were taking no chances. I paddled for about 2 and a half hours and that took me a little less than a third of the way around the island and back, back tracking because I wanted to pass under the London Bridge twice.
I over did it for someone in the shape I'm in but I slept late the next morning and I'll remember the day on that part of the Colorado River for a long time. There are a few
pictures showing my trip on a dammed river around a man made island under a relocated bridge dodging casino shuttles, faux stern wheelers and tenors.
Changing our minds about the desert
Mail From Home...
Computer access on the road is not confined to Starbucks hot spots. If you can park near enough to one, you can use your tailgate as a portal on the internet. I am in Rancho Mirage, CA in the above picture.
If Yogi Berra did say of a New York night spot that no one goes there anymore; it's too crowded, I know how he felt.
This California desert is anything but deserted.
Refugees from crowded places jam together here along the irrigated strips making it a more crowded place than the one they deserted.
Next it will be not dry and not warm here.
We may not want to winter here every year.
Unless something grabs us, we will not buy this year but will rent in one or two areas to see if we think we would like it.
More about that later.
First Impressions of Palm Springs (and second)
Today my travels take me to Palm Springs where:
1) little old ladies clad in golden metallic Lexus honk impatiently as you pause in one of the three exit lanes to mail your house payment back to Indiana.
2) their wealth affords the residents greening of their plots, greener than Indiana in spring (which I am told is greener than Ireland).
3) aside from an occasional jogger or dog walker, the only people you see outside are the brown skinned servants of the estates doing their jobs.
4) I have the realization that it is crasser here than in Las Vegas.
But:
1) Judy opines that the silver haired ladies in the golden Lexus figure their time on earth is short and don't want to spend any of it waiting behind me in a parking lot.
2) Developers found a way to green their pockets with retirement money knowing "if you build it, they will come".
3) These relatively lowly paid workers are my friends and benefactors. They are, after all, paying my social security. 4) It's not too bad here. I was just cranky - probably an effect of the drive here from the coast being tougher than I had expected.
Fans.
The drive from Long Beach to Palm Springs crosses the breadth of the L. A. basin. An 11 a.m. start gets you there at 1 p.m. When you get there, you need to relax.
I've forgotten the mileage but it is probably 120 miles or so of freeway driving. 605 to 91 to 60 to 10. When you live in it, you don't see the vastness of urban sprawl that is L. A. I've been away long enough to see it with new eyes. It is not for me.
To me the signal of the end of L. A. is the wind farms on I-10. Prevailing winds venturi through the mountain pass and countless high tech wind driven turbines generate electricity. I've heard that this is more costly than the power made by burning things but, knowing that figures don't lie but liars can figure, my instincts tell me that these wind farms are a good thing. OK, I don't suppose birds like flying through this mountain pass any more but these whirli-rigs signal my escape from L. A. and that’s a good thing.
On an earlier trip, I passed these thousands of spinning blades then stopped at an outlet mall down the road a bit at the edge of super suburbia. Hats blew away and shoppers squinted eyes and clutched bags.
"Maybe they should turn off those fans.", I said. But my voice was lost in the wind.
Naples
Get the Brand New Cobra Navigator wet.
Naples California Pictures.
Today, this last day of November, is the first day for me to use my new kayak. The weather could not have been more perfect for it. Blue skies, 77 degrees and little wind.
I have learned to balance the Navigator atop my head and carry it to the car. It loads easily (from the pictures, I think I should have loaded it more to the front.) It's a short drive to Baby Beach in the Naples section of Long Beach and they don't enforce the parking meters on Sundays so I was quickly afloat.
I have a few pictures but none of the Sea Lions. I couldn't un-wrap my camera in time to digitize them. I hope you enjoy the
pictures.
