LoR So Cal Epic Road Trip

[FatStupidAmerican]

Sunday, May 9 2010, The night before

It is 11:08PM Pacific right now as I begin this first post. I am about to call it a night after a long day of studying, writing a paper and preparing for this road trip.

I am Wesly, or the FatStupidAmerican. I am not very active here on the LoR forums as I lurk a lot. My activity is found in #lor.

For those of you unaware, I am going on a road trip, for one week I will make my way up from Southern California back to my home in Nor Cal. Why do I post this here in the LoR forums? Well I am going with fellow LoR members and will be meeting up with other LoR members on the way.

This all started when I began harassing Sinenox over skype chat. There I bragged about the quality and easy access I have to Mexican food. Food she misses so dearly while living on the East Coast. Tonight is the night before her flight into her home of Southern California, I can only imagine she is salivating of the thought of consuming that greasy, heart stopping goodness known to us as a burrito. I made sure to remind her, as my dinner was a large plate of nachos, which I photographed and set to her. Real nachos, not the Velveeta shit, but chips topped with beef, cheddar, and green onions. I know I am going to have to run and extra mile to burn this off in the morning, but it is totally worth the cost.

Oh yes where was I? After a while Sinenox told me that she was planning on visiting California after the semester was over and we intended on getting together. Later we found out Kent, one of the Danish LoR members was planning a visit to the states, and as a proud son and daughter of California, Sinenox and I convinced Kent to swing over to California as part of his visit. Right now Kent is in New York, he has been there for several days. I hope he is getting the full New York experience; meaning by the time I see him in LA he would have put on thirty pounds, gotten his ass kicked a few times, contracted gonorrhea and smells of piss.

I pitched the plan of flying into Oregon or Northern California then making our way south down on the 101 stopping in San Francisco where we would meet up with Sinenox. I wanted to show him the parts of California that I love to photograph and have greatly influenced me to take up my study of Geography. A trip starting in Nor Cal or possibly Oregon; that rabid Aspie had to get in on this action. That aspie was Mussolini. He wanted to see Redwood National Park. A park I would have insisted we stay and camp for a few days. Redwood National Park is located some thirty miles south of the Oregon California border on the coast. I am not even going to try to describe the beauty of this place; you just have to come see the sights of this place yourself.

We decided that we were going to get together. Instead of touring the North Coast we decided on touring So Cal instead. This is probably the first time I've ever looked forward to a trip to So Cal in my life. Visiting So Cal with my family as a child involved lots of shopping and me fighting a battle with an uninterested family just to see Joshua Tree National Park.

We are all meeting up in Los Angeles, you know, that city without a sky. From there we will head into San Diego. It seems that our plans are not 100% set in stone. We hope to visit Anza-Borrego State Park, and I am hoping myself to see the east sore of the Salton Sea. It seems that we are just going to play it by ear and just pick our destinations as we progress with this trip.

Once in LA, we hope to stop and visit with the fatherly figure of #lor, Michalchik. Leaving So Cal we are going to travel up highway one into San Francisco. All I have to say is BIG SUR! I am looking forward to seeing Big Sur, Monterey Bay and Half Moon Bay again. We will reach San Francisco and spend a few days there, possibly going out on day trips outside of the city, but most definitely touring the city. I would love to take them to my favorite art gallery the Frankel Gallery, and maybe spend a day at the California Academy of Science. While in San Francisco we are going to meet up with the blue haired vixen that is LoneLocust.

The only thing I am regretting about this trip is that we are going by car. I wasn't even going to try to convince the three of them to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco on bicycle.

Oh wait also, NO ONE DRINKS BEER! Sinenox, Michal, Musso, Kent, LoneLocust, not of them drinks beer, this is going to be a rather dry trip for me.

Wesly K. Hunum ~ FatStupidAmerican

 

[CosmicSpork]

Sounds like a awesome idea! Make sure you take plenty of pics!

 

[Squawk]

 

[Gnomesmusher]

Dang, this sounds like a fun trip. I live in OC and while I don't really know any of you, maybe we can grab a beer since I DO drink beer.

 

[FatStupidAmerican]

Los Angeles

It's 7:49. I am in Los Angeles and I sitting across from Mussolini eating the continental breakfast at the La Quinta Inn.

It took about nine hours for me to travel from Sacramento to Los Angeles via Amtrak. I enjoy traveling via Amtrak, it is not as cramped or restrictive as an air plane and I get to read, bull shit with other travelers etc. I haven't been to Los Angeles in a really long time.

We are all here, well we are not here together at the La Quinta breakfast, but we are all here together in Los Angeles. It is a bit strange having to look at the faces of people who were previously just voices.

Last night it took Sinenox and I five to ten minutes to shut up the Aspie and the Dane at 4:10 in the morning so we could finally get some sleep. Even that wasn't enough to silence the room, as the Dane began his all out assault on our sense by snoring and passing gas.

 

[terriblecanyons]

I'm proud to say I got a phone call and talked to the lot (FSA, kent, Musso) and had a game they'd been playing explained to me: you take the name of a car model (ex. Explorer) and put anal in front of it, so explorer becomes anal explorer. That's pretty much what any of them had to say to me. Thanks, guys! :lol:

 

[Gnug215]

Pics or it didn't happen!

Arh, so, just got Skyped by FSA, who had Musso, Kent and sinenox in the back, laughing a lot.
Clearly, putting on a show to make it seem like the trip is a lot of fun, when it isn't! Hah!

I mean, imagine sitting in a car with Musso all day!

 

[Squawk]

PS: gnug, fuck you.

It was seem my post above was accurate

 

[CosmicSpork]

For those who don't know, would you mind pointing out who is who in the pics?

 

[Gnug215]

Yeah, Musso, get with it!

And more pics, you ninny!

 

[5810Singer]

So far in the mystical land of California I have had a fun time. After waking up and then having FSA attacking my foot and eating rather food of fail, we were off. We went to the tar pits and we uh, managed to see water....make bubbles. Later, we went to San Diego and saw lots of animals....like mallards, snakes and polar bears....mallards.....did I mention the mallards? And we went on the gondolas and I got to talk in my true aspie voice and I may have yelled to the entire park of the amount of ducks I saw. Also, I sat in the ocean! Now we are off to the east, to stare at sand, but it's not by the ocean! Crazyness.

PS: gnug, fuck you.

MALLARDS!

And did they bow down and accept your ducky greatness, il Duce?

 

[FatStupidAmerican]

May 12 2010

A summary of two days of travel

Tuesday

The last update was a short update. From Los Angeles we've travel into San Diego and from San Diego we traveled through Anza Borrego then into San Bernardino.

While in LA we went to the La Brea Tar Pits. The La Brea Tar Pits is a part of Los Angeles where many fossilized remains were found. There at the museum you can see a lot of the remains they've uncovered like a huge wall of skulls. After leaving the museum we moved onto lunch were Sinenox had her first taste of Chipotle in a long time. After lunch we moved onto San Diego.

Arriving in San Diego we headed over to Balboa Park, the location of the San Diego Zoo we were rushed through because we arrived a bit late. We ran our way through the Zoo were Mussolini was in hunt to find a penny so he could get his hands on those souvenir penny things. We took the acrophobic aspie up on the gondola. There he screamed "mallards!" in a vary characteristic voice he uses.

After leaving the zoo we headed over to the beach. At that point the sun began to make its march towards the horizon line. I stood in the sand with my cotton jeans rolled up to my knees as the waves crashed into my shins. The water was cold but bearable; unlike the coastal upwelling waters of northern California. Musso took a swim in the Pacific and Kent joined him. I was a bit worried, wondering if Musso was aware that the rip tides may take him out into the Pacific, wondering if my fat ass would have to jump in a save the skinny aspie.

Following the time on the beach we ended the night with a trip a Mexican restaurant in old town San Diego. There I ate a fantastic enchilada and Kent got drunk off on one beer. Sinenox, again excited at the prospect of eating Mexican food, ate an envious fajita. Musso had a chicken burrito and Kent and a quesadilla. I swear those two have the most sensitive pallets.

That was a long day and we zonked out after dinner.

Wednesday marked our longest distance of travel.

We heading out of San Diego and headed over to the Wild Animal Park, we wandered around then enjoyed a ride on the tour bus with Allison, the child obsessed narrator. We didn't spend much time there, before setting out to the town of Julian.

Julian is a small town at altitude. Julian is a typical American old town. Most of the architecture is very reminiscent of the architecture you would find in a town that grew during the California Gold Rush. Julian had a Main Street oriented in the typical east west fashion. Like many other old towns in California, it acts as a bit of a boutique of the American old town charm. I always love seeing these old, small rural towns, but I always wonder how they survive.

We left Julian, heading into Anza Borrego State Park, a beautiful desert just east and San Diego. The road we traveled leaving Julian was a mountain pass heading into the valley, was a very curvy road, Musso said "This road is very curvy and bumpy, if it were a woman, I'd hit that." We only stopped there briefly, but I would have loved to have stayed there longer, equipped with my camelback, gators and a tough pair of pants. I've spent little time exploring deserts; most of my time spent outdoors has been in the Sierra or on the north coast of California. We stayed there only briefly before heading to the Salton Sea.

For those unfamiliar, the Salton Sea is this heavily polluted sea located in southern California. The sea served as a dumping site for many decades. The Salton Sea is heavily saline, and is contaminated with rocket fuel and other industrial waste that I cannot identify. We went to the eastern shore of the sea in hopes of seeing its ghost towns; instead we encountered small communities living in the polluted breeze. We were unable to repress our mental conditioning inherited from years of horror movies as we drove slowly around Bombay Beach. Bombay Beach was much more inhabited than we were expecting, the glares of the locals living there frightened all of us. We couldn't stop the feeling that we were in the scene of a horror moving about to start. I felt good about it though. White people die in horror movies, you almost never see Asians in horror movies, so we must be the ultimate survivors, and I had three white people meat shields.

We continued north 111 and found a place where we could drive to the sore of the Salton Sea. There you can see tons of dead fish that are well preserved in the salt of the sea water. Below our feet were the remains of dead preserved fish and most likely other animals. There I photographed the sea and I remained there as long as I could before feeling the need to puke from breathing in the fumes of the lake. Leaving the lake we were forever marked by the horrors of un-check, unregulated use of the land around us.

We left the Salton Sea, Sinenox and I had a mission, a serious mission, we had to find some In and Out.

We found it, and it was everything I expected it to be plus more.

 

[Squawk]

You never mentioned you were off to see relatives of mine...

 

[terriblecanyons]

Images temporarily removed at the request of FSA, by Squawk

 

[Tylzen]

The last one is obviously not Musso heiling, it is him keeping his pimp hand strong.

 

[FatStupidAmerican]

Traveling the 1

San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco

After Sinenox and I polished off the In and Out we made our way to the hotel in San Bernardino. We called it a night and woke up set out for the San Bernardino Mountains for a morning of hiking, but was unable to do so since so many of the trails were closed for some unexplained reason. So instead of a morning of hike we spend the morning driving through the mountains and enjoying the view. It was very unfortunate that we were unable to explore the hills of San Bernardino, after spending so many days

After heading off the mountain we went and paid a visit to a college campus, before setting off to begin our trek on the 1 and the 101. From Santa Barbara and on traveling north on the coast was a combination of traveling on the 1 or the 101. A lot of people travel the coastal route up or down California on the 101 and the 1. This highway is known for its magnificent vistas. We arrived on the coastal route in roughly Santa Barbara before heading north. Since we spent most of the morning in San Bernardino and various parts of Southern California we only spent a few miles on the 1. While on the 1 we stopped at Pismo Beach before heading into San Luis Obispo. While in San Luis Obispo we encountered a street fair. Several city blocks were cordoned off for this fair and produce market. I love street fairs, I love the little things that cities do to get the locals out and about on the streets for a good time. While large events within a city are usually what draw the most outside attention, it is the small events that are typically constrained to a local level that contributes greatly to an interested local culture. I couldn't help be dream about making my return to school at San Luis Obispo. We ended up spending the night at San Luis Obispo, and it was a fun night. I got the opportunity to split off from the group and little and walk around to experience some of the night life. I talked to a few of the locals, had a beer and traveled around on their grid by foot. It was when I arrived in San Luis Obispo I began a yearning for my bicycle. I wanted to tour this small town on my bike and ride to various points along the beach.

We all called it a night and set off again North on the 1, before heading out I picked up a new awesome thing, a Thomas Guide of California. For those who don't know, I am a Geographer and for the most part I've been doing this trip with just the guidance of Sinenox and her knowledge of Southern California. I have a map and it was amazing. From San Luis Obispo we made our way into Marro Bay to see Marro rock, which marked the second stop on this trip that I made and exposure with my Mamiya; the first being at the Salton Sea. Marro Bay is a beautiful place. Marro Bay is a small beach town located on a natural bay that was made into an artificial harbor. One of its most identifiable features is Marro Rock, a volcanic plug that sits at the entrance to the Harbor. There are two rivers the flow into Marro Bay and possible more that make the harbor and estuary. I was very excited to see Marro Rock again, so much so my outburst of joy startled the very drowsy and hungry Sinenox. After a sort stay there we continued on the 1.

Going north on the one we made few stops for gas and to find Kent a Hermit crab. As we started making our way into Northern California the stretch of the 1 we were on became more detached from civilization and moved from agriculture then wilderness. This is where my desire to ride got worse as my restless legs began to scream at me, demanding physical activity. It was exacerbated by watching Giants among men climb the hills of the coastal highway on their bicycles. As we went up the 1 we passed Big Sur. Big Sur is located in the part of the Santa Lucia Mountains that tower of the Pacific Ocean. Big Sur is home to the highest elevation point over the Pacific, the great raise in the elevation at Big Sur offers up magnificent view over the Pacific, views rumored to have a vantage point where one could see the curve of the earth. We crossed the Bixby Bridge to see the cove and then we were off. As quickly as I said hello to the beautiful Big Sur I said good-bye. Explore the coastal wilderness we did not, this was an urban trip after all. Big Sur and I will have to wait before we reunite and my hair will just have to go without its cleansing in the waterfalls.

We left Big Sur and in a flash we were in the traffic of the Bay Area. We finally made it, the final destination of our trip, the Bay Area. Sinenox met up with her friend from College and this is where the group split up. Kent stayed with Sinenox in Oakland while Musso and I went over to San Francisco to hang out with LoneLocust.

Currently I am in San Francisco with Locust and Musso, instead of doing something fantastic we decided on having a more relaxed time together. We spent Saturday morning wandering around, looking around in book stores and thrift shopping in the Castro. Musso is completely enamored with the city, and San Francisco is unlike anything he has ever encountered.

After tomorrow night, the trip will essentially be over and the four of us will eventually part ways and head to our homes to resume our regular lives.

Lucky for me, my home and current place of residence is the beautiful California.

FSA

 

[FatStupidAmerican]

Reflections

California is a magnificent place. Geographically, socially, anything your heart desires can be found in this magical state. I feel blessed, out of the four of us on the road during the trip, only I am granted the gift of calling California my current place of residence. Like the other three, I was just as taken by my home state. I often dream of traveling to Africa and South America, but I still consider most of my backyard to be relatively unexplored.

What I take from this trip, is the constant reminder of everything around me that I have yet to see. Do not be disillusioned by the idea that our generation lacks a Wild West to tame or an unknown Africa to map. The fact is that we live in a time of even greater exploration. We can now see those previously explored worlds with even finer detail than before. The days of the machete and compass are not gone, but simply forgotten.

What we have failed to see is that constantly changing human landscape. The family of man is forever evolving and leaving their mark on the face of this planet. It is because of the anthropogenic contribution, we are given a different world to see, a different world that must be found.

This is, the Geographer, the Photographer, Wesly K. Hunum fighting out of Sacramento, California, signing off from the road.

FSA