06.01.06

My father fell last week..............15 staples in his head. He is in his 70's. Mortality is all over me like stink on shit.

06.04.06

I sent the bulk of Romance Novels & Ransom Notes off to the proof reader today. Dave is working on the cover art, I need maybe 90 more pages and it'll be ready to send off to the printers. Looking at maybe two months and I'll have a book out. Wow. I saw Ryan's book yesterday and it inspired me to get on the ball and get this thing finished. It's a little scary, it’s been a long time coming, and now that it's almost here I am nervous.

7:23pm

I guess Guns Down is canceling another tour so we can get the record done. We should have been recording this weekend but our rhythm section had some post graduation goings-on's that they need to attend to. I hate canceling tours.

06.10.06

In an effort to make this web page (and my life in general) more like what I had planned, I bought a new digital SLR camera. Look for the pictures section to be updated very soon.

Yesterday was an odd day. My nephew graduated from High School and I found out my father in-law may only have 6 months to live. It was a day I'll not soon forget and don't quite have a grasp on.

Des and I take our motorcycle trip next week. I am excited and nervous.

06.15.06, Santa Cruz CA.

Des and I left Reno about 9am on the bikes and headed to Santa Cruz, the only planned destination for the entire trip. We had reservations at a hotel there for two nights. The plan was to stay in Santa Cruz Thursday and Friday night and head north on Highway 1 Friday afternoon. Thursday we spent the better part of the day riding. I was a little nervous. Des had never gone that far on her bike before. I made the same run a month or so before hand and sort of knew what to expect as far as road conditions. I hung back so I could watch her ride. It made me feel a little better being able to see her the whole time. The main part of the trip I was concerned with was the road between Truckee and Auburn. You don’t notice it as much in a car, but that stretch of highway is a minefield of potholes and huge cracks. Des rode through like a champ. I told her to stay in the left lane because it was a little less dangerous. She went into the right hand lane once and found out why I didn’t leave the left lane. At a rest stop on the hill some guy made a comment about how Des should be ashamed of her self for riding so far in front of me. What an ass. Welcome to the year 2006 my friend; the 50’s are long since over. We got to Santa Cruz in the early evening, checked in to the hotel and rested for awhile. After a bit of down time we went out into Santa Cruz and walked to the downtown area to eat at a great vegetarian diner I had been turned on to the last time I was in town. We wandered around town, went to the beach and watched the sun go down. It was a great day.

06.16.06, Santa Cruz CA.

Friday we went to Capitola (a little south of Santa Cruz) for breakfast. We ended up spending most of the day there wandering around the little shops there and walking up and down the beach. I took a bunch of photos with the new camera. I love shooting ocean wildlife photos. I think that is my favorite subject to photograph. Many of the creatures are other-worldly. I really dig getting close up shots of life in the tide pools.

We stayed in Capitola for lunch. We ate at this neat little beachside café. We got a window table and figured we could stare out over the beach and ocean while we ate. For some reason there was a bulldozer on the beach moving sand around, made it a little hard to zone out on the ocean. The food was good and our waitress was funny. It was her first day and she seemed a little bit rattled, most of the restaurant patrons were asking about the bulldozer and she didn’t have an answer. While eating we talked about what we wanted to do for the rest of the trip. Originally we planned to go to Oregon. But the idea came up to go south on Highway 1 and see what we could find. We flipped a coin, heads we would go north, we would go tails south. It landed on tails.

06.17.06, Morro Bay, CA.

Saturday morning we headed south on Highway 1. What an amazing ride. To our right was the beautiful California coast, to our left were rolling hills and gorgeous country side. It was really cool to feel so free. I mean here we were on motorcycles, riding next to the ocean doing whatever we felt like. No plans, no itinerary, no schedule. I was a fantastic feeling of absolute freedom.
We passed through Monterey and stopped in Big Sur. I love Big Sur. Not only did several of my favorite writers spend time there but it has the best of both worlds. Amazing forests with huge trees and bubbling creeks. And then not too far away some of the most phenomenal beaches the California coast has to offer. The ride into Big Sur from Monterey was a bit hectic. We hadn’t been paying attention to the gas gauges very closely, and Des’ bike was dangerously close to running out of fuel. We pulled into to Big Sur at just the right moment to fill up with out a hassle. After fueling up we sat in the grass next to a creek and ate ice cream sandwiches (Soy Dreams for me thanks). We talked and shot some more photos and just enjoyed the environment.

We continued down Highway 1 to Morro Bay. Along the way we enjoyed some incredible scenery. Being on a motorcycle is a completely different way to travel then in a car or a train or anything else. In your car you are in a familiar and safe environment. On a motorcycle were ever you are, is your environment. You feel the wind shift, every environmental change affects you. It’s a complete experience. We stopped for dinner at a Mexican restaurant a few miles away from Morro Bay, took a break at a beach along the Highway that was covered in elephant seals. I took a bunch of photos there. What an incredible sight. Hundreds of elephant seals sprawled out over the sand. Some were content just to lay there and soak in the sun, other were battling for position on the beach. We sat and watched these immense animals bellowing and smashing their blubbery bodies against each other. It was pretty amazing. The rest of the ride was a challenge. The sun was going down and the wind had picked up off the water. It was very cold. Almost like riding in the winter. Our hands were numb, even in the gloves. It was rough. We got to Morro Bay around 8:00pm, found a hotel and tried to warm up.

Morro Bay is an amazing little town. It’s on a man-made bay inside of another bay, very much a fishing town. There is a huge rock, called Morro Rock, and it is home to huge colonies of birds including peregrine falcons. After getting set up in the hotel we wandered around the town. I think we may have gotten the last hotel room in town. We rode around for about fifteen minutes looking at “no vacancy” signs before we found a room. The room we did get was really nice. It had a small balcony looking over the bay with a perfect view of Morro Rock. The inside had high vaulted ceilings with the lumber exposed, it all looked very rustic.

We were informed by our hotel clerk that everything in town closes at 9:30 pm. We wandered around looking at closed store fronts and dark empty restaurants. Finally we found a restaurant that was open late and had live music. We weren’t very hungry because we had the Mexican food a few hours before, but a snack was certainly in order. We sat and watched the band for awhile. They were really good. Young kids, seventeen or eighteen maybe that were playing a mix of jazz, reggae and soul. I see big things ahead for the singer. He could do the poppy reggae Sublime sort of thing right into a bit of Motown. Great stuff, I was hoping they had a demo or something but no dice.

After the music and a light snack we were ready to crash for the night. Sunday we were going to continue down Highway 1 to Pismo Beach, one of Des’ favorite places to be. I had never been there so we were both really looking forward to it. Monday we planned to spend a few hours in Pismo and then take the long ride home. We woke up in morning walked down to the town of Morro Bay for breakfast and to check out some of the shops that were closed the night before. Most of them were still closed. We did get to go to the Morro Bay Aquarium. Not as grand as it sounds trust me. In the first room there are some rescued performing seals that you can feed. I think they use the word “rescued” kind of loosely in Morro Bay. Two of the seals were very active and fun, but there were two smaller ones that just looked sad. They’d gaze up at you from the tank with these big dark empty eyes. They didn’t seem to be enjoying life at all. In the back room there were these decrepit looking tanks with various fish in various stages of dieing. The whole thing was a downer. I felt really bad for all the animals trapped in that place. After breakfast we went to Morro Rock to see the birds and hunt for tide pools. Morro Rock is a protected bird breeding ground. The rock itself is huge. You can’t climb it, but from the ground below you can see hundreds of birds. I saw mostly pelicans. But one peregrine falcon did stick its head out just long enough for me to snap a photo. There weren’t really any tide pools near the rock. It’s in a man-made bay so it’s basically just rocks piled on top of each other to create a wall. We did see a ton of crabs but that was about it. We stood on the rocks and took pictures of the waves crashing. The raw power of the ocean never ceases to amaze me. Not a bad morning.

06.18.06, Pismo Beach CA.

After we had our fill of Morro Bay we continued south to Pismo. It’s not a far ride but it took us most of the day. Des’ bike broke down in San Luis Obispo. We spent most of the very hot afternoon sitting in an Auto Zone parking lot while she rebuilt her carburetors. By the time got to Pismo it was late afternoon, early evening. There was no chance of getting home that night, so we set out to search for a hotel. It was Sunday and The Pismo Classic Car Show was winding down, we got there just in time to see everyone else leave. This made for easy hotel hunting. We decided on a room over looking the pier and the ocean. It was pricey but after the day we had we were ready to splurge on something. We had been pretty frugal this trip so money wasn’t tight. The room we got was amazing. I have lived in smaller places. It had a kitchen and a huge bathroom. It also had a deck that had an unobstructed view of the ocean and the pier. After getting set up in the room we headed down to the beach to play a bit. I hadn’t been in the ocean for a long time. It was creeping up on about 5:00pm and the only brave souls out in the water were surfers in wet suits, and little kids. Kids know how to live. They don’t care how cold the water is, or how long they’ve been in it. It’s never long enough. Somewhere along the line we lose that sense of wonder. I was determined to get that feeling back. Des and I both waded out into the chilly ocean water. Pismo has great sand that extends pretty far out into the water. You can go barefoot all the out into the water. Des only stayed out a few minutes, I waded out further and further. It was just me and some blue lipped, shivering kids. I stayed in the water until the sun went down determined to be there after the kids gave up. It didn’t happen. Kids have it all figured out man. I think that’s the secret to a long life, never grow up.

06.19.06, Somewhere in CA on the I-5.

We got up Monday morning with the plan being spend a few more hours in Pismo, and then head for home. The first part of plan worked great. We got breakfast and Des did some shopping for gifts. We checked out of the hotel at 11:00am and parked the bikes at the pier. We spent some time out on the pier taking pictures of the surfers and the ocean. I got to see a pod of dolphins swim past and got a few photos of them. That was amazing. I had never seen wild dolphins before so it was a real rush. After a lot of picture taking we reluctantly headed for home. I wasn’t sure if we could make the whole run in one night, it’s about four hundred miles give or take. But we had the better part of the day to make it, so I figured we were OK. Famous last words.

As we hit the outskirts of San Luis Obispo Des’ bike started to act like it was running out of gas. She had at least half a tank left. It just wasn’t getting to the motor. We pulled into town and decided the thing to do was rent a U-Haul and trailer the bikes home. We stopped at a gas station and looking through the phone book. We found the address for the U-Haul and asked the gas station attendant for directions. The U-Haul place is down a road that separates two sections a cemetery. The building looks abandoned, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre abandoned. We go back to the gas station and call the number. Turns out all three of the U-Haul places in town are owned by the same guy and he wants $600 for the smallest truck one-way. The bike only cost us $1000, I can’t see spending $600 plus gas to get it home. OK new plan, we stopped at a Kawasaki dealer that had a service shop. The sales guy was very friendly and took us right back to the service manager. It seemed like they were going to come through for us. That was until we met the mechanic who was a complete prick. He wouldn’t even look at the bike. He told us he could get to it in a few days. Hello!! We are on the rode we don’t have a few days to sit around and wait. Then he says “It sounds like water in the gas tank.” We try to explain to him that we’d filled up at the same pump so if her bike had water in the tank then mine would too. “That’s my answer” he said and walked into the back room. Fuck you too douche bag. At this point we are lost. There is no way her bike can make the run. No one is willing to help us fix it, or even look at it to tell us how to fix it. We are done. Des calls her friend David who lives in Walnut Creek, which in near the Bay area, three hours away. He agrees to pick up Des and the bike in his truck and take them both back to Reno. What a guy. While we waited for David went and got some food, called all the people who were expecting us home. I called work and told them I wouldn’t back for another day or two. We lingered in the restaurant much longer than the staff would have liked, but what the hell we had no place else to go. After awhile we figured we should go somewhere else so we headed over to a Barnes & Noble to read and just hang out. David showed up as the sun was starting to set. His small pick-up could only hold one bike and two people so from here on out I was on my own. I helped David get the bike into the truck and told him to follow me to a gas station so I could buy him a tank of gas. We said goodbye and headed out.

I had called my folks who know their fair share about California’s highways. My mom helped me map out the fastest way home. Highway 1 north back to Morro Bay, then Highway 41 east to the I-5 the I-5 north to Sacramento where I’d hit I-80 and take I-80 east to Reno. Highway 41 is a long two lane road with lots of curves. It was a lot fun to ride. As the sun began to fade I hammered my Triumph through the twists and turns of Highway 41. I barely saw any other people on that road which, I have to admit, was a bit unnerving. If I had gone down no one would have found me for hours. I hit I-5 in near darkness. It too was nearly abandoned, just me and the occasional trucker. Along I-5 I stopped for gas at a truck stop. The lady in front of me in line was buying cigarettes in bulk. I think she got five packs of each different Marlboro product. I held the door open for her as we left the store and she looks and me and says “Long drive, never know when you’re gonna want some variety.” As she pulled her Toyota Tercel out of the parking lot, she was t-boned by a semi-truck. No one was injured, but I guess her trip just got cut short.

I called Des and David to see how they were doing, they had passed me while I filling up and were about five miles in front of me. I figured I could catch up pretty quick but there was a detour to the highway from the gas station. The on-ramp was under construction. I ended up about five miles back the wrong direction and passed the gas station I had stopped at again. I lost about thirty minutes. Great.

As I traveled trough the valley I was able to really take in the scenery. It was all farm land with a small town here and there. This is America. Fuck cities and traffic. This is the real deal. I saw areas where fires had ravaged the fields of dried grass, jumped the highway and were stopped just shy of the orchards. Amazing. As I traveled further up towns became more and more frequent, the beauty of America faded in to the ugly face of civilization. About midnight I had to stop, I don’t even know where I was. All I knew was I had to sleep. I hit up a Motel 6 at a truck stop and crashed.

06.20.06, Reno NV.

I woke up around 10:00am, got some breakfast and hit the road. I spoke to Des on the phone she and David hit Reno about 2:00am. I took out my map and tried to figure out where I was. Turns out I was only about 50 miles from Sacramento. It was still late morning and it was already unbearably hot. I hit the highway and about 11:00am and road almost non-stop to Reno. I don’t remember much of the trip until I hit I-80. There isn’t much to see on that stretch of road. Town after town city after city it all looks the same. Chain stores and strip malls all with same architecture nothing but road signs to distinguish one place from another. By mid afternoon the heat was incredible. I felt gross, just sweaty and hot with no relief in sight. Once I got into the mountains where it cooled down a bit I started to feel better. I love riding in those mountains. Maneuvering the wide curves and turns under the shade of the forest trees, taking in all the beauty the Sierra Nevada Mountains have to offer. It’s usually a few degrees cooler on the hill which is nice on hot summer afternoons. I made it home about 3:00pm and crashed. My bed never felt so good. I was exhausted and I had to work the next day.