Any advice for a california backpack?

Post by **YABYUM** » October 1st, 2006, 6:30 pm

My plan is to head SW to San Diego and then, at a pace yet to be decided, I will be venturing north up the coastline with maybe Seattle as a "goal". As we speak, my scouts are combing the regions in an attempt to assertain certain asses and allies agendi. Any good stories to share with me? Good hostels?, brothels? and or certain areas where the work is sweet and plentiful? Maybe just a tip? Make one up. Even if you've never been to California give me a good Kerouacian thought. I have consolidated my natural resources to one small notbook case and a backpack. ETD is, as of now, determined to remain undetermined. Vegas was fun. Vegas will suck the very essence of your soul if you think you can take her head on. Vegas ghetto alumni will beat the collective asses of every past ghetto alum that I have met from sea to fucking sea (and believe me, my freinds, I have been witness to some seriously fucked up ghettos)

No idea where I was heading with that last breath. Yeah, so, anyway. What say you? And remember.....to read the word fuck is to think the word fuck.

Post by **Arcadia** » October 1st, 2006, 9:38 pm

"to read the word fuck is to think the word fuck". Mmm..maybe, I noticed that when it's not your mother's tongue words have some kind of funny echo effect.
Have a good time!!!.

Post by **judih** » October 1st, 2006, 11:20 pm

Do try to get to Joshua Tree park. It's gotta be the one place that i'd trek to with notebook, with camera. And it's rumoured that craig moore lives somewhere in those holy grounds.

Post by **knip** » October 1st, 2006, 11:27 pm

i'll be in san diego and san francisco at various times in november...if that meshes with your undetermined plan, let me know

Post by **tinkerjack** » October 2nd, 2006, 3:10 pm

California is a blur to me from the docks in National City to the border with Oregon. If you going to check out Joshua Tree (well worth the 150 mile trip inland)* you might want to check out the truck stop at Banning. The one with the huge Dinosaur buildings. It was a sweet mom and pop truck stop back in my trucking days. But I heard some Christian group bought it. Morro Bay, the only place in California I get to settle for a while. Nice beach, I slept there a couple of nights before I got a job in a fish packing plant, and then I lucked out and got a job on a trawler. They used to have a huge chessboard with three foot chess pieces in the town square. I had some good times there.

happy trails.

*150 miles just a guestamate. Maybe only a hundred. Also give you the chance to pass through El Monte. Always an interesting trip. I remember a police cruiser hauling ass to get a way from some people.

Post by **Dave The Dov** » October 2nd, 2006, 3:57 pm

All I can say is read "The Dharma Bums" that should give a road map to work with as you make plans to head out!!!!

_________________
Mercedes F700

Post by **stilltrucking** » October 3rd, 2006, 2:29 am

I was thinking Big Sur would make a good road map. I never got to run the Pacific Coast Highway all the way up, big trucks had to split off on 101 and run inland past S.L.O. town I think. But I got to see the coast from the deck of a trawler, sailing from Morro Bay to Ilwaco Washington.

a peak experience for me. I went for the Gusto as a beer commercial of that era used to say. Or was it you only GO round once in life so Go for it?

Are you going to run over towards Barstow and drop down the 15 to San Diego I think that would bring you closer to Joshua Tree. And also avoid LA traffic. (some of it,) the only town where they start giving traffic reports at tree AM. Road full of people doing four hour commutes to work. Or it so it seemed. By five AM it was bumper to bumper almost. But it was hammer down.

By the way I was wrong about Banning truck stop. THe town is Cabazon. It was kind of beat back in the eighties and nineties but I think there is a big Indian Casino there now.

YOU got me green Ronnie. I hope to run up the eastern sea board next year. See the Outer Banks and the Atlantic again. I think it has been thirty two years since the last time I saw it. I hope it will still be there.

I never have seen Joshua Tree, just past by on the 10. One day I would like to get back west without the ball and chain of a truck.

keep in touch. Keep us posted.

Post by **YABYUM** » October 5th, 2006, 3:49 pm

the ever changing plan.....now I'm checking out Eugene, Oregon. Eugene is a college town and also the home of a certain "she" who keeps asking when I am coming for a visit. Now, as we all know, the male species was handicapped somewhere along the evelutionary timeline. Two heads... enough blood to operate them one at a time. So maybe it wouldn't be so bad to travel north then proceed in a southerly saunter. Stay just ahead of winter. I will get a chance to see San Diego before any decisions must be made thanks to the fact that I live in a hostel and every week someone is looking for a gas partner to various Califonia locations. So I don't know, as usaul. Maybe as soon as I see Cali with all those beautiful ocean waves and surfers everywhere, I might just feel Nirvana. Lets not leave out the women either. I have heard many a rumor from all throughout this odd nation of the beauty that California women posess. I can only wait to see. It's raining in Vegas. All the hostelers and staff are in great moods. No one has seen rain here in three months. Weather is a fickle bitch.

Post by **judih** » October 5th, 2006, 3:59 pm

eugene is reputedly extraordinary.
may it all be good.

Post by **stilltrucking** » October 5th, 2006, 5:08 pm

California over eight hundred miles of coast line from San Diego to Weed. I would do the whole thing on the Pacific Coast Highway if I was free to make that trip. I get a little burst of joy just thinking about it. Grant's Pass and Siskiyou can be a thrilling adventure in winter. I always wanted to visit Shasta but I always had that 18 wheeled ball and chain with me. A little community of people who have bad allergies live in that town. A refuge of clean air, or at least used to be.

Two heads are better than one.

happy trials

Post by **YABYUM** » October 5th, 2006, 6:27 pm

yeah, i bet the experience of travel would be slightly different if I owned a car. Until I collect the $1400 I owe the Nj DMV, I will be on foot and bus.

Post by **stilltrucking** » October 5th, 2006, 6:43 pm

A car is a ball and chain too.

Nietzsche said decadence is when batchelors live like married men.

Got dam this decadence

I loved those beach towns.

I suppose the bus does not run that way. Crazy thought of getting a bicycle. I had a friend who rode the Appalachain trail from Maine to Georgia on a bike. Claifornia used to be bike friendly. Maybe a Vespa or something like it. In texas you don't need a liscense for anything under a 50 CC motor.

Not sure what hitchhiking is like anymore. probably not an option. I just can't get that coast line out of my mind. Morro Bay, Chambria, Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay, San Simeon up on a cliff.

I been listening to On The Road audio tape. I wonder if there are still travell bureaus that you can arrange rides with. There used to be adds in the paper for ride shares. Another town I would love to see again is Venice.

Post by **Zlatko Waterman** » October 5th, 2006, 7:15 pm

Dear YAB:

Eugene is a fun college town, but past the college, not too distinguished. Oregon is generally beautiful. I was born in Salem and grew up on the Oregon Coast, which is spectacular, but nowadays pretty "developed"
( i.e. no longer wild).

Ashland is worth stopping in, if you're coming down HWY 5. I used to live there, too-- also in Eugene, but I was too young to hang around the college.

Chico, California ( where I lived, did undergraduate work, and taught as a TA in the University)-- about 100 miles north of Sacramento-- is lovely in the fall, but a bit warm still. Nothing like its infernal summer. There are literally thousands of beautiful young ladies there. The town is generally great fun, with a million beer bars, wine bars, bistros, and all sort of college hijinks. Playboy magazine once named it the number two party town in the US.

The foothills and Butte Creek Canyon ( in and near Chico) are beautiful. Bidwell Park ( in Chico), the largest city park in the U.S.-- about 2500 acres, minus the foothills, has a lovely creek, riparian landscape, and legendary numbers of trees.

I was reluctant to leave when I was 25.

Berkeley ( where I also schooled) is great fun and filled with wackiness. Nowadays many of the students there are Asians. There are fine bookstores on Telegraph Ave. and Channing worth exploring. And San Francisco is now accessible through BART, the fabled Bay Area subway under the bay.

Enjoy your trip

Zlatko

Post by **YABYUM** » October 19th, 2006, 5:44 pm

OK.....I'm serious this time. I actually went and purchased the ticket. I am holding in my hand a one way trip to Denver. Plans to California somehow became Denver. I leave on Monday and arrive in Denver on Tuesday at 4pm. Not sure the exact reason for this choice except that in a Celestian Prophecy kinda way, all things have pointed to Denver. I am re reading my copy of the First third by Cassidy so that I have a clear idea of where to chase his ghost. I think this is what excites me the most. Sitting in bar and just knowing that Jack and Neil shared a pitcher and perhaps that their spirits still are. I am really hoping that all I have heard is true. I have heard that the creativity of the town is a cluster fuck of art, poetry, and music. Been a while since I've had the oppurtunity to blow my load verbally into an audience. I've been so hard up for some stage release that I have been seen often at the local Karaoke spot. And I really fucking hate doing karaoke. So anyway.....no shit this time......I am outta Vegas and on the way to a city where my brothers painted, wrote, and spoke. Yes indeed!

Post by **stilltrucking** » October 19th, 2006, 10:04 pm

I must have been channeling you today. Thinking about that tag line you used to have, something like "yes I know it fucking hurts" trying to offer condolences to someone who is grieving, not much you can say expect I know it hurts.

Man I am always a flat lander, Denver in the winter is scary for me, I can't even hardly breathe at that elevation anyway.

Sounds like a plan Ronnie , enjoy. I hope you find some traces of the beat saints that used to walk and talk the streets of Denver.

Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Any advice for a california backpack?

Any advice for a california backpack?

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