Adventure #24 - Day Eleven - Los Angeles, CA to San Francisco, CA

Description: Wherein Marty and Heather leave LA and return home to SF.

(Marty's Report):

The last day of our trip.  We had breakfast with the crew, and I think I spent some time talking with a friend who needed support around her family blowing up.  We said our goodbyes and thanked Matt and Diemha for hosting us, then got on the road and did the long trek up I-5, winding out of L.A. on some of the side routes, admiring how much diversity and beauty this area has that isn't at all in the brochure.  We drove, and chatted, and dozed, and listened to music, and returned home to S.F. in the early evening, finding all was well.

Adventure #24 - Day Ten - Los Angeles, CA (Day 3)

Description: Wherein Marty and Heather stay with friends in Los Angeles

(Marty's Report):

Matt went for a bike ride this morning, and I hung out with the dogs and meditated while Heather slept.  It was overcast, which I never really get with LA.  Its image is so etched with sunshine that it's discordant, and carries a sense of "inappropriateness."  I went with Matt to Corey's soccer game, with Riley observing with us in the stands.  It seemed part of the family ritual of life, very familiar and integrated into what they do (they have a pretty scheduled life).  We talked about mindfulness practice, and I gave some pointers.  We also talked about parent politics, as Matt said hi to familiar faces, and I think I said to him that this aspect of parenting seemed the most horrific to me, of being randomly assigned to community just by virtue of having kids in proximity to each other.

For lunch, we went to Pita Pita, apparently a staple because everyone knew the manager.  We got on the topic of 80's music, somehow...oh, maybe there was music playing and Matt and I were trying to explain it to the girls?  Then we went to a bookstore and wandered around, with me buying a book on design, and then returned home to Matt's.  Diemha got home early from her conference.  We kind of just hung out some more, doing not much of anything, enjoying.

Adventure #24 - Day Nine - Los Angeles, CA (Day 2)

Description: Wherein Marty and Heather stay with friends in Los Angeles

(Marty's Report):

Decided to go to the LA Zoo today, so started by finding Russel's restaurant in downtown Pasadena for breakfast, a lively and friendly joint.  Then we found our way to the zoo, and started with the Condor rescue center, which is made mostly for kids but was very interesting.  Incredible the energy we put in to trying to clean up our own messes.

The zoo itself was a great space, seemingly updated from a more primitive earlier version of the zoo.  We spent maybe 4 hours there total, seeing everything.  We were particularly taken by the enormous carrion birds and eagles, and the elephant with the "sterotypical behavior" of head bobbing, which I had to look up while sitting there, learning that it's a symptom of being in captivity and not living a good elephant life.  Heather cried a lot, feeling the "grief and grandeur" of life.

Then from there, we went up to Griffith Observatory, getting there a bit before dusk.  We wandered through the building, and watched a film in the Leonard Nimoy theater on the history of the building and its renovation.  It was a fascinating description of the monumental efforts to restore and improve this beautiful old place.  We got out into the view of the city at night, which was astounding.  The LA that I've experienced these last years is so different from when I was UCLA, so rich and so stripped of my 20 year old self's angst and pain.

We headed back home and we all ordered Thai food, chatted about our days and life, then went to bed.

(Heather's Report):

Zoo Day

I don’t really know LA all that well.  So I don’t really know what to do.  I was all for the Griffith Observatory and Marty also suggested the LA Zoo.  I’m usually all for zoos and stars and we decided on both.  So we drove up to the LA Zoo which is below the big mountain where the observatory is.

We wandered in and started looking around.  We first went into the California Condor discovery center for children where an enthusiastic biologist/naturalist showed us around and told us about the Condor.  Big ass bird!!!  I was pleased to know a lot already about the program and the troubles around genetic diversity.  I did get a little teary around the whole thing.  Because we are a really horrible, stupid, destructive species.  And in a way, we are willing to monumentalize our monumental fuck-ups, as Marty said about Manzanar.  We will do what we can after realizing what the hell we did.  Sometimes.  Sometimes we keep doing it.  But sectors of the human population try.

We wandered through the zoo, a fairly well put together zoo although “cramped”, somewhat old style, with not so much space.  Certain animals had more space, like a new space for the elephant or the two lions.  But still not a huge amount.  Or at least the mythical amounts of space that I’ve heard of at the San Diego zoo.  Supposedly that’s the pinnacle of zoos.  

Marty went to look at the elephant in his big space while I registered for classes online.  Yes, technology rocks!  He came back and told me that elephants bob their heads when they are stressed or bored, a compensatory behavior.  I had seen that when I walked up before I sat down to register.  He’s continuing to explain this phenomenon when I basically start crying.

Now, I’m a fan of zoos, sort of.  I know how important they are especially now.  They have opportunities to protect some species from total extinction, they all have genetic diversity programs which is really, really the most important role they have.  They are, in a way, limited conservation agencies.  And animals of this nature weren’t meant to be kept in ways like this.  Zoos have histories of cruelty around the keeping of animals, accusations that they don’t really care about conservation of animals or even education of the public.  And so I’m sitting on my bench, Grief and Grandeur racking my heart.  

I recovered enough to move on through the zoo but eventually we encountered a blocked off area but standing on the outside of the tape, we could see into the caged area of the snow leopard.  And he/she is pacing back and forth, constantly, in an almost desperate fashion, along the fence line.  Marty mentioned that he saw the SF zoo snow leopard doing the same thing.  And I very much love the big cats, especially the snow leopard (threatened in the wild) and the amur leopard (almost gone in the wild), so I’m now crying again, sobbing quietly as we watch.  A keeper came out with a bowl of meat, carefully pushing meat through the holes in the chain link fence for the cat to take, speaking quietly to it.  And back and forth it quickly paced.  Sometimes taking some of the meat, sometimes ignoring it to go back and forth along the fence line.  And thus I stand there, struggling to embrace the Grief side and hold the Grandeur side as well, when it is so easy to say “How horrible are humans! Look at this travesty!” but I know better, even in that moment.  I know that this leopard may be “traded” to another zoo for breeding (in fact, the enclosure may have been closed off due to offspring, as there was a photo of a small kitten on the fence), to preserve genetic diversity.  But I also know that the offspring may not be released into the wild.  Re-introductions often don’t do well.  Some programs have had some success, like the CA Condor program from above.  But it’s difficult.  And yet, we do try.  

harpy eagles

Adventure #24 - Day Eight - Los Angeles, CA (Day 1)

DAY EIGHT- Los Angeles, CA

Description: Wherein Marty and Heather stay with friends in Los Angeles

(Marty's Report):

Got up somewhat early and went to the dreamy Systema instructor, Martin Wheeler's, studio in Beverly Hills.  We got there in time (it's a fairly downbeat area of BH), and found that there was no Martin Wheeler teaching the class.  It was a fellow from Vegas, but we politely declined the class and instead drove up to Hollywood Blvd.  What a trip of a place.  Such a mix of cultural detritus.

We wanted to see "Interstellar" at the Chinese Theater, but missed the showing.  So we sauntered along the Blvd., stepping on all manner of Stars' stars, and got lunch at a funky Indian a la carte place.  Then we had time to go to the L. Ron Hubbard expo at the Scientology Building, and got a tour by a Taiwanese devotee, who had been here for 4 years.  She was bright eyed and bushy tailed and well trained in the "Gosh gee wiz!" style of propaganda, plus the casino-like quality of the place (in terms of it being hermetically sealed and self-referential, keeping the same narrative tone throughout).  Seemed like all of Hubbard's work was an early attempt at trauma therapy, so respectable in that sense, though with a lot of slop and cult-o'-personality.

On back to the theater, there was a red carpet event for some movie, and we hung out at the plaza mall next door, drinking tea.  We caught the next showing of "Interstellar", admiring the museum-like quality of the theater's lobby, and appreciated the movie itself, a big and loud love poem to humanity.

A faux Don King hailed us on the way out, after getting pretzels and lemonade in the lowering darkness, and the amazing Waze app that Diemha had turned us on to got us home to have spaghetti with Matt and the girls, hanging out and jabbering.

Adventure #24 - Day Seven -- Joshua Tree, CA to Wrightwood, CA

DAY SEVEN - Joshua Tree, CA - to Wrightwood, CA


Description: Wherein Marty and Heather leave Joshua Tree and visit with friend in Wrightwood.


(Marty's Report):

(Full disclosure:  I'm writing this on 1/31/15, having got busified by life.  Plus, this adventure seemed to have been inordinately long-plus-dense.  Or maybe I'm more verbose than usual ["Maximum verbosity"!  What what, Zork joke!  For my nerd-homies.])

Ok, so from Joshua Tree, we decided on going over the hill through Big Bear, a ski resort area northeast of L.A., en route to my friend Wan's house.  I've known Wan for maybe a couple years, since I was traveling to LA to participate in an Interpersonal Nerurobiology group with Dan Siegel.  Wan was in the group, and we found sympatico souls in each other, and have been meeting every few weeks by phone to do intellectual ping-pong together, which has been very rich and dense.

We were out of the High Desert Hotel by 10a, and skipped breakfast, favoring our getting out of the high desert sooner than later.  We drove through the desert--mile after mile of it--till we cut south up into the San Bernadino Mountains (wisely not taking any of the fire roads through the desert, which were tantalizingly placed there on the map as short cuts). 

As we headed up into the mountains, the terrain changed quickly, from scrub and joshua trees, then mixing in with pine forests, as the energy changed into something more life-affirming.  Apparently, the desert was starting to sap me;  I'd be a terrible one for the first Mars missions.  The terrain started feeling a lot like the Tahoe area, and the cultural terrain started feeling like the Tahoe area, but with less meth and red necks.  I liked it!  It felt open, at ease, and clean.  My body relaxed as we got into the mountains, which I could feel clearly within maybe a mile of upward travel.

We passed through Big Bear, and then headed down the other side, down into the LA area, through fog that blanketed the area (although Big Bear itself had beautiful blue skies).  We made it to Wan's new house in Wrightwood, a tiny little ski town where they relocated just a few months before.  It's up at 6000 feet, with typical high mountain houses amongst dry earth and dry pines.  They bought a place that they are refurbishing, with beautiful dark and light wood, lots of air and sun, and a funky design that was unfolded over the years by a family as it grew.  We met her carpenter as we went in, and then hung out with Wan, or toured the property, till her husband Marshall got home from his work at an art college, where he heads a research lab.  We all had dinner and talked through a wide range of topics, especially around technology.  They're a great, open hearted, big minded couple.

As it got late, though, and I calculated the driving times, we decided to leave late because we wanted to go to Martin Wheeler's Systema class in Beverley Hills the next morning, and saw that it would have been a miserably traffic-filled commute.  We said our goodbyes to them and to Mochi the dog, and drove through the blissfully open roads into South Pasadena, to get to Matt's house by 10:30p.  We visited with them a little bit before they crashed (Diemha was going to San Diego for a conference and Matt had to work in the morning).  I played with Lola and Sam, my favorite dogs in the world.  Lola looks like a capybara.

Adventure #24 - Day Six -- Joshua Tree, CA

DAY SIX - Joshua Tree, CA

Description: Wherein Marty and Heather visit Joshua Tree National Monument, and Pioneertown.

(Marty's Report):

We picked the High Desert Motel because it was right outside the park entrance to Joshua Tree, and because it was cheap, very cheap.  The sun came up early and big, unapologetically dumping sunlight all over the terrain, without any messing about with slant angles or delicate morning hues.

We decided to get breakfast and then head into the park for the day, so we hit the Natural Sisters Cafe (just down from the dinner place of last night), another place servicing the out-of-town progressives, and in-town hippie fragments of the local population.  Decent food, and nice little patio to sit on.  Got to psychoanalyze a mother and daughter sitting nearby, making use of my recent body-reading training.  Given the dessicated and self-centered quality of the mother, my clinical conclusion was, "Poor daughter."

We headed into the park, which, as it turned out, was on a free day (Veteran's Day), so we cruised on in and made a first stop at Hidden Valley, which was a maybe half-mile round collection of large rocks that supposedly used to harbor rustled cattle.  We walked the loop and watched some climbers doing top roped, and maybe 2 pitch climbs (a pitch being the length of a climbing rope, so less than about 150 feet).  We bouldered up a little hill (me nicking my hand on the unforgiving rock), and looked out over the space.  Again, it felt small, where two decades ago, in my youngish man period, it had seemed huge.  Strange:  where I had felt smaller than it in college, now I felt larger.

Then we drove up to a place called Keys View, after Heather nixed the Lost Horse Mine trail, which I had walked at least twice before, once with Mike and Pat and Mike (in college).  I had stopped at the mine and they had gone further, to get the view of the Salton Sea, which I now realized was a low-grade regret, one of few in my life.  But from Keys View, we could get a wide, expansive view of the surrounding area, though it was smogged in and didn't give up much detail.  Ten minutes squinting out into the haze and I felt complete, and we moved on back down the hill, heading towards a flat hike at Barker Dam.

(I did a bit of research on the Salton Sea later this night, and found out that it was an ecological disaster site, a "sea" created by a botched hydrological effort in 1905.  It developed a resort economy for a while, though the sea had no outlet so it was poisoning itself over time, and is apparently now visited mostly by documentarians of the apocalypse.)

We walked out to the dam, through the rich brown and red hues of the sandstone rocks, to the titular dam, a little cement wall that backs up maybe ten acres of water behind it...when there's water.  It was built by cattlemen in 1900, then raised by a man named Keys in the 50's (we read a marker that said he had gone to jail for five-ish years for shooting a neighbor, and had a ranch in the park).  We watched a butterfly twittering around the dry pond bed, and wondered if we were lending to its demise by making it fly around trying to get away from the gawkers.  On the dam itself, there was graffiti from recent years, carved into the cement, which is not surprising, given all the graffiti we saw carved into ancient tombs in Egypt, from European travelers.  Apparently has a tradition, but still a dick-head thing to do.

On the way out, we saw petroglyphs on the protected upper slanted surface of a scooped out rock.  One of those exhibits which they mark and protect, and which you're therefore obliged to visit, but which you stand in front of for a few minutes, maybe take a picture, and then wander off.

The highlight of leaving the park was the coyote walking along the road.  Cars were stopped for seemingly no reason, and as we slowed down, we saw why.  A beautiful coyote was across the street, and as the other car sped off, we had him all to ourselves to photograph and admire.  He looped around the car, and was close on my side, looking like a being who is used to eating others, and a little non-plussed at seeing himself outclassed.  But still hopeful.

I had thought in the morning that we could go stay at a place called Pioneertown, just some miles west, thinking that it would spice up this leg of the journey.  But as we discussed it prior to leaving the room, it did look more of a hassle than anything else (the bar-concert dive, Pappy and Harriets,  that drew most people there was closed on Tuesdays).  But coming out of the park in the afternoon, we thought it would be (as my grandma would might have said) "a hoot" to go visit.

We got some really heavy Mexican food, then, fortified/engorged, drove through Yucca Valley (which compared to 29 Palms and Joshua Tree was a modern metropolis), and a jog north through craggy outcroppings that sheltered the desert version of Yucca Valley's suburb, and pulled into Pioneertown, a strange little leftover of Hollywood.  See, some Hollywood characters (including Roy Rogers) developed the place in the 1940's as a permanent set for movies, of which about 200 were filmed there.  Now it's a very odd place with a fictional reconstruction of the old west, but lived in with real people and a couple shops (some well-intended but sad pottery), and a found-art installation in front of someone's house.  It was quiet, to be sure, and only a few other people walked about, looking a little bemused/disoriented.  Still, you get bragging rights.

After getting a shot at the OK Corral, we walked back to the car with Apollo, the local dog, running along and harassing the horse (we got it's name because a local yelled at, or to, it).

It was about dark when we got back to the High Desert Hotel, and wanted to get something at the cafe and work on our computers.  So we walked the half-mile or so along the highway, in a town without street lights and where no one seems to walk.  We found an art gallery with a quail, who we dubbed the Brail Quail (see picture for why), and a large concrete tortoise.  The cafe served us some tea and food, and we hung with the locals, in for the end-of-the-day repast, with the young staff, before heading back to our temporary lodgings.

The nostalgic day in the desert ended with reading and writing in the hotel (I wonder how many hotels I've slept in in my life?), and reading the book-de-juer, "The Drowned Cities," by Bacigalupi.

(Heather's Report):