Somewhere (Far) Short of Big Sur

So my plan to get to Big Sur was stymied by weather. A storm is coming off the coast, and pounding route 1 with sideways rain and 50 mph winds. After driving north of Santa Barbara, on 101, the clouds really started to roll in, and I decided I didn't want to drive on 1 too long in the dark. I'm held up for the night in Cayucos, Calif., at the Shoreline Inn. I have a view of the water and can see the storm brewing. I'm going to head down to the saloon in town and get a burger and beer.

SF tomorrow.

The Pacific is in view

I left Vegas around 11 a.m. and made my way for the coast of California. I had no desire to stop through LA, or to even get a remote glimpse of what Friday afternoon rush-hour in LA was like, so I took state roads to squiggle over to Santa Barbara for the night. It's remarkably beautiful here, and seeing the Pacific energized me. Up the coast tonight, to Big Sur, and then to San Francisco, my new home, tomorrow.

Beer and Relaxing in Las Vegas

Made it to Las Vegas around 3 p.m., picking up an extra hour as I crossed from mountain time into pacific time at the Arizona/Nevada border. Route 93 from Kingman, Arizona takes you along a nice stretch of desert and down along the Hoover Damn about 30 miles southwest of the city. You can see mountains from the left and right, and in some parts the road cuts through the red rocks.

When I arrived (my GPS navigated me along the streets of Vegas), I must really credit Travelzoo, which found me an astonishingly cheap rate at the Mandalay that included a free pass to the spa. Sitting in the steam room and the sauna, I could feel the toxins of lousy roadside hamburgers, coca-cola and all the bottled water seep through my pours.

Right now, I'm sitting in my room enjoying a Budweiser and answering some e-mails.

Out to see what Vegas has to offer later this evening. More to come later.

Happy to See Kingman, Arizona

I should have stopped at Flagstaff. That’s what came to my head as I leaned forward in the driver’s seat of my 2004 Subaru Outback, my forehead almost pressed to the windshield, negotiating my way down I-40 in the mountains of northern Arizona. Sleet pelted down on the windshield, and for a brief moment I considered the sudden precariousness of the situation and how it could have been avoided by switching off my precious iPod for a few seconds and checking the weather on an AM station. I could already see the Arizona State Trooper sitting at the Waffle House at 4 a.m. tomorrow talking to the familiar waitress who served him egg whites, toast and a cup of coffee. “Some asshole from Massachusetts moving to California really took a digger on the turn. Stupid bastard.”

And, of course, he’d be right. I should have checked the weather.

But first a word about Santa Fe, New Mexico. I’d spent nearly nine hours in the car since leaving Midwest City, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City that didn’t have too much going on. Driving through Arkansas and Oklahoma wasn’t the most scenic, either, but I guess if you looked at it through the right set of lens it could be considered pretty in its own way. A lot of plateaus and flat prairie land, however, seems to make the trip seem longer.

But crossing the border from Texas into New Mexico provided an abrupt and welcomed change of scenery. It became desert, and the rolling hills were dotted with shrubbery as I made my way north up a lonely state road (285) that juts off from I-40 and takes you up to Santa Fe. The sun set quietly behind some snow-capped mountains in the distance.

The town itself (at least near the plaza) was upscale, with small bistros with New Mexican art on the wall and small cafes serving colorful plates of eggs and salsa. From a tourism perspective, this is definitely the off-season, as the hotel I stayed in, The Inn of the Governors, was incredibly nice but inexpensive.

Looking at the map in Santa Fe that evening, it became clear that Las Vegas might be a little too far for one trip. Though it clocked in at around 10 hours, I just didn’t think I’d have it in me, so I decided I’d get as far as I could, stop for the evening, and then take a skip and hop into Vegas on Thursday. When I arrived at Flagstaff, Arizona (which is about the halfway point from Santa Fe to Vegas), I considered stopping for the night as the town had many hotels to choose from. But the sky was gray, and for some reason I just felt I needed to press on. The next logical place on the map seemed to be Kingman, Ariz., which sits at the junction of I-40 and route 93, which takes you north to Vegas.

While this paid off by me arriving safely at a hotel in Kingman, the drive in between Flagstaff and here was rough. I-40 takes you through the mountains, and as soon as the sun began to set, sleet, snow and rain began to assault the road and my car. Truckers put on their emergencies as we descended the hills, and I became keenly aware that if any of them slammed on the brakes things might not end well.

But eventually the road flattened out as I approached Kingman, and I held up here for the night. I’m now typing this as I prepare to load the car and make the trip up to Vegas for the evening. I got a killer deal at The Mandalay. After that, tomorrow it’s on to Santa Barbara and make my way up the coast this weekend to my new home.

On the Road (Putting this not for cliche reasons, but because I love Jack Kerouac)

Apparently, you can't type blog posts and drive at the same time, and by the time I've gotten in every night I've been too dog-tired -- or too excited to go out and see a new city -- that I've failed to keep my blog updated. I'm writing this from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and in a few minutes am headed for Santa Fe, New Mexico (about an eight hour drive, from what my GPS and Google Maps tells me). So this is about as short-winded, Twitter style (though still way more characters) as I can possibly be. I''ll have more to write about each place later on, including descriptions of the changing terrain as I head westbound.

Friday, 02.15.2008

Took off from my office in Framingham and started south to get to New York City for the evening, my hotel at the Doubletree on E. 51st and Lexington. When I arrived, a woman old enough to be my mother told me I looked "cute," and as a result would give me a suite (with a balcony) for no extra charge.

In the evening, met up with my dear friend Nicole, who arranged a dinner reservation for us at The Garage, a nice jazz club/bar in West Village. Afterward, we went to a piano bar, which was also great fun. Then her roommate dragged us to a trendy bar that (unsurprisingly) I hated and then called it a night sometime later.

Saturday, 02.16.2008

To Charlottesville, VA to see my grandfather. He seemed in good spirit despite being far less mobile than he used to. It was wonderful to see him.

Sunday, 02.17.2008

Long day on the road, swinging down along southwestern Virginia and into Tennessee. Spent the night in Nashville and took in some bluegrass music at The Station Inn. Really awesome, honest music, and I met the owner, JT, who is pictured here on their website. We talked about where I was from and where I was headed, and he wished me luck on my journey as I settled out a tab for a bunch of Budweiser and pizza.

Monday 02.18.2008

Lunch in Memphis, but then just a horrendous drive through Arkansas and into Oklahoma.

Tuesday 02.19.2008

Off to Santa Fe.

A rainy day in San Francisco, Alcatraz and No Cabs

The fact that it's December finally caught up with us after spending three straight days here with sun and fairly clear skies. Yesterday, it rained and fogged. I slept in and walked down to the video store with my mom. We intended to rent Escape from Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood in preparation for the Alcatraz night tour, but the video store said the last person who rented it didn't return it. So we settled on, well, Superbad. Also a great film, but for different reasons.

After sitting around for most of the day reading (and then watching the movie), my parents, my brother, my brother's girlfriend, Whitney, her parents, and I took two cabs down to Pier 33 by Fisherman's Wharf to catch the evening tour to Alcatraz.

While people will tell you Alcatraz is the biggest tourist trap San Francisco has to offer, and in many ways I suppose it could be, I have to say it's worth every penny to take the 15 minute ferry ride across the bay to see it. As we rode over on the ferry at dusk, a translucent fog enveloped the island and we could still see the outline of the city in the distance. It felt eerie to climb to the top of the island and then into the prison and learn not only about the escape attempts, but of just what the day-to-day was like for the prisoners who lived there. It must have worn on the prisoners to see the life and vibrancy of the city from the island -- they knew they were so close, but yet couldn't be further away from freedom.

We took the ferry back across the bay. Adam and I decided we'd brave the weather (mostly fog and light rain) on the top deck. We grabbed a couple beers from the snack bar and went up there so I could point to parts of the city and have him explain where each neighborhood ended and the next one begun.

When we got back to Fisherman's Wharf, that's where the trouble began. Adam had made plans for us to eat at an Italian place in North Beach (that doesn't take reservations but where getting a table generally isn't a problem), and called to verify the address. When he phoned them, however, he learned that they were closed until January 9. As a result, and believe me, I felt bad for him, he was standing on a street corner with his parents, future in-laws, girlfriend and his brother with no table reserved anywhere on 8 p.m. on a Friday. We looked for cabs just to take us from Fisherman's Wharf up to North Beach, but none came. Apparently, anytime it rains in San Francisco, cabs become hard to find.

We eventually made it up to a small italian place but ended up waiting an additional hour for a table. My dad, Whitney's dad, Adam and myself ran up a tab of about 15 Moretti's and the women polished off a couple bottles of wine while we waited. Needless to say, we were feeling no pain by the time we finally got seated and ate some brick-oven pizza.

Last couple days in San Francisco

A couple days worth of notes:

On Wednesday, we had lunch at The Ramp. It's located just off Third Street by the Waterfront. According to Adam, the best thing about The Ramp is that for a restaurant on the water, it's a pretty well-kept secret from tourists. It's not far past AT&T Park (where the Giants play) and near the Portrero area of the city. The reason it might be kept so secret is that that part of the city, at the surface, isn't much to look at. A lot of it is under construction, as developers are betting it will be "the next big neighborhood" in San Francisco.

In the afternoon, we drove around the city and looked at potential neighborhoods for me to live in. Now: a word about my brother's driving. It's a bit on the aggressive side. His Volkswagen Passat is a standard, and he shifts in and out of lanes and swears and curses and pretty much lives by the Lynch mantra of driving with a sense of entitlement, if not anger.

We looked at the Haight Ashbury, which is a section I've wanted to live in since reading the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters when I was in high school. While it has kept the bohemian feel you read about, it's kind of J-Crew, tourist hippy at this point, where a lot of it seems contrived. That said, the residential parts have amazingly constructed homes with colorful paint and wonderful moldings.

Near the Haight is the Cole Valley area, which would be near transportation that would take me toward my work rather easily.

Afterward, we drove up along the Presidio and then back down to the bay where I went and looked at the Golden Gate, yet again. I thought about the scene in Vertigo where Jimmy Stewart follows Kim Novak and jumps in after her.


Yesterday:

Adam and I drove down to Burlingame in the afternoon and played golf at Crystal Springs, a course that overlooks, even in December, verdantly green hills. It runs along Buri Buri Ridge of the old San Mateo Rancho, and if you hook a ball a little too far, you could watch it fall down into the valley that where the 20-mile-long Crystal Springs Reservoir (and under it, part of the San Andreas fault) resides.

It was cold, though (in the forties), and we found ourselves blowing into our hands to keep warm and it stung to feel the vibrations of the club if you didn't hit the ball square (which, seeing as I hadn't played in a couple months, happened every now and again). We drank some Pilsners to keep warm and kept the windshield down on the golf cart.

In the evening, I took the muni downtown (to the financial district) and met Ben for dinner and drinks, which was a good time. With his wife due soon, I'd purchased a Red Sox onezie (sp) that I hope the little one will get good use from. Ben was pleased, saying it's the best possible baby gift I could have gotten them, so that was nice.

Afterward, I went back to the flat on Hyde Street my parents are renting, had a glass of wine and went to bed.