After a delightful morning of coffee and conversation with DJ, we hit the road and headed for Monterey. Unfortunately, we ended up taking a premature exit and instead, ended up in a town called Salinas.
I don't know if I can adequately express how creepy this town was. It was a Tuesday, and I don't know if we just arrived during siesta or there was some sort of weird American holiday that we were unaware of, but there was not a single soul in the entirety of the downtown area. I swear to god we saw tumbleweed. And strange movement in the shadows between buildings.
 |
| Okay, this isn't Salinas but CLOSE ENOUGH! |
Both TJ and I came to a conclusion pretty much simultaneously: "Sooo, zombie apocalypse?"
We did eventually find human life, and nabbed some food, before heading back to the van and jacking some free wireless, we Googled directions to Wal Mart hoping to crash in the parking lot.
This did not happen…
We ended up 10 miles out before we realized our error…
Somehow we ended up in a ramshackle little Mexi-town that looked sketchy as fuck and everyone was side-eyeing our little hippie van with extreme distrust.
We did not exit the vehicle.
We did eventually find Wal-Mart, but as it happens California does not allow for overnight parking!
Thus began the most harrowing drive I may have ever taken part in.
The roads were winding, the shoulder was less than six inches wide, the guardrail just barely contained the road before plummeting down hundreds of feet to the rocky surf below, it had started raining, and just at the summit of one ridiculous mountain hill: FOG! TJ’s mad driving skills need major props for getting us out of that ridiculousness alive!
 |
| I googled it. Imagine this covered in FOG. |
After finding civilization, we discovered camping prices were upwards of $35 dollars for a site with no hookups, and we were unclear if there were any fines for just parking on the side of the highway; our options were becoming slimmer and slimmer, but we opted to keep driving!
Finally, after another half an hour of traveling “insanity highway”, we spotted another camper-van pulled over in one of the turn outs. We hit the breaks, backed in and decided to hell with Highway Patrol, we needed to park! When TJ finally killed the engine, we were submerged in such complete darkness it took five minutes for our eyes to adjust and pull in enough light from the multitude of stars over head and see a vague outline of the ground beneath our feet. For several minutes we stood outside the van and just looked up at the brilliant star field above!
Still fearing prosecution from the law, we hurriedly put down the bed, climbed in and killed the lights. Huddled in the darkness…at 10PM…we were quickly bored and TJ took to fiddling with the latches in the Van and playing with the sky-hatch before we decided on chatting until sleep took us.
We awoke to no ticket flapping in the windshield, which was good…and misting rain that dampened everything we touched…which was bad, but we quickly got ready, had a glance out the window at the epic view of the ocean a hundred feet below us, and got back on the road.
We decided, after a quick pit stop where we met some unfortunate hitch-hikers that were on their way to Arizona and walking along these crazy Big Sur roads, to offer up the van and take them as far as Morro Bay. The “Trifecta of B’s” as they called themselves, were Bree (Possibly Brie?), Boston (from Boston) and Buddha Ben (because he’s Buddhist) and made for interesting road conversation on the way to our next couch surfing destination. Though they infused the van with “essence of campfire” I feel this only added to the spirit of the Van Plan and am glad we got them out of the rain for a while.
We’re slowly making our way down California and before long we’ll be rockin’ out with the Chief in Joshua Tree! I eagerly await the desert, and the heat…and seeing the place where Gram Parson's body was illegally cremated! (No seriously.)
No comments:
Post a Comment