Sights along the way: California

Day 50: Reflections

Fort Bragg, California---It is day 50 on my coast to coast road trip. I am about half way in my plan to crisscross the United States and write. I have driven 5327 miles. I have stopped in Destin, Gulfport, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Dallas, Roswell, Phoenix, Sedona, Grand Canyon, Vegas, Hermosa Beach, Carmel, Fresno, Yosemite, San Meteo, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Sausalito, Rohnert Park, Napa and now Fort Bragg, California. I have visited 39 people along the way.  I have stayed with friends that I met at 9 years old and I have stayed with friends I met 2 years ago at the Marina in Rabot, Morocco, Africa while sailing. The longest it had been since I've seen one friend was 38 years. The longest I’ve stayed in one place is 10 days, and five of those I was really sick.

I am at the half way point yet it feels like I’ve been gone for about 6 months. My home in Daytona Beach, Florida feels far, far away.

I’ve driven my Hyundai thru the Las Vegas strip, down town Los Angeles and in their rush hour traffic and on San Francisco’s steep hills while dodging the trolleys. At times I’ve felt totally committed to this journey and confident, but then I’ve also repeatedly had times when I’ve questioned what I am doing; driving around like this with no job ahead and not sure where this will all lead.

“Ish” has become a word in my vocabulary. Not knowing exactly when I will be where, I have emailed and texted people ahead that I would arrive in "2-ish” weeks. Or "sometime in the next week-ish.”  I am definitely sure that I will be somewhere in the unknown future.

I have witnessed people’s proud triumphs in their lives and seen their struggles. I have met husbands and children for the first time.

I have been at peace on a beach where my friend’s ashes were spread 13 years ago and have FREAKED OUT when I had to unexpectantly come to a dead stop on a 4 lane highway when a brush fire caught traffic in a white-out of heavy smoke; I was not able to see the front hood but able to catch glimpses of flames waist high a lane away.

On this trip, I have cried over the news of the sudden death of a college roommate, I have laughed at how much a newborn baby looks like his father that was posted on Facebook.

I do not know how I could have managed this trip without FaceBook, Texting, Starbucks' free wifi and my Hyundai’s GPS as well as my several stops at a AAA regional office to pick up books and hard maps of the areas I’m heading to next.

One thing became clear early on: my idea that everyone has a story and I would write about people’s life challenges and how they “overcame” was not going to work out.  It’s true, at this point in life everyone has a story of overcoming. But the stories were so huge, so personal, so profound that I could not write about them without telling heavy secrets, losing peoples jobs, and in one case even risking someone’s life.  I was not going to do this to friends and relatives even if I changed their names and locations, it was too risky.

So I had to change courses. Again. And let the stories come out as I came upon them. But being COMPLETELY open to anything and everything on this trip was the promise I made to myself before I left.  Unlike my year sailing when I was devastated when things didn’t go as planned.

God always has a better plan anyway.

But the most profound reality that I am seeing as I drive state to state is how absolutely beautiful America is. Completely and totally amazing. It looks really different when you see the land evolve from farmland to desert to mountains to forests to ocean. I wish everyone would be required to do this drive after high school or college. Pride in our country, understanding the cultural differences of states and regions, and seeing why it is so important to defend what we have, for me could not be as fully understood without experiencing it in person.

We need to keep our states united.

I have seen many, many things that reminded me of what I saw while traveling the world on sailboats and never staying in the same place for more than a week. But, now doing a similar thing, I am realizing that our United States has many places that is like no other place in the world.  All of this is wrapped into one country.

After having a business for 26 years, then crewing on sailboats around the world for a year, then running an oceanfront restaurant and bar for over a year, it would have been safer to stay home and dream up my next career move.  But then I would never have the memory of catching my first huge fish in Mississippi or seeing wild horses running along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, or watching the Sunset on top of a "Vortex Hill" in Sedona, or seeing the Tour de Pier on Manhattan Beach, or driving both the Southern California Coastline and the Northern California Coastline...

It is truly America, the beautiful…yet my road trip still has another half to go.

Sea Glass Beach

Fort Bragg, California---One thing about this road trip is the idea that I can pull over whenever I come upon something that looks interesting; like White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. The other thing is I can go to a destination just for the sheer fact that I want to see it; like Sedona, Arizona. It doesn’t have to be on the way to somewhere else, it can become a destination.

This is true about Glass Beach. I had read about it a long time ago and it seemed close enough on the map so I decided to make it a destination. It turned out to be the farthest north I will go in California. I will have to skip Oregon and Washington State due to time and budget. I know I’m missing a lot. Another day I hope.

But Glass Beach fascinated me because I love rocks and I love beach glass. I picked it up all around the world and weighted down the sailboat, much to the Captain’s chagrin. Leaving Napa I also decided to take the second coastal drive along the North Coast of California. It took about 8 hours to drive it all but it was well worth it. I stopped several times to enjoy where I was including some really cool small towns in the forests before I hit the coastal highway.

The history of this area is that it was the city dump site starting on the beaches from 1902 to the 1960's. Between the area's people and the pounding waves, the beach was cleaned but the broken glass remained and was polished through the ages.

I finally reaching Fort Bragg at 5:30pm and wanted to find Glass Beach before the sun went down. It was easy to find on the north end of town on Glass Beach Drive. Dah.  

But the first thing that happened was on the trail to the beach, I spotted a big sign saying no picking up glass from the beach. BUMMER. Gone were my thoughts of loading my Hyundai with pounds of beach glass, which I would have justified although you can buy it at Pier One for much less than the cost of the extra gas mileage the weight would cause.

Second was the incredible foul smell of rotting sea plants that lined the beach and attracted hundreds of squawking seagulls.

Then as I looked for this so called sea glass on Sea Glass Beach I was looking for sizeable chunks. Instead I realized that the sea glass was there and it was kind of beautiful but it was as tiny as many of the particles of sand and stones.  None of my research had explained that. Perhaps there are other sites but most of this part of California beaches are cliffs with huge rocks along the coast not walkable sandy beaches.

The area had a lot of other things to do, but since I was limited on time, it was just a stopover.

Sea Glass Beach was a disappointment. But it will represent the destination that I went to, just because I could.

Napa Walk

Napa, California---One thing I have loved about EVERYONE I have visited in California is that they love where they live. It’s not like that in Florida…people complain about it. But here, everyone is proud of where they live.

Nothing is truer than Napa Valley.

A client friend of mine had relocated to Napa Valley with her husband three years ago and a nephew who relocated recently. Although I have told everyone to go on with their lives and not feel like they have to entertain me, these friends were anxious to show me around and I was not going to stop them!

So for two days the routine was similar. Go to a vineyard. Taste wine. Go to another vineyard. Taste wine. Have lunch. Go to a vineyard. Taste wine.

 

TAKE NAP.

How is it that just a little bit of each wine can put me in under the table? The friend laughed and said that all their visitors have done the same thing; taken a long nap after a day of tastings.

The first day they laughed at me walking up to their condo. “Look, she’s doing the Napa Walk.” I pointed out that I was walking straight and not drunk. They agreed but still said they’d seen it before…

The second day was my favorite as we visited MUMM a “sparkling winery”---that’s champagne that can’t be called Champagne because the grapes were not grown in a specific area of the world. Regardless, I call it Champagne and I love it.

This was followed by the most beautiful winery I’ve seen to date: Darioush.  A Persian themed Palace with fabulous wine, good looking men who work there, and an interesting tour to the basement for tastings directly from several kegs and a look at the private tasting room of the owner.

And her having friends at both places didn’t hurt either.

Seeing a broad spectrum of Napa Valley with the beautiful vineyards everywhere you turned with perfect weather was just about as good as it got. But it got better.

Turns out I got to know a whole different person that had once been a business client in Florida. She is an award winning contest chef in the amateur category who not only knows endless information about cooking, she has one of the best tasting palettes I’ve ever known and could rattle off the elements in the wine we were tasting.  Everywhere we went I loved asking her and getting an education about not only the flavors in the wine but the whole spectrum of food and wine and how it can inter-relate.  It was like having a personal trainer for wine.

Everyone has a story and theirs has had struggles and pain within it. But sometimes that can give way to a new beginning. Like I said, it is so great to be submerged in the attitude of loving life. And they certainly do.

What’s not to love? It’s Napa.