What It Isn't

San Simeon, California - March 25, 2014

Loo Loo and I both slept well.   Loo Loo for the first time sleeping on my bed.  I enjoyed the company.  We woke up early determined to put the awful trailer park in our rear view mirror but not wanting to short change Santa Barbara just because of my bad choice.  The Fess Parker Hotel had been great.  We decided to see what Santa Barbara was all about before we took off.

Tupelo Junction Cafe

Using the same “Dog Friendly” approach we found the Tupelo Junction Café, which was right in the middle of town and drove there not on 101 but through town taking various turns which the gps on my phone corrected as soon as I made them.  I constant stream of chatter didn’t bother me and I thought how amazing again, MR Jobs technology is.  Santa Barbara is a beautiful place.  It combines upscale with laid back only the way California can.  The place is very organized. The older buildings like the Mission are, of course, Spanish style stucco with red tile roofs.  The newer buildings are done in the same manner.  The only way you can tell the different is by the tenants.  The newer buildings have tasteful signs that say Merrill Lynch and Keller Williams Real Estate or even Old Navy. 

As I drove around I realized I was making a subconscious evaluation.  Where to live next?  Sixty-five years old and I truly have no affiliation with any part of the country. – Born in the east (Baltimore), spent some formative years in Philadelphia and Harrisburg but think of myself as a being raised in Chicago, but have no desire to return – brrrr!  Went to school in Florida and Colorado.  Got my first job back in Illinois but soon moved to New Orleans and raised my kids in Connecticut.  Spent the last handful of years in Texas.  Other than Boulder, Colorado I have no burning desire to return to any of these places.  So, as I drove around Santa Barbara, I realized that in the back of my mind was thinking, “Could I live here?”  I realized I could not.  My decision was made on instinct – gut feel.  What drove the instinct is not important.  What is important is that if this trip means anything its purpose is to design my criteria for the next 15 -20 years of my life.  Where shall I live?   How shall I live? What would I do?  Who would I be? What exactly am I going to do with the remaining years of my life now that it has been thrown in turmoil?

I don’t know what the criterion are but today’s drive around led me to one conclusion.  I like authenticity.  That means to me, something - some place -  that is real, genuine and has substance.  Now, I can’t fault Santa Barbara.  They are doing a terrific job of preserving their past and designing a future that is quite attractive and compatible with their heritage.  I am sure many people who are much smarter than I have dedicated a lot of time and energy making Santa Barbara beautiful place to work and live.  And it is a great place, but not for me. 

What tipped me off to my own opinion about Santa Barbara were the bums.   Well , not really the bums but the part the bums played in the larger scheme of things in Santa Barbara≥   Maybe it was because Loo Loo and I got up early – although I do not consider 9:00 AM on a Tuesday early per se.  That was when we were walking down the main street of Santa Barbara on our way to the Tupelo Junction Café.  We did run into a nice couple on their way to yoga class with yoga mats tucked under their arms, and the Starbucks was doing a brisk business and every once in a while you saw quite out of place, a business man in his traditional coat and tie.  What bothered me was the extraordinary number of bums that were on the streets.  Now, I know the politically correct term is “homeless people.”  Hey, I went to school in Colorado, which was and is, to this day, full of hippies (although for the life of me I can’t figure out how an 18 year old gets to be a hippie.)  These guys on the street in tony Santa Barbara were straight out bums.  They had their shopping carts and their piles of accumulated junk.  Some were talking to themselves, shouting nonsense.  The important part is they seemed to be at home.  These weren’t people passing though.  These were people with bum roots in Santa Barbara.  They seemed to know each other (its’ hard to accurately determine if bums who are shouting nonsense at the top of their lungs know each other but I got the feeling that the routine I was seeing this morning was, well, routine.  I watched these people as I ate breakfast on the “dog-friendly porch of the Tupelo Junction Café.  (The French Toast that was actually a French banquette with blueberry compote syrup. Excellent!)

Bum or Artsy? You make the call.

I was taking in the spectacle of these self-assured residential bums when I noticed  another group of people.  These were not bums.  They were more like eccentrics.  Maybe you’d call them artsy, I supposed. People who were not rich but not down and out but elected to dress in costume.  A man who looked quite like Santa Claus (fat with snow white beard) except he was driving a moped and appeared to be wearing a 70's jump suit.  Or the lady I spotted on the corner who was dressed sort of aging fairy princess.  Or the dude with his shopping bad and matching sweatshirt and Islamic headdress.  Then I noticed that many of the people who walked by were dressed in some sort of costume.  Come to think of it, my yoga students were very much dressed to send a message with their wools stocking hats and tights.  It occurred to me that everyone in Santa Barbara is acting out their part and is trying very hard at it.  Trying hard to be homeless, trying to hard to be eccentric, trying to hard to be laid back, trying to combine upscale status with California cool.  Now, there is nothing wrong with any of this.  I know one should be tolerate of homeless people.  I know that its good that Merrill Lynch has an adobe building with red tiles.  I guess it just isn’t where I want to be.  It’s not where I want to spend my time.  I scratched Santa Barbara off the list and realize that I have to engage the subject during this trip.  Where do I want to go?

I came away from my breakfast and drive around Santa Barbara with one conclusion.  I like is authenticity – Authenticity is impossible to intentionally create.  It has to be created by accident or at least not intentionally.  I find it deceptively hard to identify.  Let me give you an example.  My father flew B-17’s in World War II.  More accurately he was a Navigator.  The guy who sat in the glass nose of the plane and dropped the bombs when it was time.  Now my father never flew in a airplane until he went to flight school in Tampa Florida.  NI asked him once, “Why did you choose to fly bombers if you had never been in an airplane.  Without hesitation he said, “I figured if they were going to shoot at me, I’d rather be up in the air than on the ground.”  He was issue a leather jacket with his group’s insignia.  When the war was over my dad came home and I was born.  As a little kid I remember that on chilly fall days when we was raking leaves and his three young sons were pretending to help him he would wear that jacket.  Why did he wear that jacket to rake leaves?  Because it was chilly in the fall.  Authentic.  Ralph Lauren can sell you a replica of that jacket, I am sure, for $1,200.00.  I am equally sure that the photo in his catalogue has a picture of a chiseled jawed young man with aviator glasses on.  Can you spot which one is authentic? I have no grudge with Ralph Lauren.  He does a magnificent job of manufacturing the authentic the authentic.  He does it because it is what people want.  Authenticity.  But they are too busy, or it is too much trouble to actually get drafted, be issued an authentic bomber jacket, drop bombs over Dresden then come home and rake leaves with your kids.  It’s a lot easier to shell out $1,200 and hope your friends won’t know the difference. 

I have been wracking my brains thinking of examples of authenticity.  I’ll give you strange one you might not think is authentic and, hell I could be wrong.  In Carmel, California there is a small hotel named the Mission Inn.  The Mission Inn is owned by Clint Eastwood.  It is on a beautiful piece of property right near the Mission in Carmel, hence the name.  He bought it because it was going to be developed into some sort of exclusive condo development.  So, Eastwood, it is my understanding, put together a group, bought the place.  The Mission Inn is exclusive and high priced but it is also authentic, but he didn’t do much to fix the place up.  It is nice but in keeping with the original  place.  Rooms are individual cottages and there can’t be more than a dozen and ½ of them.  The rooms are nice, clean but far from luxurious.  I’m sure by now they have free Wi-Fi, but when I was there several years ago the rooms were clean and nice and expensive but not Las Vegas fancy.  The restaurant is small.  It includes a small par area with a piano bar and an outdoor deck where you can sit and watch the sun go down over a pasture near the Pacific where a flock of sheep grazes.  Fancy, no., expensive, decidedly - Authentic, to be sure. 

I was having drinks one night out on the deck with a business colleague who commented, “You know this place is supposed to be owned by Clint Eastwood.  I have been here dozens of times and I never saw the guy.”  When I paid the check I turned to her and said, “Really, he’s there at the bar.”  Eastwood, like I witnessed many times was standing at the bar with a couple of local guys having a beer, attracting no attention.  Now, this was 15 years ago and I doubt if Clint is there tonight, but that is my idea of authentic. 

Loo Loo departing the RV PArk from hell.

Loo Loo and I go back to the awful RV Park and pack up in record time.  I am getting good at this trailer thing, although if truth be told it still strikes terror in my heart.  The entire thing is so heavy and potentially destructive.  The wildcard is me.  I have never been good at mechanical things.  My father   He never owned his own screwdriver.  I asked him on time, “Dad, when you were growing up and a fuse blew or the heat went out what would you do?”   “Call the Super,” he replied.   So, needless to say he did not instill in his son’s an aptitude for mechanical objects.  I took this on as something of a lifelong challenge.  I married a country girl who was forever telling me how her father crawled under the house to fix the septic system or how he knew how to change a tire without a jack or create cold fusion with household items.  I did not shrink from the challenge.  For the six years I lived in Texas I learned how to drive a tractor, chain the implements, work a chain saw and a variety of other manly mechanical tasks.  In particular, I always had tremendous respect for the power of the tractor I owned.  If you made a mistake it was very unforgiving.  Do I have no legacy when it comes to mechanical devices.  That is compounded upon the fact that I am not an instinctively careful person.  I am not reckless.  I have never been injured and have never inflected pain on anyone (except apparently, my wife.)  But I am not a carful person.  This is for one reason – I know, knock on wood somewhere – I have never had anything bad happen to me.  When you go through life and make mistakes and over and over again these mistakes do not crush you or have you end up in jail or worse but always turn out alright you do have a tendency to get a little careless. 
grew up in an apartment.

Regardless, I make a perfect departure from out hellish trailers park on 101 and head north.  Our destination is either San Simeon or Big Sur.  I don’t know which.  So, we just proceed north.  The pacific coast is beautiful and surprising at the same time.  I am always surprised at the green rolling hills in California and the incredible rock formations, springing out of those lust green hills.  I know there is a drought in California but the hills here are green and lush. 

I notice that Loo Loo for some reason seems anxious.  See can’t seem to sit still.  I think maybe she misses Kat.  I am a meager substitute.  Kat runs this dog mercilessly all say long, jogging, playing, running on the beach, making her jump after old palm leaves and pine cones.  Kat runs her into the ground on a daily basis.  I on the other hand prefer the solitude of the road.  To sit quietly and drive miles just thinking about…well I can not be specific about what it is I am thinking about but thinking – enjoying the solitude appreciating what ever it is around the next bend.  That’s what I like.  Loo Loo likes running around like a nut.  So just seems to me that she is not happy.  She wants me to pet her, or wants me to take a break, or wants something to eat.  Loo Loo is a wonderful dog, not bad at all, but I am just not in tune with her like Gatto is.  But she is plainly not happy.  So I decide, San Simeon it is.  The shortest distance.  We head to San Simeon State Park which is a quiet little camp ground near the Hearst Castle.  I decide that we will camp here tonight and then tomorrow I will lock Loo Loo up in the Airstream and tour Hearst Castle. 

The campground, I am learning is a typical state campground.  Very few amenities but nice and affordable.  Since it is March and mid-week there are plenty of open spaces.  Loo Loo and I pick one out and settle down for a real meal.  Yes, it is time.  It seems we are finally going to have our steaks.  I worry that they may have gone bad but throw caution to the wind because there is an outdoor grill I can use.  I drive to a nearby liquor store and buy a bag of charcoal along with my mandatory bottle of red wine.  (Good for your heart, you know!)  We return to the camp ground and fire up the grill.  The two of us share a dinner of the week or two old rib-eye steaks I have been trying to cook ever since we left Fort Worth.

I realize that in my desire to have Loo Loo overcome her uneasiness regardless of the cause, we have finished dinner and it is 5:15.  With daylight savings I realize the two of us have got some time to kill.  The one thing that you have to understand with government – meaning state or national campgrounds is they expect you to actually camp.  Private campgrounds – even the worst, like the one we just left this morning – have electricity, running water, cable TV and Wi-Fi, so you can camp out without actually having to “camp out”.  The state and national parks give you a place to have a fire…and that’s about it.   So, I cannot “blog”, or watch TV or surf the web.  And it is a cool three hours to sunset.  So Loo Loo and I decide to take a walk.  We find out that this campground extends under 101 and spills out to a wonderful beach.  We discover this by walking along until we reach and area that is restricted to trailers and motorhomes.  We walk up a little further and there is this camp area, totally deserted except for one guy who is apparently bicycling up 101 from LA to San Francisco.  I never actually saw him but I saw his overloaded bicycle next to a small pup tent.  Even though it was 5:30 and hours from dark this dude was lights out.  So Loo Loo and I proceeded on and despite signs reading “no dogs allowed” ventured under 101 and found had this great lost beach, all to ourselves.

Loo Loo's Secret Beach

Loo Loo immediately sprang into action, chasing all the birds in a nearby pond, frolicking along the beach and then finally participating in her favorite sport – dig for the gophers.  Now, I am no animal expert, but I doubt there are very many beach dwelling gophers.  Loo Loo could not have cared less.  She dug and dug and dug for elusive gopher until she couldn’t take it any longer and went back to the little pond and just flopped into it.

We returned to our darkened, non-wifi, non-cable, camp site ready for a good night’s sleep.  Loo Loo and I settled into our cozy little Airstream.  Loo Loo always started on the floor but would eventually find her way to the sofa or my bed.  the night was chilly but the comforter which Liz had given me was perfect for the little bed tucked into the corner of the Airstream.  I tried not to think to much about the future but every once in a while it was impossible not to think just a little about the past and that day I first met my wife.