Right?

Specifically we are in "Marina del Ray adjacent,"one little nook of Venice which is a little cranny of Los Angeles. I know on my last visit I was harshing on SoCal a bit, but we are having a great time visiting Richard and his roomate Paul. They both use this expression where if they agree with something, they say "Right?"with a heavy rhetorial questioning tone. It's the abbreviated version of "I know, right?" like you'd say if someone commented to you, "It's so cool that Obama got elected!" It feels great to back in the Dolphin (Richard calls it the "Tuna Fish" which we find pretty insulting:) and we had a little party in it last night. Remember 4 people constitues a party in there! Today we had to run up to Santa Barbara to fetch something we forgot and made a fun day of it. We missed any major traffic backups and made it back to Venice this evening in time to go to the new Whole Foods Market. It was enormous, with a full on Indian food buffet, dessert bar, and sushi chef! We got the fixins and came home and grilled salmon and veggies on the BBQ. Now we are digesting, watching TV in HD and tending to our individual Facebook accounts. Manana we continue down Hwy 1 to San Diego and then to the desert of Joshua Tree National Park.

Black Friday

Thanksgiving family portrit
Jason on Allergic Reaction Botox

Hope everyone had a great Thursday the 26th...To be straight, this year it was hard to celebrate traditional "Thanksgiving" as we gave more thought to how the holiday is commonly celebrated without recognizing the abuse suffered by the Native Americans at the hands of the pilgrims. It was also hard to justify it as "Turkey Day" when we thought about how tortured those birds are before they are slaughtered. Maybe we are just bitter this year because we were so lonely yesterday! It was our first Thanksgiving as vegetarians so we were pining for white meat, gravy and stuffing. We stuffed ourselves as if we were around the family table at an All-You-Can eat Indian buffet...yummm!! Saag with tofu, some unidentifiables, and a dessert with sweet noodles and cardamom. It was delicious and quiet, but we really missed the fam! Granted, access to the remote came pretty easy and there were no childhood resentments realized over dessert, but we thought a lot about all the fun we were missing with all of you, even as we walked the beach in 70 degree weather!

This moring we got up at 5:30 to do our duty as consumers on Black Friday. We got a little GPS for the trip which means less squabbling over when we shoud get gas (Jaycie says, "Now!!! Just going on this trip is adventure enough!" Jason says, "Ah, c'mon! We can make it! Let's go for it!" as the fuel light comes on). Now we just relax a bit and prepare for our departure tomorrow to Joshua Tree National Park via Venice and a visit with a friend. Clear out the driveway, Righard, here we come!

Medical Mystery in Paradise...

Still in SB, still having a marvelous time...except that Jason is having a bit of an allergic reaction to an unknown antigen. We're talkin' full on angioedema (swollen lips for the non-nurses) and hives...Luckily we have a couple doctors in the family who prescribed him some steroids to quell the immune response and potential life threatening swelling of his throat. It's working well except that he's high as a kite, amped up and chatting even more than usual. He is actually driving down from Humboldt completing the cabinet delivery for his mom so I'm going to pick him up in SLO. I will surely be drinking some coffee so I can compete with him for air time!!

A couple days ago I met my friend Guf in Santa Monica for dinner. I drove down Highway 1, through Ventura and Malibu and was not super impressed. For one thing, I think that being born and raised in moist Humboldt has made me see the desert as almost alien land. I couldn't get over all those houses (mansions, really) on such dry, desolate rocky hills. How the hell do they have enough water? Dogs are not allowed on beaches at all so Keta and I slunked around like criminals so she could get her walk. I met Guf on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica which is full of fancy and normal shops and restaurants. I think I saw Lance Bass as I was buying a Fatburger for Keta to have for dinner. Otherwise no celeb sightings, just a good vegan dinner. Guf introduced me to Pinkberry which is yummy frozen yogurt, real yogurt with live cultures and the whole bit. We had one before dinner and one after, the first topped with strawberries and the second with Cap'n Crunch! The evening ended with a walk on the Pacific Palisades beach below where Guf is staying and Arnold the Governator has a house. It is really exciting to know that there is so much to be discovered out there, and we haven't even left California!!

Shannon and Meredith and Mason are flying to Arizona for Turkey Day (Hopefully soon to be Tofurkey day). They have been such lovely hostesses and it has been great fun hanging out with such an awesome family. We are watching the house and dog for them and will leave town on Sunday for Joshua Tree if Jason doesn't resemble a big itchy beach ball.

Sunny Santa Barbara

Sorry, blog fans (we do have some fans, right?) we are having a hard time getting into the rhythm of daily blogging. For one, we squabble gently over who gets to use the computer and by the time we decide who gets to do the writing it's too late...For two, we have been having too much fun in the sun to park it and type! Surely you've seen the insane SoCal wildfires...it has been just a teeny bit smoky here but has made for incredible sunsets. There are huge helicopters and planes flying overhead constantly dropping water on the smoldering hills. Thankfully the fam down here is safe and sound.

For a couple moldy Humboldt hippies, the weather has been too good to be true. Today we took Keta to the beach and swam in the ocean and got out and were plenty warm...we get to use Shannon and Meredith's Vespas (with a strict "you break it, you buy it" clause) and it has been fun croozing town, watching the palm trees go by. Jason's dad John and Pat were here this weekend, and we had a Fondue B-day party for Pat, an abrupt deviation from the strict grain-fruit-veggie diet we had been on while on the road. Damn that was some good cheez!!! Meredith made the bomb blueberry pie and we enjoyed each other's company. John passed out the book Mount Whitney in preparation for the family summit planned for August. We should probably get to climbin' some hills!

We are off to get some susi then head to see the new James Bond flick. I promise, our adventures will get more exciting when we get on the road again. Until then, it's surf and sun for us....

Highway One State Down and 49 to Go

If the trip so far is any indication of how great this trip is going to be, we are in for a real treat!!!! We headed out from Mendocino, meandering down the coast and celebrating the success of the patched roof as the rain pounded down. Like water on a duck's back friends, we are leak free!! In the minuscule town of Elk we got out and walked on a deserted driftwood filled beach, where Jaycie developed "Beach Calisthenics," a super nerdy yoga/80's aerobics combo only to be performed on secluded beaches......Jason and Keta worked on perfecting "Sweating to the Stick Chasing" and in the end we all got out ya-ya's out and were ready to get on with the drive. We made it to Bodega Bay that evening where we had lunch, napped, and watched a storm chase the boats into the harbor. That evening we croozed town and pulled into a Laundromat to wash our clothes. The parking spot was so flat, safe, and dark that we opted to spend the night right there!!! And that we did..

Near sunrise the next morning (we get to bed pretty early these days) we moved on south. We went down a steep grade through fields of happy cows and stopped at a lookout over Drake's Bay...if felt like we were discovering land for the first time... We should have stopped there but we tested the limits of the brakes and continued down to Dillon's Beach, only to find that, really, it is only Dillon's Beach. The land czars had all possible beach parking areas roped off so that to the beach would cost ya $15 bucks! As you might suspect, we did not leave with sandy feet that day, but we were not daunted and blew out of there for Pt. Reyes. If at all possible, please get yourself to Pt. Reyes as soon as you can. It's hard to describe the true living miracle that is Pt. Reyes State Park. The bluffs and the wide silver sea are pure magic...

Oh, getting sleepy now! We are all the way down in Santa Barbara now so we still have some back-blogging to catch up on- tomorrow!

Mendo Madness

We are happy to report that we had no problem boondockin' last night. In fact, Mendo rates #1 on accomodations for vagerants so far so it should be no surprise that we are staying for another night! Water here is scarce though, which means that while all the water towers in the yards add to the rustic coastal garden look, there isn't a single place in town to fill up the RV with water. We are scoping a couple of unmanned spickets to tap into after dark... Today we didn't have much trouble burnin' the day away in Mendo, kind of like the marine layer that comes and goes over the ocean...we've just let ourselves ebb and flow. The dramatic coastline here surpasses any other in California by far and the weather today is splendid, the water clear...life couldn't be better!
All our frisbee golf friends will be glad to hear we found the local course and played a round. Jaycie has improved to competition level and has Jason working to get every birdie he can! What can we say? So far, so good...

Officially, Residents of the Road!!!!

After months of work, planning, errands and see-you-laters, we finally hit the road this morning and made it to Mendocino this afternoon. We took the back roads through the Avenue of the Giants and saw big ol' momma redwoods that we'd never seen. The dolphin is running great, she did a spectacular job of handling the corners and steep ups and downs of Highway 1's coastal mountains. Jason spotted some oyster mushrooms on the side of the road (at such slow speeds you don't miss much!) and we cooked them up as a fabulous beach feast when we got to Fort Bragg. We are parked on a cliff at the edge of town and are hoping to camp there tonight for free...boondockin' the RVers call it! We'll see what tomorrow brings...