Barely off Delta’s Nice/Amsterdam/Portland flight (vacated by Northwest post ticket purchase and now code shared with KLM and Air France… really! ) when handed a ticket to Long Beach, CA along with instructions to disburse among a half dozen farms, a container load of Flowerbud’s acrylic vases that are painfully late in from China. The approach into Long Beach takes us above the billowing smoke from the still rampant blaze that is the Station Fire, an arson caused conflagration in some foothills east of LA. Of all the LA area airports used by me this past decade, Long Beach has never counted among them, until now. To say the least it is small, quaint almost. Eminently manageable and as far from what one might imagine an airport in Los Angeles to be as possible. No frill, no flash and quite some number of trailers operating as peoples offices. California continues showing us that the 31st state is in a state of penury… the first of many such glimpses I catch through the dried up and weedy landscaping, the endless trash blowing roadside, and for the next 1975 miles, feel… as I bounce through potholes and thump over misaligned bridge expansion joints and collapsed concrete in freeway lanes. Long Beach Hertz readies an ash covered Suburban for me and for once I am delighted to drive this behemoth, the nightmare of every Keen shoed, hybrid life styled “greenster” in Portland, OR. Not only do I need it to haul the goods, I need it to negotiate the economically shattered and fractured infrastructure. This is no vehicle for Arnold’s “girlie men”, rather it is a necessity because of them! Smaller more efficient cars may indeed be the way to go but the minions of PC in Sacramento might better ensure that their employers, the tax payers of California, have roads that remain drivable for the new generations of cars to come. If they are going to insist on providing obstacle courses, then I can foresee the day when the Governor will be in the unenviable position of having to give half the drivers in the state… a Hummer!
GPS’s prove far more useful than cup holders, cruise control and perhaps even the AC when on a search for a warehouse in Hawthorn and then a variety of farms that stretch from Vista to Arcata. The Hertz/Magellan “Never Lost” lives up to its name flawlessly and saves me untold hours, miles and stress induced atherosclerosis as I load the giant Chevy for the initial runs north to Santa Barbara and Santa Maria. The following series of runs will take me to the San Diego region before parking the vehicle and hopping an Alaskan flight back to Portland to see a Friday night football game that debuts my youngest as Center on a Varsity team that gets handed a narrow defeat by the ‘08 State Champs. Saturday morning sees me winging back to San Diego to resume my role of erstwhile teamster…. but only after stretching the legs on a quick ride from Carlsbad to Torrey Pines and back. On this morning’s pass over the Station Fire, it is visibly more under control and the onshore breeze has cleansed the LA basin of smoke and a considerable amount of the everyday smog.
As the miles blur by under the ‘burb I am quite pleased to see it returning an average of 18.5 mpg… especially as I am paying 55 cents more per gallon than just about anywhere else in the US. Rather good seeing as we are loaded to the gunwales and keeping time with LA’s speedier traffic. Of interest is the Chevy motor’s seemless transition from 8 to 4 cylinders on those miles needing less than full grunt. For certain jobs and certain roads this is just the ticket and is not to be sneered at. It is also quiet and comfortable while handling 700 count vase loads. While GM/Chevy are the whipping boys du jour I sincerely hope it is not because of vehicles like this, as they make admirable vehicles for many commercial applications. An emergency vase run in a Prius would remain exactly that, an emergency, even allowing for me as a sole occupant, being granted use of the HOV lane… complete with PC sticker on my rear bumper.
The trips north with the Santa Barbara Channel on my left are very familiar too me and never fail to delight. The glimpses of blue ocean, the promise of dolphins at Mussel Shoals, the white spanish colonial homes roofed in red tile and the oak dotted hills of now brown grasses are attractive by any standards. In this area a number of the highway medians actually have more flowers than litter and look lovely in the pinks and whites of oleanders. The ‘camo’ patterned Eucalyptus’s with sloughing bark, stand pale blue and grey, scruffily happy in groves. Rank after green rank of trim vines undulate over hill and dale as I get beyond Buellton’s claim of being the home of Split Pea Soup and close in on strawberry fields standing cheek by jowl with the flexing muscles of Santa Maria’s city limits.
Flower farms too long out of vases are happy to see them and as each drop concludes, the Flowerbud office in Lake Oswego once again lights up the vase option on those products. It can/has become awkward telling customers we are short a vase for their flower purchase. This will undoubtedly result in being one of those textbook cases where having them in plentiful supply will dry up demand again. For days now I am in and out of Hawthorn as precisely and unerringly as a homing pigeon, the ever obedient servant of the all knowing Ms. Magellan. I think there is something of the Stockholm syndrome creeping into this ” in-car relationship”. Finally the last load of acrylic has filled out every cubic inch including beneath the seats and including where a passenger might sit and we are ready for the jaunt to the mid and far northern reaches of the Golden State.
I clear the Los Angeles basin to the north and Labor Day traffic on the Grapevine is rather light so good time is made towards the flat and heated expanses, the cotton fields and the feed lots close to Bakersfield before snagging route 46 back towards the coast. Todays first drop will be over by where the artichokes grow, on the bluffs overlooking Monterey Bay. Route 46 is a first for me and I marvel at the arid lands of the San Joaquin Valley, the hundreds if not thousands of pump-jacks slowly “nodding” oil out of the Lost Hills oil field and the endless vistas of Pistachio orchards, the property of Paramount Farms. Without water from the aqueduct here it is land that would be better utilized for re makes of a Lawrence of Arabia movie or Clint’s spaghetti westerns. While even as far west as Paso Robles the vines looked parched and there is death among the rows. Seemingly I had scant idea that what we might consider our bread baskets here in the west, are in fact quite harsh and arid places.
Winding my way through artichoke patches, fields ready to replant with strawberries, acres of celery and billions of lettuce I get to unload, by prior arrangement my vases in a private driveway… this a holiday and the farm being closed. Such a beautiful view of the bay being afforded from this particular loading dock I could dally a while. There is regrettably no time, as really I am only half way into todays haulage escapade and will now face the homeward bound long weekenders as I thread my way towards the Golden Gate Bridge and the quietening, darkening loveliness of Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino counties before coming to roost even further north amid those giant Redwoods redolent with the “Humboldt Herb”.
Hojo’s in Arcata gets more and more grubby and when they hand you the $90+ bill your appetite for the half ripe bananas and orange juice that could only have come from powder… is none existent. This really is a rip off price and considering the towels are the size of a kleenex and as absorbent as a roof tile it really is past time to give up my allegiance to this place. The customary fog-bank looms just along the shore line and is darkly dramatic this morning. Its hours however are numbered, as today the sunshine is hell bent on winning through and indeed by 9 am is victorious. Vases offloaded and stored away, commiserations re the state of affairs in the flower world traded through a veil of half truths with people transparently playing the “simple farmer” role. Yes, definitely time to hit the open road again. The reason for more “open road” being that common sense air connections between Arcata and Portland appear to have been abandoned and one has to fly south to San Francisco or LA to then get a flight north. It has become more expedient and economical to drive the 400 miles back to Portland. Yes, even in a Chevrolet Suburban.
The route along the coastal headlands to Crescent City is gorgeous and the morning mist recedes to the merest vapors hanging in the Redwood trees while the ocean sparkles below. The Elk herds are absent, driftwood sculptures populate the beaches and road crews inhabit highway 101 as signs of TARP money being injected into the highway infrastructure finally becomes evident here and through a few sections of southern Oregon. The road curves inland and follows the opaline Smith River, Grants Pass comes and goes and the hometown Dutch Brothers serves up a cup of coffee with their customary good nature to sustain me for the drone up I5 that ticks off some rather pretty scrub oak hills, featureless cities and grass seed fields as traffic builds and builds indicating that Portland is up ahead.
If Hertz at PDX is startled to see the road grime and the 1975 miles on their property they take care not to mention it, being only concerned with my satisfaction with the vehicle. I think back on all those fast, flawless and comfortable miles that showed me an incredible if rather linear snapshot of the State of CA. For 106 gallons of gas I got one heck of a road trip, farms got resupplied and I picked up ideas for future products. Chevy still builds one heck of a vase runner.
You better post something about your Brazil trip and I want to see something about biking.