Your correspondent, being an employee of the federal, was happy to take the day with pay today. The rest of the family must ought to report to their several places of education and employment, the state of California having decided in the last several that perhaps Christobal Colon was not quite the thing. He didn’t discover anything you see – there were people already living here and every culture is exactly the equivalent of every other.
Oh, you may argue that on one side of the Atlantic artists of a sort were daubing their skin with clay and dancing around the campfire in preparation for a slaving raid while, over on the other side, Michelangelo was lying on his back painting the Sistene Chapel, but this is all very much beside the point: The implicit lesson is that we ought to be a bit embarrassed about ourselves. For being.
Now, it’s entirely possible I suppose that the Iroquois Confederacy might have buckled on their armor and crossed the ocean in 1917 to help put down the threat of Prussian militarism. And they might have come back again in ’41 after that “arsenal of democracy” thing didn’t quite live up to its billing, to put postage paid to genocidal fascism. And perhaps they would have even manned the ramparts for nearly 50 years and opened up their wallets to rebuild liberal democracy when a different kind of totalitarianism sought to enslave the minds of 400 million people in the name of a stern, Utopian ideology.
Perhaps.
But I remain unconvinced, and thus unembarrassed. Find me perfection on this side of the veil and I’ll acknowledge every imperfection with a sincere, chest thumping mea culpa. Until that point, noli me tangere.
Work I had to do, but my spirit declined to be oppressed on such a beautiful day in San Diego. The tourists have decamped at last, and the sky was absolutely cloudless, as though it denied the possibility of there ever being a cloud. As though denying that any cloud had ever existed. As if denying knowledge of clouds. And the air, gentle reader? It was as fine champagne. Cool, sophisticated and just a bit intoxicating. Perfect day for a motorcycle ride.
First things first and it was Cardiff and Pipes, for to breakfast like a king, the hour being already well advanced and my hunger a very palpable companion. I took the Five northbound, the 101 being more scenic but my need being great. There’d be time for touring after.
Pancakes and bacon and eggs too, and would I like cheese on them? Of course I would. You will not leave there hungry. But you will have to leave.
Up then, and back on the bike. It’s good touring on a motorcycle – driving in a car, even a convertible, frames the scene. Isolates it. It is better than watching the world go by on TV, but not much. On a motorcycle you’re a part of all you see, in it, of it. In a way you’re not in a car.
Motorcyclists exchange greetings with others of their ilk on the road, you may have noticed. The left hand off the clutch, two fingers pointed down: “Keep it rubber-side down.” We’re in this together. Harley guys are less reliable allies. There are some who ride the big twins because they think doing so makes them bad asses – they’ll blow a guy off who waves to them from a BMW or rice rocket. But others give it back to you with interest. Hand waves and a big smile, they’re just happy to be a part of it.
I always wave to the Harley guys. The flashing smiles are worth it, and I like the fact that the guys who don’t wave back owe me some karma.
Sometimes you take what you can get.
Encinitas is the next town up the coast from Cardiff – “Cardiff by the sea“, it ostentatiously announces. To disambiguate itself from that other California Cardiff. Where ever that might be. The southern entry to Encinitas is guarded by one of those tidal basins that are the saviors of Southern California. They push the houses back from the sea, up on the bluffs.
The first thing you see entering Cardiff is the “Self-realization Fellowship,” otherwise known as Swami’s. Across the street, a storefront is pleased to announce the imminent opening of the Self-realization Fellowship Book and Gift Store. It’s good to know that you can buy some of that self-actualization. Give it to others as a gift, like. The town itself, at least on the 101, is Italian restaurants and coffee shops, yoga salons, art galleries and wine bars. Encinitas is mature, serenely self-confident, funky. You might want to live there. You’re pretty sure that if you did you’d look with pity on those who didn’t. So long as you didn’t have to commute southbound on the Five in the morning, or northbound in the afternoon. Either one of which is pretty much a daily look at the seventh circle of hell.
North of the main part of the town is the community of Leucadia, which takes the Encinitas funkiness and raises it exponentially. You get the impression that the Encinitas town fathers saw “Reefer Madness” back in the 30′s, swept up all the likely suspects and deposited them on the city’s northern boundary, knowing that depositing them on the southern boundary would have fouled the beach views. It’s the kind of place you’d like to get off and walk around in a bit – it’s almost otherworldly. Such examples of the entrepreneurial spirit as “The Plant Lady” exist in 500 square foot proximity with tattoo parlors and the “Screams of Passion” hair salon. Tiny surfer flops offer rooms at the weekly rate of only $299! Out of native gentility, I wave a splendid specimen of North American womanhood across the road – she’s hoping to cross the 1o1 in front of me, away from the crosswalk. There are many moving parts as she jogs past, smiling and waving gratefully. I smile back inside my helmet thinking, “No, no: My pleasure.” All men are, to a greater or lesser degree, pigs. Nosce te ipsum.
Leaving town northbound another tidal basin, another relatively unspoiled beach vista and, of course, the ubiquitous surfers. They have a special intimacy with the sea, these coastal boys, and a unique language for describing it – a lover’s patois. In a way I envy it of them, but for my own part I have seen the ocean naked and unadorned, sprawling lazily in every direction as far as the eye can see, and I do not stint them their own brand of familiarity.
Next town up is Carlsbad, which – and this is only my opinion – appears to be trying a little too hard. It is the California coastal town imagined as a kind of theme park. South of town Victorian B&B’s, multi-million dollar mansions and 50′s era bungalows elbow for peek ocean views, a power plant juts jarringly into view and then suddenly we are on streets of Bohemian inauthenticity. Carlsbad beckons for you to explore its tidy side streets, but having just passed by the warrens of Leucadia and Encinitas, this traveler remained untempted.
A small bridge, a salt marsh and the whole world separate precious Carlsbad from sturdy Oceanside. It is the anti-Carlsbad, crass, commercial, common – Bakersfield by the sea. It thrusts itself at you almost wantonly, liquor stores and chopper shops, used car lots and the obligatory surf shops. It is as though it could not decide what to be and decided to be everything. Middle class men in shirts and ties walk by hard looking young men with ballcaps pulled down about their ears. It’s a military town, and looks it – except for the fact that the Marines themselves are not out and about on this federal holiday. They must be elsewhere.
Oceanside’s side street don’t even beckon, and your correspondent turned the bike around with few regrets. I’m now very nearly late for a therapeutic massage I’d booked that I wanted more than I needed. Having too much dawdled in my adventures, I’m strangely rushed to go and get relaxed. This is the nature of things.
I guess it could have been worse: I could have been working.
What a lovely day. Thanks for sharing it.
“The rest of the family must ought to report to their several places of education and employment, the state of California having decided in the last several that perhaps Christobal Colon was not quite the thing. ”
T’was a holiday for us State toilers as well, Lex. Of course, the skool kiddies were in session learning of Chris C. this day, appropriately.
Very nice Lex. I drove by NAS JAX today and looked on with envy. Envy because since retiring last year, running a couple of businesses and building a house, have not taken many days off. let alone during the week. And the base was empty…
As I drove by, I thought about what I’d do today were I still in the navy…breakfast at a nice little place (great eggs benedict), golf, and maybe a looksee at Barnes and Noble ..and then dinner with the Missus. Alas, none came true. Nice to see though that on the opposite coast, you had a nice ride, through some nice country.
Agree with you on being part of the scenary on a bike. I gave up riding some time ago, because at least on the east coast, you become so much part of the scene, most 4wheeled motorist pretend not to see you and proceed on the assumption that scenary (or lesser GWT vehicles) will move out of their way.
thus, ballbearings in a little pocket on my tank.
nice day, nice ride, very nice telling of events..glad you enjoyed a day off.
I enjoyed those extra federal holidays with the tradeoff that I’m no longer on any alert/deployed/fill-in-the-blank status. Any holiday you get should be savored and it sounds like you did.
Ahh, a lovely ride up the coast today … Thanks, Lex
Brought back many memories of taking the drive myself, although not on a motorcycle!
“Bakersfield by the sea”, classic. I spent the day wandering the same ground with a bit more purpose, and put the vast wasteland of North County behind me with nothing but exhaustion in my pack. Two drinks later, the patient is stable and expected to recover.
Lex,
Those surf-boys know of the sea, but sailors know her intimately.
The boyz can loll about and ride the cresting foam-bedecked waves, and notch their hooka sticks, swapping stories about their prowess. Maybe even oil their well-tanned abs and flash a arc-light white smile.
And yet, I’d love to see their eyes grow wide as they watched great black waves crest over the bow of a small boy in the north atlantic. I’m certain that, whatever gleaming sun-kissed breakers they’ve seen. they cannot compare with the sight of dolphins racing off the bow, or mile upon mile of God’s own ocean, stretching out beyond your imagination, and the view of that bright green flash as the sun sets upon the distant horizon, and handfuls of stars flick into view.
There is the beach, but then there is the sea, and no one who has been upon her can ever be truly happy with seeing her from land. She’s an evil, and a loving temptress, and I miss her so.
Thanks for sharing your day with us. It’s always a good read.
Respects,
Tim gets it. There is the beach, and then there is the sea. At sea the sinuses are clear, as is the air. The water may have some sargasso flotsam and jetsom milling about in places, but is otherwise clean. Pristene. As if we’d never passed this way a thousand times before in many guises, over many centuries, in vessels of wood and iron and steel. The sea, you see, is bigger than all of us. We cannot make an impression on her.
Land, the beach, just stinks. About 3 days from home one notices The Smell. It’s a smell of death, decay, rotting vegetation and pollution and smog and asphalt baking in the sun. The beach we contaminate with water bottles and empty suntan lotion tubes and driftwood forts for to abide in like Robinson Crusoe. On the beaches and land we leave our marks, for they are slow to be cleansed. The sea can only reach so far inland to purge the evidence of our presence.
But at sea? You realize just how miniscule, how minute we really are. It’s like looking at the cosmos, seeing the Milky Way brightly dissecting the sky on a clear, cold and moonless winter night on the High Plains. Suddenly our place in the Universe is abundantly clear, as is our place on this Earth when one sees the vast sea. We inhabit a planet that is 2/3rds water, and we are a species without gills.
– Max
Back in the 80′s Larry Himmel had an evening show called “san diego at large”. It was a PM magazine sort of thing, but very SD centric and no celebretard news. One of their specialties was doing skits. Biff and Skippy – stoner surfer wannabe’s who lived with a hot chick (skippy was rick rockwell aka the groom in who wants to marry a millionaire many years later). Another was OB Law – stoner surfer lawyers. Then they did one off parodies – the best of which was a crimestoppers ad where they were looking for a man who was seen eating meat in Leucadia. This was 20 years ago and I san still see Larry (in the reenactment) furtively scarfing down a giant burger while the cop doing the voiceover tells us not to approach him because he’s considered armed and dangerous.
Alas, there’s no sign of it on youtube.
Kevin; Dooood,
‘San Diego at Large’ was the greatest local show!
Great memories; Fish tacos, I.B., Mexican Village…
Great travelogue, Lex. I can understand the lure of motorcycling on a beautiful California day.
I relive those days in a 560SL. The Spousal Unit and I can converse, normally. And we don’t need to wear a helmet.
Sounds like a great day, one that puts paid to a lot of days working.
On the question of what happened here over the last 500 years, well, the people that came from Europe killed the people that were here. It isn’t that our forefathers were right, or better, or more cultured, it just that they were more successful at killing and breeding. That’s the facts. All of our ancestors are the winners of countless battles, small and large. They managed to survive long enough to breed, and keep their offspring alive long enough to do the same. There are no apologies needed, there is no one alive who can claim any other history. All of us are the descendants of the successful killers of the past. Man on man, tribe on tribe, kingdom on kingdom. The history of man is a story of armed struggle.
Currently, for reasons that look like suicide to me, the United States is trying to forget or ignore this. The Jews, the Apaches, and the Carthaginians could all warn us of the risks of this path.
Lex,
Wonderful word paintings of Cardiff, Pipes, Swami’s and everything north. I had a sister who lived in Cardiff by the sea for 10 years and we hit all those spots every year. It would be heaven to live there but for one minor problem, the billion or so autos crammed unto every street. Even heaven can come with a high price. Thanks for bringing back great memories.
Never pegged you for a two-wheeler, must be that “maverick” thing from top gun.
My respect, already quite high, has increased as I now know you aren’t old enough or fat enough to ride a harley – good for you.
I made the daily trek from my domicile in Oceanside to my employ in point loma aboard two-wheeled thunder, and missed the convenience of near perfect conditions. That was until I found the beauty of not knowing how the story would end. This weekend I rode the glorious White Mountains of New Hampshire, lolling through the woods, watching the missus taking her first road-bound cruise on her own bike. Infectious this two wheel passion is.
So, what is your mount’s pedigree, dare I ask?
Oh, it’s a BMW R1150GS, Mark. Perfect ride for commuting and the twisties. If you can only have one bike…
Max, with regard to the sea and feeling miniscule, Husband and I took our first cruise last year to Alaska. He’d, of course, been to sea before on the Ranger in the early ’80s, but I’d never been on water much other than local rivers and lakes — where you can see the shore all the time.
I was very surprised to find that being on the ocean and not seeing the shore totally disoriented me — I usually know where I am and I could not get oriented on that ship to save my life until the last day or so. Husband laughed at me (the scum) and gloated that he knew the way to go always. Feh.
I was also seasick, but I think more a mild case of panic than motion sickness. That not seeing the shoreline and knowing that I cannot swim far enough to make it to shore bothered me a lot, way more than I had anticipated. It was enlightening, to learn so much about myself when I thought I knew how I would react in most situations.
I also had a lot more respect for our sailors and aviators who go to sea for six months or more at a time as opposed to my one week, not to mention orienting themselves on an aircraft carrier and not getting lost in the passageways.
“[Carlsbad] is the California coastal town imagined as a kind of theme park. ”
What else do you expect from the home of Lego Land?
Lex- This is better than the travel stuff in the magazines. Almost makes me wan to visit there…
Try turning words into cash by sending this to something like the USAA folks for their newsletter, a biker mag of some sort, or the AAA folks. Best with a few photos, but they may have stock stuff already, or you have an excuse to go back for a few shots.
Take a chance on getting paid for doing what you love to do, and do so well.
Me, too…and most wave back, here in Nuevo Mexico. But then again, car drivers wave to each other here.
Reading your superb travelogue made me long for something other than the arrow-straight roads here, Lex. One has to travel a couple of hours north to get to the fun stuff, but once there…it’s worth it!
Our favorite thing to do where ever we’ve been it to take road trips and “get lost.” We just start driving in a general direction and check the sights and wander our way home again.
One of our most favorite drives was near Moffat Field — we’d head out on a 4-lane road, that became a two-lane road, that became a 2-track road, and never made any turns. It was also repeatable, so it wasn’t a fluke that we ended up in the back of beyond with the beefaloes. It was a fun time.
Yeah- old Cristobal has taken a beating lately for having been a good businessman and found a new land and marketplace.
Inevitable.
Just finished a book that starkly puts the Clash Of Cultures, European vs North American Indian, into stark reality and it was written450 years ago! A guy named Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Conquistador penned it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernal_D%C3%ADaz_del_Castillo
Basically, a soldiers story of events and what he saw on the ground. The beauty, the achievement and the depravity of a culture so different from his own it makes West vs Islam schism of today seem small by comparison. Check it out. It’s got it all the human nature, politics, action in there and it’s 450 years old!
It’s all perspective and who wins that counts. History is written by the winners……
b2
What? No stop at O’side Angelo’s for O’rings or fried Zuchinni?
Probably unrealistic to try and carry the requisite takeout order of “cardiologist on the side” on the scooter…
Oh, man, MaxD, du hast recht about the smell! (Hope you don’t mind if I call you “du”.)
I don’t recall the name of the book in which I read it, years ago, but somebody wrote that what most people think of as the smell of the sea is the smell of what washed up upon the beach, and died.
I’ve spent the last 10 years or so within a 1/2- mile of the Gulf of Mexico, so I know what I smell.
Oh, to respond to the OP, that is, the owner:
Yeah, ain’t it cool, to go for a ride on the motorcycle on a perfect day, on a good road, with no other cares?
(at least for a little while)
Yup, good for the soul.
(Riding motorcycles is always good for the soul; the problem is, it’s sometimes very hard on the body.)