Fossil Butte National Monument – Wyoming

I’d wanted to go to Fossil Butte National Monument since I was eight or ten but I couldn’t really remember why… or even what it was… I drove in and there was all sorts of markers aside the road reading which era of history I was driving into as I drove ever downwards. It was really neat and then I went to the visitor center and all along their walkway there was a strip reading when various animals have been found on the fossil record. Can you believe starfish are over 400 million years old? Creepy, I know.

The visitor center was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. They had fossils everywhere they found in the local area from the world’s oldest bat to a perfect little Eohippus, a huge alligator, lots of fish, insects, and plants. If you ever want to make me happy just drop me off at a place like that… I marveled at everything. There was a woman working behind glass to clean up one of the fossils and make it visible. I couldn’t tell what it was but she was using a tiny little sandblaster and said a friendly hello. There were three blonde women and a large gaggle of children filing out of an RV. It looks as if their family had outgrown their SUV. Probably polygamists by the looks – where the husband? I couldn’t see him.

The park itself is free and it was a cool 70 degrees. I had time to kill and I wanted to know what was up with this place so I walked up the historic quarry trail. They said it was strenuous but most of these parks use “strenuous” to describe paths that are merely wheelchair inaccessible. They weren’t lying this time… this path was a good mile straight up and then another mile and a half across and back down. I’d gone up in the opposite direction I was supposed to so that this upward part would be shorter… I came across an old camp house used for processing the fossils. It looked like it was built almost out of scrap material but who knows what was considered new building material in the 1930’s, which was when it was put up. It aged remarkably well. You could see parts of an old car rusted into the ground and a small mountain stream I was tempted to jump into. My legs were KILLING me and I was sweating my ass off. I sipped rations of water as I took breaks here and there.

Eventually I walked up to the quarry part of the trail only to find it was another straight up detour. I could see the place but I hurt so bad. I somehow bulldogged it up there, knowing I’d pay for this. There were markers telling me which layers of the rock were what and a little information. It was neat. I looked around the rubble to see if I could find anything. I found a tiny fragment of something, it had piece of a body and a claw… perhaps a crayfish or something? No one was going to miss a half a centimeter fragment of something so I pocketed it. I also found a rock shaped like a fish, laughing I decided it was a fossil fish. I had to bring that one home too…

There was a register up there. I signed it, realizing I was the only person to attempt the trail today and that since the year began less than 300 people had been up there… I wrote in the comments, “Lots of poop, no animals.” And it was true. There was so much elk and deer poop up there someone should have started a garden…

By the time I got back down to the car I was happy I’d made it but I was exhausted, hot, and know I’d probably pay for this little adventure dearly.

June 21, 2011 0

U-Dig Trilobite Quarry – Utah

U-Dig is a quarry loaded with trilobites that anyone with a wad of cash and four hours to spare can go liberate from the rocks. Of course I’d been to a number of rock shops and had already spent a quite a few hours fawning over the Madagascan specimens, but I knew the little buggars you find in the US are a little less fancy. According to their website most people came home with over a dozen trilobites when visiting.

The twelve year old tending the admission stand was only somewhat helpful in giving instructions so I took over. I grasped a rock in my hand, which I saw already had a weakness in it, and popped it open with the little rock hammer I was given. Immediately two trilobites could be seen inside, though they were wee ones, very wee ones. My scavenging of the rocks was finding dozens of little trilobites and impressions and pieces scattered everywhere that people had missed and I was only going for rocks that already had visible weaknesses in them.

I wandered around a lot, picking here and there. I found at least two species. Some great specimens came out of the rock after several hundred million years only to say hi and dissolve in my hands. That happened a lot. An old man came by that said he was down here three times a week. He asked if we were finding good specimens. I said yes. His ancient border collie Australian Sheppard mix wandered around the rocks sniffing something out.

Meanwhile more people arrived, with small children… who brings their children to a rock quarry?? Of course these children were just as unmanaged as the rest of the country’s that I’d seen. One little boy climbed up to the very top of the top of the quarry and peered down at all the chipped rock, throwing stones down to hear them thunk. “Get down from there!” his mother yelled, repeatedly, for twenty minutes, until the child got bored of being up there and came down on his own. I was so irritated by this I nearly climbed up there myself and dragged him down by the ear. If you’re going to yell at your children then back it up with some action! Then maybe next time he’ll listen! Of course once one kid goes up so must the rest… within twenty minutes the other boy, from a different party, was prancing up there as the first boy whined, “Why can he be up there when I can’t?” No one did anything for that kid, not even a yell. And as we were leaving the last small child, a girl, fell on the rocks and cut her knee open.

I was getting tired of the kids but my time was running out anyway… I was very very tired and unbeknownst to me the sun had cooked a piece of my back because sitting on the rocks made my pants slip down a little bit and my T-shirt slipped up a little bit. UGH. On the good hand I found the biggest trilobite just fifteen minutes before leaving. I found it in an untouched piece of rock I pulled out of the cliff. It was maybe two inches long, but also wedged in a giant rock. It had both negative and positive sides, but how could I drag this huge heavy rock home? I asked the boy if they ever cut rocks down, he called up his grandfather, the old man, and he came up and chipped the rock away until it was a manageable specimen showing the 2ish inch trilobite I’d found. Unfortunately the imprint couldn’t be saved, though he tried. I left with a bucket full of rocks.. I don’t know how many specimens, some great, others not so much. It was a lot of fun.

After U-dig I drove out of there and past a strange quasi-ghost town. It had a main street much like any little town does, filled with shops, and all the essential places a small population needs. It was somewhat recent structures but they were all boarded up or abandoned. Windows were missing, the buildings were cracking, and one shop really creeped me out. It was a framery or something and whoever owned it appeared to have just left one day, leaving all the frames still on the walls… They were decayed by time and age but otherwise were sitting there as eerie little testaments of a town that once was. Around the outskirts of main street you could see dilapidated houses reading, “for sale” and “prime property!” I saw one soul there, a teenage boy with his two dogs, the female trotted out into the street with huge milk-filled teats. I nearly hit her. The kid seemed to take no notice. It was all very strange… I was happy to be out of there.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 20, 2011 0

Salt Lake City Utah

I am pretty sure I would have skipped Salt Lake City had there not been familiar faces there. It was a strange place all together. Every street had a number, and there were no names to be seen anywhere. It was a city on a perfect grid, with perfect blocks, all numbered in perfect chronological order. The houses bothered me more… All the little outskirts and well into the city all you could see was neighborhood after neighborhood of big-family mansions, all looking eerily similar to the next, and every one of them painted tan, with an occasional brown or off-white one thrown in. This was not only a city without personality it was a city without color. I knew there were people around but all the houses seemed dark, and although many had children’s play gyms and toys in the yard and it was the dead of summer there wasn’t a child to be seen. You could see lots and lots of churches though, one for every neighborhood. I wasn’t sure what to expect of the people I was about to meet, I had hoped they weren’t as bland as the city itself.

Chris and Brandy lived on one of only two streets I saw with a name. Their neighborhood had regular sized houses and seemed a bit cheerier. I was greeted at the door by two fantastically friendly little mongrels, a Chihuahua mix (I think with a shibu inu or some other unusual breed..) and a rat terrier mix. Already I was set a little to ease.

It was Father’s Day so my visit was short but pleasant. Chris and Brandy were both very laid back and seemingly happy people with a sense of humor. They were very easy to get along with. Brandy and myself just sat quietly. Though she did joke we should check out their lake whose salinity was like the dead sea, making people float. The idea intrigued me but the area kind of scared me off trying this…

The next day I visited a guy named Mike. I stopped in at their place and was greeted immediately by three cheerful talkative children, two of which hugged me within the first five minutes of being there. The eldest chatted off my ear for awhile while her brother looked at me with big adoring eyes. Their mother was sick so we only met her for a moment when they woke her up. It was later in the day, she had a migraine, and everything was bothering her. I know what that’s like! Mike himself seemed a very laid back guy, though he did seem quite tired. I can’t blame him though, three kids, all close in age… ouch. They in turn spent a lot of time dragging around two kittens who I’m sure will be amazingly tolerant cats someday. They had two cats and two kittens in the household and Mike told us they were probably not going to keep both or either of the kittens. I enjoyed the little black and white kitten who reminded me of my mother’s cat, Tobey. It reminded me of the Wal-Mart I went into before Salt Lake City. There were two kids outside with a box of free kittens, each hugging a kitten as tight as they could like, “Our mom sent us out here to get rid of these but don’t take our kittens! We love them!” I don’t think they were very successful… And yesterday I saw a guy in an old Volkswagen Bus taking his cat for a walk at a truck stop.

Anyway, Mike told me of his recent artistic ventures making some sci-fi shorts for online and he told us about his prior job as a truck driver, stating he’d been to all the lower 48, save for the New England states. My visit was short and sweet as the children had to be off to bed. I left Salt Lake, again.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 19, 2011 0

Jeep Breaks Down – Plymouth Indiana

I was on my way to Michigan, to a Dutch store, when the Jeep finally decided to give me trouble. It was really only a matter of time before something had to go wrong. Today was exceptionally hot, in the high 80’s, and the Jeep decided to throw off it’s serpentine belt like a string of Mardi Gras beads, leaving aside the highway before overheating and dumping some sort of metal wheel from the engine. The steering went whack and the Jeep was no longer functional.

It was a Sunday in mid summer so although AAA was called it would be a more than two hour wait standing aside a cornfield dying of the heat before someone showed up.

He was a big guy and sweating profusely. I was worried he might have a heart attack or something. He looked so uncomfortable! But once he was in the truck he seemed to be doing better. He talked to us and we told him what we were up to. He was sweet enough to call around to find a place that was likely to have the part I needed so I wouldn’t end up stranded for a week. The mechanic that AAA had initially told him to go to wasn’t even open on the weekends. So it was a 30 minute drive to a bigger city. He told me about Notre Dame and pointed out Touch Down Jesus as we drove by. He said he had two kids and that football here was huge. I thanked him as I walked into Sears.

I was set to deal with an old man who had taken the call earlier. He looked gloomily at the engine, three others did the same. They were all quiet, too quiet, and no one would really tell me what was going on. I got the distinct feeling that the Jeep was on some sort of life support and I was about to be asked to pull the plug. Eventually he said that it was an easy fix but he didn’t have the part, and that he couldn’t find anyone who did. He insisted it might be Tuesday or Wednesday before the car was fixed which was not an option I had. I was already just scraping by with the few pennies I had left. I had no money for a hotel or a rental or anything of the sort. Perhaps I’d be sleeping in the park tonight.

Eventually he asked if the guy had tried calling Advanced Auto Parts which we had already driven by. The guy said he did but they weren’t answering and must be closed. He said most of the places around here closed at 2:30. What? I had never heard of such a thing, mechanics having the same hours as a high school… and I grew up in a family of mechanics! All of them stopped working when the sun went down, only because of the dark, otherwise they’d be open even later. One of his coworkers heard the conversation and said, “They should be open! They’re usually open until 8 or 10 PM.” By now it was 4PM. He called again. This time they picked up and he proceeded to order an $85 serpentine belt which I knew should cost $35. He got a cheaper one. In the end it cost $230 and took an hour and a half to fix. I was soon on my way and driving towards Michigan, a state I had no real desire to experience — you see every person I have met in my life from Michigan has been a total bastard, people who are out to just fuck with you for no reason. I have talked to others who said the same thing – everyone they met from Michigan was someone to be avoided like the plague. Now maybe I just had a bum deal and met all the bad apples fleeing the state but I was more concerned I hadn’t and that there was something about Michigan that made the souls of many of its citizens rot at the core.

I ended up in Kalamazoo. I skipped the Dutch store and settled for a gas station where everyone was rude and odd. I left as soon as I could.

***I apologize for any missing photos and galleries as I continue to work getting Catching Marbles fully migrated to a new host. Please come back soon for restored photos and thank you for your patience!***

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 16, 2011 0

Seattle Washington

I was asked what Seattle was like and I didn’t really have an answer. It always struck me as a sort of yuppie city, famous for coffee and sour dough bread. Also I heard it rained a lot. So what’s in Seattle to see? I don’t know, the Space Needle?

The Space Needle is one thing but what else is there? I had no idea so I asked my phone. It told me of a troll living under a bridge… so I went to check that out. I don’t think I expected a giant troll grasping a real Volkswagen Bug in its hands. I had some teenagers take a photo and then I wandered off to see what else was in the area (besides the overwhelming stench of a local tomcat.)

I ended up in front of a bunch of eateries. Before coming here today I realized the budget could no longer stand up to eating out every few days and I decided to stop this and go back to the PB&J sandwiches, which by the way do not fill you up and after awhile instead train your belly on a constant grumbly aching for real food. However there was a place here selling shawarma, and the idea of something I normally cook at home being served here was doubly tempting… Shawarma is a dish usually made of lamb or pork, shoved in a pita pocket and drowned in garlic sauce. It’s a Turkish/Dutch dish and I had made it a few times using turkey as a substitute. It’s pub food, what can I say? Filling and delicious. I walked by but not with much conviction.

This place must have been the artsy neighborhood. It was filled with weird art everywhere including unexplained works in the making and a crazy bum wielding a guitar while talk-singing to himself and telling the Laundromat off. So that’s where people get their chips installed these days… I always thought that was the dentist…

There were college students everywhere here, in every eatery, even the Vietnamese hot noodle place. I walked back to the car only to have my hunger hit again. I wandered around the neighborhood looking for a place to park but there was absolutely nothing. Now I was starting to see why everyone here seemed to be riding a bike or jogging. Even the middle aged people, potbellies and all, were seen jogging down the streets with an I-Pod and a step-o-meter on their hip with an expression of, “Why am I doing this to myself??” I failed at finding a parking space and left, ending up at Green Lake.

Green Lake is a nice little lake with a two and a half mile track around it which cyclists, joggers, and dog walkers go around and around on. It was flat, perfect for this sort of activity I wasn’t feeling all that great and was hungry to boot. I walked back to the car after finding the lake had nothing particularly interesting in or around it. I made one final note about the people here… they all seemed to have dogs… old muttly dogs which looked like they’d been in the family for twenty years… now that’s some dedication!

I left the city hungry and found a grocer’s nearby. I had gotten there a little after the deli counter had started to get ready to close shop. The woman there was not in any mood to deal with me and despite her name being Angel she was far from one. She pretended I wasn’t there… for ten minutes… and when I didn’t leave she yelled, “WHAT YOU WANT?!” I cleared my throat and answered as best I could which caused a great deal of muttering. She was either reciting a hex or cursing me out in a foreign tongue. Either way… little weird. I had to dodge the turkey and cheese as she threw it full force across the counter, continuing to curse. WOW. Paying for these choices took another twenty minutes at the counter as most of the registers were completely abandoned and the one that was open for some reason only wanted to deal with everyone but me despite the fact I was in the queue….?? Yup. One of those days.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 16, 2011 0

Random Beach – California

After the redwoods the GPS decided to try and kill me again, attempting to send me up dirt roads clearly labeled, “not a through way” and then telling me to turn left into a tree. There was no road at all where she claimed there was one. This resulted in me being creative in my attempt to find an exit and in doing so I somehow stumbled onto a beach with a number of little structures, half buried in the sand. It was a little fort or something. I’m not sure. It was however low tide and the sea seemed so far away.

I was hungry and tired and in no way in the mood for walking on a cold windy beach, trudging through the sand, in search of invisible shells. It was indeed nippy and to make matters worse my shoes had worn out to the point they felt like tacks stabbing into the back of my heals with each step. I already lost some skin to this degradation and it didn’t take long before I found myself barefootin’ again.

The beach was beautiful, filled with all sorts of bleached redwood driftwood. Still it was windy and cold. I didn’t really start to enjoy it until we found a dead something washed up. All that was left of it was the bones of it’s torso. The hips were backwards facing and the scapula was no less confusing. I theorized it to be a bird but if it was a bird it was an enormous bird. Do seals have backwards facing pelvises? I don’t know anything about marine mammals, maybe it was something like that. ***Further research revealed the bone to be that of a baby seal.

I walked farther up the beach and I was doing fairly OK until I realized my bandana had blown away and was nowhere to be found, leaving my hair to whip wildly around my face. I couldn’t see a thing any more and was getting increasingly cranky. I didn’t find any shells, only some pretty colorful rocks we pocketed and promised to deposit in a future fish tank. My purse kept falling off my shoulder and it felt heavier than usual. I threw the damn thing and screamed. I didn’t feel any better after this unusual fit. Suffice to say by the time I reached the car I was just ready to book it out of there. After a cereal bar I was once again returned to a world I could deal with. Hypoglycemia’s ever so much fun, randomly throwing me into hyper, aggressive/agitated, or weepy moods I find intensely hard to control. I think if it wasn’t for that I probably would have enjoyed that beach… it was rather like a desert island, hidden, private, and very neat.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 15, 2011 0

Redwood National Park California

I went to the Redwood National Park hoping to see some big trees. I wasn’t sure if I would see any or not, knowing full well that most of the really big trees, the ones which are thousands of years old, have long since been logged before the days of national parks. However I had watched documentaries that say redwoods grow 6 feet a year and that in the canopy there are whole ecosystems we’re just now learning about in tree caves in and on branches, even whole species of amphibians living their entire lives up there. It’s a neat and romantic idea, still, on my way to this place I passed dozens of cheesy little small-town attractions like The Grandfather Tree and Confusion Hill. I actually stopped at Confusion Hill to see what it was about. There was a small very packed gift shop and signs all over the place saying to beware of the rare and elusive Chip-a-lope. And low and behold there were Chip-a-lope in the gift store, little stuffed chipmunks with antelope antlers on their head. Cute. There was something about a train ride and a twisted tree and their back yard seemed to be sectioned out into bizarre exhibits. I should mention the place was run by an old hippie woman, and probably her husband. I left confused alright, never finding out what the “mystery” advertised on the giant sign even was. Perhaps which drugs were used to inspire this place? I can voucher a guess on that one.

The area was rife with aged hippies. I should mention this, as that morning I accidentally flashed one when the back door of the Jeep unexpectedly flung up during my morning rituals. Then there was Confusion Hill and someplace I passed called Area 101 which looked like a small ghost town someone had boarded up and psychedelically painted with UFO’s and eyeballs. I stopped to take a photo of that bizzarro place only to be mocked by two of its patrons, old hippies, hooting and hollering and jumping around like monkeys. Touché. I smiled and waved in turn. Yes, I know I’m a dorky tourist. Might as well wear it with pride.

When I got to the actual redwood forest I drove quite a ways noticing most of the monster trees were indeed old stumps, cut down for one reason or another. Finally I got to the trails. I took the Ladybird Johnson Trail, starting with a wooden bridge that extended over the highway. It led me into the woods where I got to see giant dead trees, hollowed out by fire but still standing! I walked further. I found a cavernous tree off the path and meandered off to check it out. I have a hard time resisting such temptations sometimes. I took photos and checked it out thoroughly. It was more interesting than what was on the path and I was not the first one to think so as graffiti in the tree noted which of the many puppy-eyed teenagers loved whom. Back to the path I finally started hitting live giant trees. They were impressive but nothing like the photos I’d seen as a kid of people stretched arm to arm around the old trees, in fact they weren’t even as big as the “drive through” tree I passed, with a large hole carved out of it allowing cars to pass right through it. That tree was still alive, despite the harassment. There was apparently a “tall tree grove” but it was inaccessible without a permit. The signs stating this fact did not state how to get a permit or if it was possible.

In any event the trail was a nice one, especially for someone’s who’s out of shape tush has been doing very little except driving around the Jeep… and it was humbling to be in the presence of such wide and tall trees. Despite warnings of bears and cougar I saw no wildlife, save for a jay and a snake. The jays were demonized on the exhibit signs. I was told not to feed these opportunistic monsters because they were making some other more natural birds go extinct.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 15, 2011 0

Elephant Seal Beach

After San Francisco it was back to beach combing, this time in Point Reyes. I drove through a world of cows. There were fat cows, skinny cows, spotted cows, black cows, fenced in cows, and free roaming cows. I even found an escaped cow next to a broken fence. I wasn’t sure why I was driving through this bovine bevy but I don’t ask a lot of questions to begin with. Besides the cows there were other strange sights including four huge male elk just strutting through the fields like they owned the place, carrying with them the largest antlers I had ever seen. I guess they were lucky I wasn’t a hunter! I shot them instead with my camera. Gorgeous beasties.

I was unable to find a walkable beach, however at the end of one road I did find Elephant Seal Beach Overlook. It was a ¼ of a mile walk… and I was in no mood. The wind was blowing so hard that there were flying monkeys being slammed into the rocks ahead of me. Somehow I managed to slide out of the Jeep, after changing my clothes to jeans, a sweater, and my winter trench coat. I walked down the path, barricaded by handrails which I clung to whenever the wind threatened to tip me over. At one point the gales nearly threw me off my feet and I was grateful for those handrails! I couldn’t get that close to the seals but there they were, as promised… a beach full of bloated, enormous seals with funny noses. Of course I could only distinguish this by using the fantastic zooming abilities of the camera. Binoculars probably would have been helpful, still I did see something in the wild I never would have before! I went back to the Jeep nearly frozen. The cows stared at me as I left, wondering who I was and why I was there so late.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 15, 2011 0

San Francisco California

After seeing all the other Californian cities before San Francisco I was a bit desensitized. Still, San Francisco was historically more interesting than the other cities, It was no LA that’s for sure! It’s quiet, its cute, and its full of 90 degree hills, it’s lovable in a 3-D sort of way.

Though I do know various tidbits of San Fransisco history I wasn’t really sure where to go myself. I knew I wanted to check out the Haight and go down Lombard street just to be the ultimate geeky tourist. I headed towards Haight-Ashbury, the former and apparently now reestablished hippie mecca. Had one of those bizarre moments when I knew I was getting near because I recognized one of the houses. Took me a couple of hours to figure out why. I think I recognized it from some old news footage in Tom Brockaw’s (spelling?) 1968 documentary. This is one of the handful of documentaries I play whenever its on, which is often…

Anyway, I knew when I hit the Haight. There was a sudden burst of psychedelic colors washing out over the windows and buildings. Murals were everywhere. So was tie-dye T-shirt shops as well as a lot of other adorable little fashion outlets. When I initially parked I wasn’t sure if I could because there was a sign on the meter that said something about construction and no parking. there was a burly hippie dude in the front of a music store and when asked if I could park here he said nothing, just approached the meter, ripped off the sign, threw it in a nearby trashcan and announced, “Is now!”

I walked into the music store. It had beautiful instruments but having no musical inclinations I had no idea about any of them. I did hit a few record stores as well which had an absolutely delicious selection of things, the most variety I’d ever seen. I didn’t look too close. I probably would have bought half the store if I could.

I stopped in at one of the artsy looking stores. There were wood carvings here that blew my mind. One piece of wood carved into two tangoing dinosaurs with exquisite detail was the first thing I saw. The second thing was an entire wall, including a bedframe with cabinets, all a conglomerate of tiny carvings. It was amazingly 3-D. Of course there was a big wooden Buddha people had left coins on and a Ganesh I couldn’t help but petting. He’s the Hindu protector of travelers after all…

Another interesting store I stopped by was some sort of freakish antiques and bad taxidermy shop. It had not just jackalopes but a squirrel riding a bunny rodeo style, several finch headed necklaces, squirrels dressed up as dolls, a fancy rat poised over a trap, and other very badly taxidermied little things that just looked dried up, twisted, and weird. If animals weren’t your thing they also had a shrunken head and the tiny severed foot of a Chinese woman from back in the days when binding was practiced. Oh and there was also a pickled tattoo of some sort… and funny enough a book about the Mutter Museum. Upstairs was a gallery of scary art and a deep purple embossed velvet child-sized casket, very Victorian looking.

All and all I left the Haight happy, happy enough to take a crack at Lombard street, which by the way is a one way street, and which our navigation at first brought us to the wrong side of. Another foil in planning when I got back to Lombard I drove it for quite awhile without seeing the characteristic eight hairpin turns lined up one after another. Back to the phone. It told me Lombard street’s crooked section was only one block and it told me where so off I went. When I first saw what the Jeep was in for I patted it’s dash and told it I was sorry. It groaned in return but made it just fine past all the turns! No one else was keeping entertained with this street as I was and the pedestrians seemed to think the Jeep was too fat for such a stunt, they looked on with an expression of delighted horror. After this three small cars appeared and followed suit.

Today was a good day for a little bit of ocean fun so I headed to Pier 37. I didn’t know what it was but it was listed as a tourist destination in the brochure I got from the Salinas campground. As it turns out Pier 37 it is a boardwalk full of fried foods, ice cream, little tourist shops, corny entertainment, street performers, and restaurants. I watched some break dancing and perused some magnet shops before making my way to the actual pier where rumor had it that there were seals. I wasn’t disappointed. There was a group of fat seals all sitting on the docks barking at each other and lazily basking in the sun. It was a nice end to this little trip to the sea front.

After leaving Pier 37 it was decided that the Full House house should be found for the appropriate shits and giggles. I looked it up and in another dorky excursion checked it out, snapping one photo to the complete befuddlement of the car behind us.

It was after this I just happened to stumble across an amazing surprise called the Fine Arts Lagoon. When I read the sign I thought of an art gallery in front of a big black body of water, possibly filled with monsters. It was nothing like that. Instead it was an enormous structure of Greek columns nestled aside a good sized lagoon, absolutely filled with red-eared sliders and big scary carp. Ducks also lined the shores and one swan watched me walk by, politely not beating me to death with its wings, as swans are prone to do. This place was gorgeous and serene, something I had never heard of, yet it was such a treasure! I walked all the way around the lagoon and through the columns, decorated with stunning Greco-Roman styled ornamentation including large vases and absolutely perfect figures of women. We read the signs, and found out this place was built in the 20’s as both a wildlife refuge and a testimonial to art itself. I had a couple Asian women take a photo in front of it.

Finally I decided to go to Golden Gate Park to get a photo in front of the Golden Gate bridge. I found another Asian family to take the photo. I was asked to get up on the wall but I yelled, through the phenomenal sound of gusting wind, “I can’t! My skirt is blowing everywhere!” This made the two Asian women in the background giggle to each other. I am glad I amused someone… I was having a Hell of a time with my ankle length, very light weight skirt. I was holding it in bunches with both hands to keep it down and I was failing. I was happy to be back in the Jeep.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 14, 2011 0

KOA Campground – Santinella CA

My next stop was supposed to be San Francisco but I wasn’t particularly thrilled about the idea of arriving in a large city on a Sunday so I took some time for a little R&R at a KOA campground instead. I needed a good rest and some uninterrupted sleep anyway. Waking up when the Jeep reached boiling point every morning was not really the best way to sleep. Besides I was trying to camp since Yosemite but they were full and the Big Sur grounds were just too bizarre and expensive to figure out.

The KOA campground in Santinella was expensive too, $27 a night, but they had water, electricity, full bathroom and showers, a 24 hour Laundromat, as well as some extras including a game room, wi-fi, a public porch, a communal grill, and a pool. I was due for doing some laundry and getting a shower, the rest seemed great too.

Arriving we found the park full of RVs but very very quiet. The most activity I saw were the hundreds of ground squirrels dashing for cover when I drove in. Apparently this was squirrel metropolis. The people who were around all seemed to be old and owned little yappy lap dogs. Still, since I was the only tent I found a fairly secluded spot near the Laundromat and next to a horse pasture. Pitching the tent was easy this time as I was not battling explosive bursts of wind and rain like I had on previous occasions.

I wasn’t about to let the pool go to waste. No one seemed to be using it which was odd, it’s not like it was filled with baby barracuda like that awesome little beach in Key West… No barracuda, more toes spared, it was a win win. I spent the whole day splashing to and fro and realizing just how out of shape I really was. There was no one else here. The woman working there said sometimes children would use the pool on weekends but that was the majority of the activity it saw. I didn’t end up doing our laundry or getting a shower… and I slept in until noon, so I had to renew for another day anyway… it was a pleasant place. I had a firepit and some Wal-Mart wood and cooked turkey dogs, potatoes and onions, and macaroni and cheese on it. My neighbors found me ever so cute for using the fire for macaroni and cheese but trust me, at this point Mac and Cheese was a feast for kings!!

I swam for another long stint, getting even more sunburned than the day before despite being covered in sun block. It must have been expired or something as we both got burned, of course I got much worse so. Everywhere the bathing suit wasn’t covering got lobster-red. And people wonder why I am against bikinis… in any event some good old Aloe Vera and we were back to that whole laundry and shower thing. The shower was the first hot shower I’d taken in a public place. I was intensely grateful.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 13, 2011 0