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.

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Big Sur California

Big Sur was weird. I though it was just a single park named Big Sur that had beautiful coastlines and redwoods. Instead I found out that Scenic Coast Route Highway 1 would bring me through six separate parks, all named something different but all considered the Big Sur area. Big Sur apparently was the river bordering each. To add to the confusion there were free beaches and scenic overlooks right off the highway about every 500 feet it seemed. So why pay for the park and where? I never figured this one out. The information center did nothing but complicate issues. Whatever, back to the beaches I went!

I took lots of photos of the rough and jagged rocky coastline being battered by angry waves. I even found my way down to a beach. It was oddly devoid of shells but it was absolutely gorgeous. I was inspired by the colorful plant life clinging to all the rocks. It was definitely different from the beaches back home as well as every other beach I’d been to. I liked it there.

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Yosemite California

I had already had Yosemite circled or map and was going to go there but upon getting within five miles of its entrance (at Tioga Pass) I were informed that that particular entrance was closed and I’d have to take a detour in the mountains, which would take me no less than two hours. Did I mention the mountain was owned by the military and there were all sorts of signs saying stopping at any point was prohibited? Big military Jeeps climbed up and down and soldiers with large rifles could be seen every now and then just standing aside the road keeping guard. To make matters all the more tense the farther we drove up this insanely steep mountain the more snow started to pile up on the ground. The Californians here, who must have also been on the way to Yosemite, could be seen every now and then ignoring the signs and stopping to play in the snow. Gates started to appear on an increasingly thin road, just beyond them reading “road closed” just in case the option had to be taken. By now the snow was reaching well over the height of the Jeep and I wondered just how it was plowed like that in the first place, they must have some seriously hefty equipment to do so. Luckily I made it to the top of the mountain without anything being closed but the ride down was rough. I’ve been on a lot of mountain roads since beginning the journey but this one seemed more intense, with far steeper declines on very windy roads. It would have been a bad place for anyone’s brakes to fail, that’s for sure!

When I finally got back on the road, the same road I was detoured off of, I entered the park but by this time it was getting quite late. I rushed through, trying to see all I could and stopping every now and then to snap photos. As I was told this place was full of waterfalls, all postcard pretty. I walked over a little wooden pathway going over the local marsh. I couldn’t resist splashing the water once which was bath warm. How very odd! There didn’t seem to be too much going on in the water but there were mule deer all around and people were reacting to them like they were one-eyed one-horned purple people eaters, leaning out their window and yelling, “DEER! There’s a deer right there!” At that point I was far more amused by the people than the deer. In New England deer are so common we eat them… and I don’t mean some people eat them, I mean you’d be hard up to find anyone who hasn’t at least tried venison once or twice.

Finally I ended up on the path to see the main fall, Bridal Veil. First I took a little detour to their bathrooms and I must say they had hands down the worst bathrooms I have seen on my trip. Walking in there were ten or so stalls lined up and toilet paper EVERYWHERE. Looking into the stalls I could see some of the toilets were over flowing with not only toilet paper but also pads and tampons. I am not sure where all the toilet paper was from because the dispensers were all full… with paper it absolutely refused to let go of. Nothing was clean, there was graffiti here and there but I suppose it could have been worse. I was told the graffiti in the men’s room was artfully crafted in actual human shit. I don’t get this at all! Why doesn’t such a known park, which receives so much money from visitors, not just hire a bathroom cleaner?!

But anyways, back to the falls… even though it was late there were still people walking up here. You could see the falls between the trees and take pretty photos. I passed an interesting little rock outcropping that formed a cave-like formation. At the end of the path I was able to walk right over the river at the bottom of the falls. It was wet, very wet, and no photos were possible as the camera lens was instantaneously covered with droplets of water. Still it was quite invigorating! I actually chickened out and didn’t go across the bridge. I had no idea where it led, but apparently it was a loop path. I ended up back out on the road to the Jeep in no time, stopping one last time to photograph an ancient mule deer with a completely white face. She appeared to be pregnant and was letting people get within a foot of her. She simply didn’t care. This had to be the world’s oldest pregnant deer. I don’t even know that she was with it enough to know she was a deer.

On my way out something big caught my eye but it confused me in that split second because it was too fat to be a deer, much too fat. As it turns out it was a baby grizzly bear just checking everyone out. One good look was all we got as the ranger on duty was already chasing him away before I could get the camera to focus on him. This is common practice in the area so bears don’t get accustomed to people and their food and therefore are far less likely to attack humans and get shot themselves. Still, it was neat to see a blonde baby bear after reading sign after sign reading, “Speeding kills bears. Obey the speed limit.” They even had the logo on magnets in the gift shop, just in case you needed a future reminder.

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Death Valley – Nevada/California

Death Valley is a weird place. It’s an inhospitable place, but absolutely beautiful. The mountains surrounding it are clearly visible and often look like they’re made of some sort of layer cake or colored powder. There’s something so food-like about them. The roads lead to one resort after another that caters to rich snobby people driving rented RVs and Mercedes. It’s a playground for the rich… a grotesque show of the power of money. “Look I can afford to vacation in the frickin’ desert! And in complete comfort!” There were even pools behind the lodges and the people? UGH. There was even some little punk-ass snot doing push ups shirtless in the middle of the salt flats of Badwater like “Lookee me! I’m all tough!” Has anyone ever been impressed with such dip-shit bravado?? It made me want to pull a switch blade just to see if he’d crap himself. But alas, that’d be unladlylike.

To make matters worse the little brats had completely graffittied a great deal of the salt flats, writing their names and little heart signs in the sand everywhere. Pissed me right off, this was such a pristine place for those obnoxious brats to ruin it for everyone else. I walked quite a ways until the graffiti nearly dried up. It was too hot to go any further. I got back to the Jeep drenched in my own sweat. I’d bathed in sun lotion so I was also greasy besides dripping with sweat.

I went to the Devil’s Golf Course. That was neat. It’s this vast expense of land with gnarled salt chunks littering the landscape and making it almost look like a coral maze. I dared some idiot to lick it to see if it was really salt. The answer was a resounding yes. It was such an odd sight… Like popcorn or something. And I didn’t have to hike anywhere to see it.

The last destination I decided to go to was Salt Creek which was home to the rare pupfish. It was a half mile round trip hike. I figured this would be another wild tortoise hunt but actually the really tiny creek was full of them. Most were so small they looked like mosquito larvae but there were a few bigger ones with beautiful stripes. They reminded me of cichlids. Cute little boiling cichlids.

I walked around and eventually found a curly tailed lizard running for its life on the hot sand. It was adorable! When it was running its tail was curled right over its back like a pug. It straightened out when it stopped and I took some photos. I must say returning home I will miss the lizards.. they have brought such joy to me watching them and seeing the many different species I never knew existed. I am happy to have experienced them.

But anyway, though I bathed in more sun block I still managed to get burned ankles, part of one arm, and pink cheeks. It’s never wise to bring someone the shade of an albino into the desert. I was surprised to find the insect life here was supersized like the fly with a fluffy mohawk that was bigger than the hummingbirds I saw at the zoo. When I got back to the car I was very ready to get out… but I stopped for a magnet… and a cold drink… and the most amazing popsicle ever. It was cold and that was all that was necessary in being the most amazing popsicle ever. Like seriously, The. Most. Amazing. Popsicle. EVER. No popsicle before or since could ever come close to that popsicle in greatness.

The most sadistic part of Death valley was the one gas station I passed. $5.50 a gallon. Basically if you aren’t loaded you aren’t getting out of here alive.

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Tonopah Nevada

I slept at a rest stop in Tonopah, which looks creepy at night but is actually very nice during the day. I got up and fed the pigeons which came out of nowhere. There was also three doves too busy beating the crap out of each other to get any of the stale bread I threw to them. Little sparrows would often sprint by and snatch something from the pigeons. I was having a lot of fun that morning.

However, when I drove away I realized how odd a place Tonopah really was. Half the town was boarded up, or more of it really. In all of main street the only business still running was a tour guide’s office to go on a mule-drawn silver mine tour. Slightly up the road was the strangest looking McDonald’s I had ever seen. The bathrooms were imported from a post apocalyptic vision. Although it did have a toilet that flushed everything else in the bathroom appeared to be a prop. The sink was clogged, the soap was missing, and blow dryer had wheezed it’s last long before I got there. Just as well, who needs to wash their hands after a toilet paper-less experience in a dingy McDonald’s bathroom anyway?

But the bathrooms weren’t the crowning jewel of this place. No, that was the swarm of people. At ten in the morning this joint was hoppin’! Sooo many people! In fact I think some of the children I spotted at Joshua tree were here – either in the flesh or in the literally dozens of missing person posters hanging on every wall. Made one wonder what was in the burgers…. Quick Batman! Back to the Jeep!

 

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Extraterrestrial Highway, Little Ale-Inn, Black Mailbox – Nevada

What sci-fi nerd doesn’t want to drive the Extraterrestrial Highway and stop in at the Little Ale’inn and the infamous “black mailbox”? I did, at night… I drove the highway just as it was getting dark and confused a great deal of cows who were roaming about and wondering why on earth I was stopping to take their photos. As it got darker still I searched the skies, in vain, and eventually stopped in at The Little Ale’Inn. There was another car full of tourists there, from California, they looked at us as we drove in like, “Fuck! Someone caught us!” They avoided eye contact, painfully so.

I walked in, a bit quiet and confused myself. This place was weird… it had dollar bills tapped to the ceiling, all had something written on them and there were a lot from other countries. Around the perimeter there were T-shirts, magnets, the whole kit n’ caboodle. I sat at the bar with this tiny town’s version of Barney Gumble. It was awkward… I quietly ordered a hamburger and a bowl of soup and read the bumper stickers lining the back… a great deal of them were anti-Clinton (both Bill and Hillary for the sake of fairness) and then there was the pro-bush ones and the one anti-Obama one… there were other bumper stickers ripping on socialism and a few other things. I think if they leaned anymore to the right the whole bar would have flipped right over. I had come here hoping to find some interesting nut jobs all excitedly talking about the strange space men that came to take them away… but alas it was just us, quiet as mice. Still, I went there!

When I came outside I saw their little UFO with blinking lights that could be seen for miles and several moths trapped in the cockpit trying desperately to get out. I laughed at that, pondering if they too believed themselves to be abducted.

My next stop was the infamous black mailbox, which is actually white and very padlocked now. It belongs to a local rancher, not Area 51 as some seriously ill-informed people believe. I took a picture in front of it and then beat it like a bat out of hell because someone was feeling anti-social and didn’t want to be caught loitering at some poor bastard’s mailbox. Apparently it’s a nice place to watch the Area 51 aircraft at night. Oh well. Coming out of there I went back into town (adding an hour to the trip) to get gas, which I knew was notoriously not on this strip anywhere. As it turns out I would have come within 40 miles of running out of gas had I gone without. That was cutting it close, should I have done that.

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!


 

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Hollyweird California

Hollyweird. What can I say about you? Your traffic sucks for one. You really think it’s a good idea to give your stuck-up, timid-yet-aggressive, sixteen year old daughters ginormous SUV’s? Really now? This was cause for swearing. And the jams! Man I saw more traffic than I’d seen in the whole trip.

I didn’t really know where to go. I had no interest whatsoever in even being here. I drove down Mulholland Drive, only because it sounded vaguely familiar. It was boring. Gate after McMansion after gate after McMansion. Big whoop. I declared if I were that rich I sure as hell wouldn’t live there… I’d buy a house with land!

Anyway, it was time to visit a guy going by the name of Trash, which I think is pretty self-explanatory. He brought me around Hollyweird. He showed me the Hollywood sign (I got to see the H driving by as I was texting my mother at the time… something about, “Don’t worry, I’m not with a serial killer”) and I also got to see Frank Zappa’s old property (which looked like shrubbery) and Bing Crosby’s old house (also looked like a lot of shrubbery,) some place Jim Morrison stayed for awhile with his “crazy” girlfriend (that actually looked less like shrubbery) and the Brady Bunch House, which creepily enough has not changed. He pointed out a lot of other things but since I pay very little attention to anything in popular culture I had no idea who most of the people he was talking about were. That’s fine. I did drive down Sunset Boulevard, Vine, saw some clubs, went by the Hollywood graveyard, and eventually stopped for a pizza.

I left the city after nightfall saying good bye once and for all to the traffic, the glitter, and the generally odd atmosphere of the place… but only after taking a fucking shower. I know I seem to be harping on the shower thing but seriously… when you only take one shower every three weeks something’s terribly wrong! WATER! IT MAKES ME MELT!

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Las Vegas – Nevada

Las Vegas is the birth of human depravity, or at least the continuation of such. But you know… when in Rome, might as well fiddle while it burns. Wait, I think I got that one wrong… anyway!

The place was as to be expected, there were tacky glitzy casinos galore, and in between them there were tattoo parlors, strip joints, wedding chapels, and pawn shops. Whatever. I could care less. Though there was one place that I thought would be funny to go… the pawn shop… but not any pawn shop, the pawn shop on Pawn Stars. I had no idea the place was so tiny! And packed! Half the store had been turned into a souvenir shop for people who watch the show. There were far more people buying T-shirts than jewelry. There wasn’t much here, some old guns, a few sabers, lots of jewelry, a few odd things here and there. I left sans magnet. Too embarrassing…

I took some photos of the strip. I stopped by the world’s largest gift shop and got a magnet. The cashier was the most adorable four and a half foot tall elderly woman I have ever seen. She wore HUGE glasses, smiled, and spoke with a very bronzy voice. I thought that was great… probably the only thing here I thought was the bees knees… the rest of the time was spent dodging crazed drivers who clearly lost a ton of cash gambling and were bent on taking that out on… the Jeep! Damn that unlucky Jeep! How dare it make them lose!

On a side note, I saw a big bulletin board advertising a concert for Vanilla Ice. Really? I mean I know Vegas is where old singing stars tend to go to die but Vanilla Ice? I kind of figured he’d be living under a rock or calling himself John Smith or something….

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La Brea tar Pits – Los Angelas California

LA was on the list of destinations although I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why. It seemed like another stinking apocalyptic urban wasteland to me…  It took me days to realize it was probably marked off because of the La Brea Tar Pits. I have wanted to see the La Brea tar pits since I was a tot. I drove in and found the tar pits parking lot. It was almost full with maybe four or five spaces that could only fit the tiniest of cars, not a bloated Jeep. I drove around in circles around and around until the parking attendant made us a spot that didn’t technically exist before. We thanked him and headed towards what looked like a park.

There were kids swarming everywhere but I couldn’t have expected any less. The whole place reeked, a stench like no other. It was the tar pits bubbling away. I walked over towards it. There was indeed a big nasty mud puddle of a pond, it’s top layer covered in thick black goo, and bubbles belching from the deep. It really did smell as bad as it looked. To one corner there was a recreation of a mammoth getting stuck, it’s little mammoth family on shore going, “Noooooooo!” I could tell the mammoth that was stuck was actually floating…

I went into the museum and was told I was getting free admission because it was the first Tuesday of the month. This explained why there were so many children. I walked in and was greeted by a giant ground sloth skeleton. He was a huge beast with very odd feet. I walked around and read the signs and looked at the skeletons. They had everything here from every type of scavenger birds to hundreds of dire wolves, saber toothed cats, jaguars, weasels, mice, amphibians, mammoths, and even one woman.

There was a large laboratory in the middle of the building surrounded by plexiglass so that visitors could watch the paleontologists do their work. There was a woman in there separating grains of sand, one at a time, with a paintbrush, picking out the most minute of bones. She had managed to find maybe four or five minuscule little mice bones. I moved on and saw a mammoth back on display. Poor dear had arthritis of some kind. There was another display showing a mammoth bone next to an Asian elephant bone. I had no idea mammoths were so much bigger!

I stopped to watch a 16 minute documentary that was playing in the theater. It explained how most of the bones came to be here, with one animal getting stuck and then scavengers and predators trying to eat the stuck animal while getting trapped themselves. It also had interesting little tidbits about what the tar pits actually were… raw asphalt basically. Apparently the local Indians used the substance to waterproof their living quarters.

I ended up in the gift shop and decided to buy a magnet. As I sat in line I watched a baby in a stroller play with a blob of black goo, apparently some sort of mock tar toy. I laughed as I said, “Watch her eat that thing.” There was jars of the stuff at the counter and I decided to look at it to see what it actually was. There was no ingredients listed, only a label saying non-toxic. There was a sample smushed in a petri dish with two little dinosaur toys stuck in it. I poked at it and a bored cashier came by and started talking. I don’t really remember what he said initially but someone asked if the woman was on display here. He said she was taken down seven years ago due to political strife from local Native Americans. Seems right.

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San Diego Zoo – California

Since we had gone to one of the country’s best aquariums I thought I should go to one of its best zoos. I ended up at the San Diego Zoo. It was already 1PM. I had read somewhere it closed at 9PM so we were good. We parked and went in. It was $40 admission, per person, to get into this place so it better be good!

The place was absolutely clogged with children and strollers. I have to wonder why parents with children young enough to be in strollers, and no older children, would even bother bringing them to the zoo. They’re not going to remember it! But anyways, I was off to see the reptiles and the bugs first because it’s just rude not to remember the little guys. I was rewarded by seeing a number of baby Komodo dragons. They had lots of cute little lizards, even a gila monster, who may or may not have been venomous – several signs nearby contradicted each other on the subject.

Most of the reptiles I’d already seen at that pet store in Houston… The bug house was next. They had cockroaches, a disturbing amount of assassin bugs, I imagine with most unemployed, a windowed bee hive, and some diving beetles, nothing fantastic. I was only impressed by their leaf cutter ant colony. You could see them finding their leaves, cutting them up, dragging them underground, chewing them up into pulp, and growing fungus with them to eat. It was neat. One wonders where you even get such a large leaf cutter ant colony, complete with every type of occupational ant, meaning there must have been a queen in there somewhere… perhaps the one wearing a feather boa.

After a brief hello to the amphibians I was finally off to see something with warm blood. To the mammals!

One of the first things I saw was a fossa, an animal so weird that I was probably the only non-zookeeper to know what the hell it was. It was sleeping on a branch, its lovely chocolate paw pads dangling in mid air. I was thrilled. I was even more thrilled to be on my way to see the tapirs. I’d wanted to see them when I was twelve at the National Zoo. I walked five miles around the park and came to their exhibit almost last only to find they’d been loaned out to another zoo for the summer. It was time to make up for that! And boy did I! They had the biggest tapir there, just wiggling its weird nose and sitting there in the sun. He was so cute and weird! Later on I’d see another tapir laying against the plexiglass, literally an inch away from me. It was awesome. I would have been happy with just these but they also had okapis, animals I’d never heard of (and that’s amazing as I know a LOT of obscure animals) all the usual crowd pullers, and monkeys galore. There were monkeys everywhere. I could care less. I’ve seen enough of the buggars, though I did like their ring tailed lemur male who was running around his cage anxiously meowing, yeah, I said meowing. Apparently they meow like wee kittens. It was adorable.

I passed by an Asian Leopard Cat enclosure and man, now I know why my Bengal cat (a house cat Asian leopard cat hybrid) smells so bad. That exhibit alone smelled worse than the whole zoo combined. After this I met a pissy mongoose. Now mongeese eat cobras for breakfast, they’re not an animal you want to be on the wrong side of. This one noted the camera was right against the bars of its cage and it charged, hissing violently and baring its teeth. It nearly grabbed the lens cap with its paws. It was a quick little beastie!

I was really hungry so I decided to get something to eat before checking out the last leg of the zoo. Though it was supper time all the little cafes were closed or closing. Annoyed I left to check out the walk-through aviary, the big one, as I’d already been through the hummingbird aviary and the budgie aviary. It was very neat and had all sorts of African pigeons and weird birds. Then a keeper showed up and told us she was supposed to lock up half an hour ago and I shouldn’t be here. So I left… and when I reached the main paths I realized the whole zoo was empty. A single gorilla watched me, obviously having waited to go indoors he probably was watching me thinking, “Every day there is at least one group of these fools.” It was creepy, like something out of a horror movie, no one was anywhere. When I got closer to the exit I started seeing more weary travelers, all with similar expressions. I found the Jeep really easy after this! It was sitting cold and lonely in the parking lot wondering where on earth I’d went to.

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!


 

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