August 7-13 2023

Ocean Point Ranch and San Simeon State Park, CA

Arrival

            August 7 was the day Tirian was leaving and Robert was arriving, but because I don’t have a cell phone, I wouldn’t know when he would get there. We had a breakfast by the fire pit–bread, apples, cheese—and then T packed up and I was left alone at about 10 am. I went to the beach and walked along; I tried to read my excellent trip book from Coalesce Books about a man recreating the Oregon trail in a wagon drawn by mules, but I couldn’t settle. The land of sun and fog was in battle that day, so much of the time I stared out the windows and watched the fog creep over the Ranch and then retreat. I tried crochet, but that didn’t work. I thought about going to paint watercolors on the beach, and I should have done that, but I wanted to be ready for Robert’s arrival. I tried to nap, but that didn’t work. I spent a bunch of time on the back patio listening for the telltale sound of a Bus approaching, but there were none. I organized all the gear, wiped down the counters (yes, I am the kind of person who cleans motel rooms because I was once a motel maid and humans are disgusting). Eventually, around 4, I settled in one of the chairs by the fireplace to read where I could see the parking lot and hear the Bus, and I got engrossed in my book, so Robert was parking in the wrong place by the time I realized he was there.

            I ran to meet him and, of course, Harold the dog, who was by now emitting his piercing “We have arrived and Dad pulled the parking brake “ BARKS of joy, and then I was with my husband, tired and road weary as he was. After a break for Robert, we headed to town to pick up dinner, after Harold peed all over the place, of course. Then we took one of those baths with the candle and the mermaid salts and fell into bed. I had a terrible night’s sleep, no idea why, perhaps the anticipation of his arrival and the knowing we didn’t know what was ahead, but I woke up in the morning terrified that the flower petals had stained the bathtub. I knew I should have cleaned it the night before, but I was wrapped in the first day of vacation and being in such a place with Robert and a large, smelly dog.

            Ah, well. That morning I headed to the Cow Tipper Café yet again and ordered my coffee. As was my habit, I headed down to the tiny beach to sip coffee and contemplate my day, and then spilled said coffee all over my shoes. This made me disgruntled, and there was still the matter of the bathtub flower petals to deal with. I trudged back up to our room, greeted Harold and took him for a pee, then settled in to making coffee in the horrible little coffee makers, unknown in brand but apparently there is a variety available for motels and hotel to purchase, all of which are awful, and I  settled down to clean the tub with some bitter yet watery brew.

            As I had suspected, the flower petals had stained the sides of the tub, so I frantically scrubbed them with: wipes, a washcloth and Dr. Bronner’s soap, more wipes, facial wipes…until I tried the winning combo: toothpaste and peroxyl mouth wash. Thank goodness we have bad teeth in the family, for this was the magic ticket.

            Meanwhile, Robert was groggy and a little surprised to see his wife on her knees before the bathtub relentlessly scrubbing, but soon he got somewhat awake, and I headed out to the (yes)  the Cow Tipper for more coffee and a breakfast burrito to share. The coffee didn’t spill this time, and the breakfast burrito was surprisingly good, and we ate it at the fire pits watching the day bloom. And yes, Harold peed.

            Then it was that usual rush, packing up and checking the room—Tirian had left her shampoo and conditioner and I stole them—taking last showers because we were headed for dry camping up at Washburn Campground in San Simeon State Park, taking advantage of the last flush toilet and sink, excited but also nervous because while we had solid reservations, thanks to Robert the amazing man, for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, if we couldn’t get first-come, first-served sites we would be headed home on Friday. But finally, the bill was paid, the room cleaned, I left a tip, too, with a little Bus card we keep in the Bus, and Harold was in the back, ready for new adventures. “Adventures!” I told him, and Harold gave me his keen look that means he knows what I mean and is excited about what is ahead.

Washburn to Creekside, San Simeon State Park

            San Simeon State Park has always been a refuge for us. I know I have told this before in the blog, but as an old friend once said, “Have I told you this story before? Good! You need to hear it again.” Many years ago, I think about 2004, Robert and I set forth to Red Rocks State Park in Mojave, CA, for a Valentine’s Day trip to somehow try to deal with the loss of our beloved dog, Lightening. Lighters was a black Chow/Golden Retriever mix who Robert had witnessed being born and was the ultimate dog in our early years. After that we thought the Chow was the thing and adopted Maggie the black Chow (also known as Resident Evil, for getting under the house and turning of the gas line while Jim was caretaking), and it turns out that we may prefer Goldens to Chows. But just then, that first trip to the desert, we had only Pebbles the amazing Jack Russell, and we were mourning the loss of Lighters at age 10 from inoperable stomach cancer.

            We made that way that night across the desert floor with strange booms in the distance and our recalcitrant Rocinante, my Volvo wagon Buttercup, driving, no windshield wipers and lots of Rain X, and prayers, not realizing that thunder in the desert and storms can bode ill. Still, we had a great night under the vast canopy of stars, until the Great Basin Windstorm started. Soon, the tent was horizontal, Pebbles was whimpering, and Robert kept saying “Just ignore it—it will pass.” I stepped out to pee with the gravel and sand flying so fast that it cut my ankles, and then I finally, near dawn, got Robert up. We loaded everything into the tent, dragged it into the back of the Volvo, watching the very heavy car move as we were doing this, and rolled on down the road, watching a giant dumpster flip as we drove out of the once perfect campsite.

            At this point in our time together Robert was a reluctant camper, jaded and jaundiced by negative Boy Scout trips, but both of us knew that we had to get the hell out of whatever the fucking hell that Great Basin Windstorm was. We used maps back in those olden days (and we still do), so using maps we made a plan to head to the coast. “We can camp at Gaviota,” I said, “The surfers always used it when I was at UCSB…or Refugio…” But then every campground was full or closed, flooding. Still, we kept heading north, stopping in to Carpinteria buy a can opener and pee. North we went, all the way to the last campground, all others full, flooded, or closed, but then we arrived: San Simeon State Park, and the jaunty little sawhorse that stands there still showed both campgrounds, Washburn and San Simeon, were open .So that is the state of refuge I find in this park, and if you don’t know the story of that trip and the ones that came, here are some key words: Little Timmy, “don’t fall in the estuary!,” burning sketchbooks and financial aid notices for the driftwood fire, The Cookie Crock, the elusive hardware store…the turtles in the creek. And that’s not to mention the wonderful adventures I had here with Bill and his family. San Simeon may not be the loveliest state park, but it has a firm hold on my heart.

            So that is why San Simeon will always be a refuge for us, a safe harbor in our travels, and I was so sorry on the last BIG Bus trip to have ended up missing that due to reservation issues and mechanical problems. Heading in, obviously, I had big expectations.

            Arriving at the gate brought the familiar thrill of being back in this place that was so special to us, and the young man (wearing a mask! He’s on the team!) at the kiosk was great, and so we trundled the bus up the hill to Washburn campground. At San Simeon you have Creekside, usually crowded, and Washburn, the so-called “primitive” site, which means only water spigots (sometimes in drought no water), pit toilets, and no showers at all. Usually Washburn is pretty deserted, and I thought that by arriving on a Tuesday late in summer we’d have the hill to ourselves, for Washburn sits high above the ocean, the only views a tree terraced ravine and the birds of prey and the incredible night sky, but this year was different. Every site seemed filled, like really full, and it wasn’t all RVs with noisy generators like it usually is. Instead, there were RVs, yes, but many, many tents and trailers and cool on top of the truck tents. But we found our site and set up, a little worried because Harold wanted to lay under the tree near us, but the tree was a bee tree, and he is allergic, so we began harassing Harold to move.

            I go camping because I want to be alone, but I did not feel alone up on the hill. There were lots and lots of people walking by, wanting to talk about the Bus, and many of these people were walking dogs, and Harold was getting…well, let’s just say that despite our best efforts he is still reactive with dogs, especially Husky/Malamute types. I had somehow strained my hip—oh the joys of aging—and was desperate to take a nap, and so we got the Bus set up, and I stretched out, but because we had a weird site in the interior of the campground when we always camp on the edge, I had no view except of the next door neighbors, and while the afternoon breeze did flutter through to cool me, I could not get comfortable.

            Things did not improve when I inevitably headed to the bathroom. The pit toilets at Washburn can be nasty when full or when someone closes the door/leaves the seat open in the heat of the day (think: lord of the flies), but it was pretty mellow in those regards this time. What weirded me out was the graffiti scratched into the venerable brown plastic siding. Of course, there was the obligatory dick and balls, and some stupid stuff about Biden, and some stuff that later Robert told me was white supremacy nonsense, but that wasn’t the best part. No, the best part was that at some point prior to our arrival, someone had taken time to carve an elaborate message: “Christ is COMING SOON!” but then some other folks had amended the message to read “Christy is **NOT** Coming Soon!” Well, it makes you think.

            We walked the increasingly agitated dog around to check out the campsite we were moving to the next day, having a bad run in with a Husky on the path, only to discover that our new neighbors in the site we were headed to had not one, not two, but three Huskies and a large white Shephard who had a tent of its own, and a little dog, too. The signs were not good.

            I don’t know why Harold is so bad with Huskies except that some neighborhood ones bit him when he was a pupper because Harold does not speak DOG and stuck his nose in their yard, or perhaps it was Milo the dominant and great Husky at the ill-fated dog park experiment (Harold does not speak DOG), but if there is a dog I know Harold will go ballistic on, it is a Husky. The thought of camping next to a den of them, no matter how awesome the people might be, was daunting, and so I asked Robert to try to move us for the next two nights.

            We had a dinner and walked Harold around and watched the stars and went to bed in the Bus, but I was fretting. Would we be able to get a new site? Should we just go home? In the morning I told Robert that maybe we should not try to stay the weekend at all (our original plan), but just leave. We could stay in that weird Motel 6 in Goleta that takes dogs, right? I didn’t tell Robert, but I was pretty convinced that the camping part of the trip was a bust and I just wanted to be somewhere safe. After breakfast and coffee Robert left to wrangle with the camp folks about sites, and I was filled with that anxiety of waiting, making lazy attempts at packing up, yanking Harold away from the Bee Tree, and making small talk with neighbors about Harold and the Bus. But then we heard the Bus approaching, and Robert leaped out. “I’ve got us sites until Sunday,” he cried, and started brandishing a campground map and explaining. As it turned out, the cool, mask-wearing cat at the kiosk was totally willing to move us up on Washburn, but when Robert asked about the first-come-first-served sites down by the beach, he said we had choices there, so we all jumped in the Bus and drove down the hill to see the options.

Moving Day and Settling in with Neighbors

            Robert was eyeing the most remote site, sadly right next to the bathroom, but with only one possible neighbor. I hadn’t camped in the first-come area in years, and never for more than one night. Just under Highway 1, a short walk to the Beach, the little meadow is frequently filled with bicyclists and family groups, but it is very close to the creek where we had watched the turtles so long ago, and our old driftwood fire site, so I was enthusiastic. When we arrived, there was a very large family group in the center, some folks on the Creekside side under the cypress trees, and a few random tents. I didn’t think being close to the bathroom was a problem as they were flush toilets, and I liked the idea of the closest to the beach site (Squishy may have influenced this). While Robert raced to the top of the hill in the Bus, or as close to racing as the Bus does, Harold and I explored. Harold peed and peed and peed, then flung himself down under the picnic table, a giant grin on his face. “We’re home, H,” I told him, and that felt true. I saw a bunch of turtles in the creek on a log, and it felt like a sign.

            It took two trips for Robert to ferry everything down, and in that time Harold and I set up what we could, peed on things (well, Harold, not me), and generally had a great time. Soon enough we had the easy up set (thanks, Bill), the Bus bed up, the stove…and then it was time to run to town for food for dinner, breakfast, and wood. The site seemed perfect, and the weather was perfect, and I had that wonderful feeling you get when you think something isn’t going to be good and then it is suddenly great: bliss.

            We had a nice dinner of veggies, pasta, basil and wine, and a lovely fire by the sea, and I got the best night’s sleep of the entire trip, just dreamless and coddled, rocked in the warmth of my dog, my husband, and sheltered by the Bus. We got up in the morning, getting used to the camp, Harold barking at folks as they walked to the bathroom (we should have moved then), but everything seemed super chill, and I was in that state you get camping when everything seems right, and you can just walk to the beach whenever to look for driftwood or shells or rocks. After a perfect breakfast—thanks, Robert—and the dishwashing and setting camp to rights and the rudimentary bathing, we set out for capitalism, take 1. I had already done my capitalism with T in Cambria and beyond, but now we needed to go to the hardware store and look for a thrift store as I somehow had only brought one pair of pants and it was getting cold! We had a great time at the hardware store—love your local hardware store—and I met a man who used to have a bus that he bought for 500$, sold for 1500$, and now thought he had made an error. We also visited the overly friendly and creepy gas station, the Cookie Crock market for wood, ice, and things you can’t buy at the lovely Organic place, ate a lunch from the French Corner Bakery at Moonstone, Harold barking at the sea (a sign I would later recognize), and then headed back to camp to settle in for a lovely evening.

As you approach the San Simeon State Park from the south (Cambria), the only part of the campground you can see from the road are the come-in -as- you -are- sites, and I was excited to see our little camp below, with the distinctive Kiwi fruit umbrella I had cleverly arranged over the chairs. I somehow always expect to see the Bus down there as we drive by, which is odd because we are always driving in the Bus, but this time I saw no Bus. What I did see was neighbors. In the one space between our outpost and the large, family camp, someone was setting up a tent. “We’ve got neighbors!” I said, and I was already afraid of what that might mean. As we drove in, I told Robert, “We have to tell them right away about Harold!” Harold had been menacing campers who got to close on their sojourn to the bathroom, and a particularly nasty set of kids had shipped out that morning, kids who were playing a game called “Go touch the scary dog and see if he barks!” Harold, of course, barked. Harold is terrified of cats, children, other dogs, garbage trucks, weird bikes, skateboards, and cement mixing trucks, so the kids sneaking up on him made him, well, Harold. I was so happy to see those folks pack up in the morning, but now what?

So, arriving at the site, the Bus in full Bus glory, we parked and headed over to give the folks a head’s up about Harold. Somehow, I didn’t think Robert was doing it fast enough, so I jumped in, saying “My dog is really protective of his space and a total asshole,” and looking back, we should have moved then, but the new neighbors, Jessmyne and Kenneth and their daughter, Melody were so chill. “No worries, no worries,” Jessmyne intoned, and then Melody approached to meet Harold. I knew that was a bad idea, and I think we sputtered some “No, no, no! that’s a bad idea” statements as Harold leaped into full on child-eating, slavering jaws form, as is his wont with any intruder, or sadly, child. Harold’s fear of children dates to a Halloween early in the pandemic when he met a little girl out for Trick or Treating who screamed at him. Harold was terrified, ridging all over, and the more she screamed, the more he barked. But Jessmyne and Kenneth assured it us everything was cool, and we found out they had an adorable gray and white bluenose pit puppy named Cleo, and they headed off to go fishing.

Sigh. But as the days progressed and more folks joined them, and a birthday party, and we traded things back and forth, we came to love our new neighbors, and the thing I had not liked at Washburn, being close to others, became a thing that was OK, for we were OK for the most part (about that more later), and there is a community that grows in a communal camping space that I have written about many times before and will again, and by the end of the trip, we exchanged info with our neighbors and hoped to camp together again. I knew the large family camp had finally accepted us despite Harold when the older ladies started to say “Good morning” to me. I think in some way camping brings the tribes together, and while you may not agree on everything, you do agree on camping. As I have said before, sometimes I think a very long camping trip would help our country, although I was irritated when one of my first camping acts in this new space—to buy soap pumps for the bathrooms—resulted in those soap pumps being stolen in, oh, like 30, minutes.

Rhythm of the Camp

            But the thing about camping is, if you have enough time, you settle into a rhythm, and the camp does, too. Mornings with the folks lined up to pee, running out of TP, the mid-morning ministrations of the clean up crew. Breakfast and dishes and organizing the camp, maybe a shower, plans for the day. The lady living in the tent at the far end walking by to ask me the time as she knew I wore a watch. Watching the incredibly good dog at the young couple’s tent be good, until the one time she was bad and got into it with a little dog, and Harold watching that with a look like, “See, I’m not the only bad dog—Good dog is bad, too.” Walking Harold morning, noon, and evening, and me heading for the beach every day at 5-ish to get sticks for my crafts and good green rocks for Christina. I watched the turtles come to the log each morning and even got to see some plop in when their sunning was done. And, of course, the endless chores of camp create routines alone. What might be dull at home—food prep, dishwashing, making the bed—well, it is both harder and nicer when camping. You are under the sky and next to the sea and if you had to buy a house there or pay rent you would not be able to afford it, so why not enjoy it?

Bus Love

            I must once again speak of Bus love, for wherever the Bus goes, he gets love, and he makes people happy to see him out and about. I have thought for some time that the folks in the towns along Highway 1 should just pay us to drive up and down and park and make everything perfect for a picture with the Bus. We got some incredible Bus love on this trip, from people we met in campgrounds who had owned one or owned a VW still, to people on the highways, and yes, of course, the people in towns whenever we parked. We were at an antique shop in Morro Bay, on my endless quest for a new enamel pot, when a woman approached Robert waiting in the Bus and said, “You’ve made my day! Can I kiss him on the snout?” She meant the Bus, not Harold, and Robert agreed, likely knowing I also call it his snout. We also met a man near Shine in Morro Bay who does INCREDIBLE reconstructions of old wooden station wagons (Woody?), but I can’t find his website to link. As with all Bus Love, we fall into the rote of the story…”my father ordered this car in 1965 and I grew up in him; in fact, he was the first car I knew…” but people were so pleased to just see him, and I understand. I am always thrilled to see the Bus coming down our hill, or into a campsite, or in a parking lot, and as always, I have this frisson of feeling: the Bus is here, so my Dad is here, even though today I know that it means Robert is here. That said, it makes me proud and happy to repeat my father’s story so many times, a way of remembering him and honoring him., and when someone asked Robert on this trip, “Do you ever get tired of telling the story?” Robert’s reply was great: “No, and if I didn’t want to talk about the story and the Bus, I should have bought another car. Besides, he’s a member of the family.”

The H in the Room: Harold, Harold, oh, Harold

            As you may have noticed if you have read this or really any of my blogs since he arrived, Harold the dog is a problem. Oh, Harold, the best of dogs and the worst of dogs: Best when he is being obedient, waiting for a treat, performing untold tricks of lying down, or Harold when he is, as we called him on this trip, “the Princess,” lying on his chaise lounge and waiting for a blanket to swaddle him, or Harold getting in the van at dark, ready to warm things up and go to sleep, or Harold, whiskers trembling, ready for another adventure. But there is another Harold. We sometimes say there is Terrold, the terrible dog, when his ears are straight out and he is bound for trouble, and inside there another dog, one we call the Wabbit, for with his ears back he resembles a rabbit, and as a young pup I used to carry him in my arms and say, “Well, aren’t you a wasically wabbit?”The bad Harold delights in ripping things up, terrorizing children, reacting to other dogs with full and fierce force, and at the beach, well, barking, leaping, rushing to the water and trying to bite every wave, thus ingesting sea water, which leads to a condition known here as “blast ass.” The worst of this we saw was in Santa Barbara with Bill when Harold developed the ability to bark and shoot sea water out his ass at the same time. Both of these dogs were on the trip, sadly.

            By the end of the trip I was making “No Harold on a trip ever again” proclamations because on the very last night, one of those GIANT Mercedes I am living in my Van rigs showed up right across from us, with, of course, a Husky in the passenger seat barking at Harold before they had parked, so I took Harold for a walk in the dark, only to run into the driver and his Husky. While the dogs went ballistic and Robert raced from our campsite to help me, the driver proceeded to LECTURE me on my dog handling skills while not calling his dog off. Fun times. But I am now ambivalent about banishing Harold from trips. Yes, I would like to take some without him, as undoubtedly, they will be more romantic and mellow, but at the same time, I know the joy he gets from camping. This is one of those wait and see moments.

**For those who think we haven’t trained Harold, well, we have—he went to 2 obedience schools and worked with a private trainer and the general consensus was: “Good luck!” It has NOTHING to do with his breed, half pitbull and half lab, and everything to do with his young childhood.  Harold was separated from his mother and siblings, likely rejected in a puppy mill for rescues (I know!), bottle fed, and he sustained psychological damage before we even met him. We train with Harold every single day, and this is the best dog we can get him to be, and we love him. I think his trainer in Canoga Park summed it up best when she banished him from Puppy Play Time as a 10 pound cute pup, telling the other dog parents not to judge us: “You folks, you think your puppies are difficult? You have no idea what these people are going through. Single dogs like this can be a nightmare. These folks are doing the best they can.”

Double Rainbow (and random acts of kindness and art)

            Mid way through the trip, the clouds started to do weird things. I saw a mackerel sky and intoned “Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, never long wet, never long dry.” I was sitting at the picnic table, everything ready for the night, working on my weird dingly dobbly memory catcher things made from the beaches and bead stores in the area, when I saw a crowd approaching. Folks were gathering not to take pictures of the Bus, but because of the rainbows. Rainbows, plural, because even if the pictures don’t capture this, the moment is indelibly recorded in my memory. We jumped up to take the pictures—and I was especially interested in grabbing one with the Bus because my brother Tom had taken one like that years before, but I also warned the cool kids with Good Dog to get their stuff in because it was going to rain, and rain it did.

            We were snug in the Bus under his tent, which did not leak, but we had a great night—the best night’s sleep I have had in years, listening to the pitter patter of the rain on the roof, and Bill’s old easy up tent was awesome. I think it was one of the nicest camping experiences I have had, and I will forever be grateful for it.

            But the idea of somehow being under the rainbow, in a state of bliss, stuck with me.

I was having a great time in the evenings walking on the beach, collecting rocks, shells, stones, and returning to make my mobiles, now planning one for Melody, our neighbor’s birthday girl. Sitting there under the easy up, at the picnic table, all my crafty crap out, I thought of another trip (and if I have told this before, well, I need to hear it again). We were camped in Washburn for an extended time, almost all alone up at the ridge, and Robert was playing guitar and I was yet again making my craft stuff. A man approached us, seeming to hike out of the ravine, and he was carrying two sticks. We greeted him, had an awkward moment, and then he told us his story: He was on a Chumash vision quest, and he had spent days down in the canyons and forests of the ravine. “It’s crazy down there, “ he said, but we knew—we had heard of the mountain lions, walked the trails, and listened to the coyotes circling the canyon every night…but we didn’t know like he knew.

            He looked at our set up, pre Bus, the easy up tent, me making mobile things, Robert with the guitar, and our fire pit set up, for it was sunset time, and he asked me what I would trade him for a large, turquoise scarf I had hung on the easy up tent.

“Nothing,” I said—take it!”

He gingerly unhooked the scarf, and then said he had to give us something, so he gave us his two sticks from his adventure. One was a pine stick crowned with pinecones, and the other was a walking stick. Before he left our camp, he was hesitant. “I want to tell you something, “he said. “I saw stuff down there…you don’t know.” Then he looked around. “What are you doing here?” he asked? Looking at the multitude of dingly dobbly memory catchers or mobiles, he must have thought we were crazy, but after exploring those, and even accepting one, I think, and then the man from the ravine paused. “I wanted to tell you what I learned down there, but shit, you guys already know!” and with that he departed, taking my scarf, and I have his sticks still, one mounted over my front door to protect me, and the other by the record player to inspire me.

            I tell this story now because it is emblematic of San Simeon for me, one of the many, many blessings I have received there (and there are too many stories to tell, really), and the double rainbows and the rainstorm, gliding into sleep with the rain on the Bus tent, well, that was another blessing.

            But the place and the trip had one more blessing for me, the gift of giving. I had already given the neighbors a mobile for Melody’s birthday, and we had given away the expensive dog treats Harold had suddenly rejected, but I wanted to do something for the woman in the tent. I never did learn her name, but she was there camped at the very end in a tent our first night, no car or bike, and she had that sun tanned skin that means you either live outdoors or own a tanning machine. Every morning she would move slowly across the camp to the bathroom, and then she would ask me the time. I always wear a watch because I have no cell phone, and I was always happy to tell her the time. On the night of the rainstorm, her tent was gone, possibly due to needing to move after 7 days, a State Parks requirement, and in the morning mists I watched her move her belongings from under Highway 1 where she had passed the night.

            Every time I log onto Next Door, or talk to students in my classes, I hear about the homeless crisis, and obviously, living in LA, I have seen it first hand, just as I saw it in San Francisco so many years ago, and I saw it on the Amtrak coming up, and in my hometown in Oregon, and I struggle to know how to respond and lament that I cannot do more. I try for compassion but I yearn for solutions, too. This woman, however homeless she might be, seemed to be living a life I actually coveted, living on the beach, but perhaps that is my Steinbeckian romanticism kicking in, for truly, she wouldn’t have been out of place in Cannery Row, if there had ever been women with Mack and the boys except for not being a boy, at least as far as I could tell from telling her the time, but she had a dignity and purpose I admired. I decided almost immediately that I would do something to say hello to her, and by the end of the trip, I knew the answer: give her some money and my watch, so she would know what time it was when we left.

            That last morning in the flurry of us packing, she came by to ask me the time, and I said, “Oh! Wait a minute!” I had been too shy to approach her before, not wanting to insult her dignity or privacy, but this was the right moment, and I had already made arrangements with Ingram the loan shark (long story there) to get some cash.

So I scrambled in the Bus, fished a 100$ bill from Ingram’s stash, and took off my watch. “I don’t know your story,” I said, and then she told me part of it: her three-wheel bike was busted on her trip to Big Sur where she could camp for free, and she was stuck between San Simeon and Morro Bay waiting to collect enough money to fix it. I smiled, and held out the watch and the money, saying something trite about how I hoped it would help, and her face bloomed in a smile. “Yes, yes it does,” she said. “I was going to head to church to see if I could get a handout, and I like the singing, but now, well now I can stay here. This will help me.” We smiled shyly at each other, and then waved goodbye, and for me she will always be one of the blessings of the trip, and I wish her well wherever she is.

The End of the Trip

            The end of the trip is always a little sad, although I try to remember that we have to end trips to begin them again, and this one was made weird by the weekend inhabitants across the way. In the campsite once occupied by the annoying children playing “touch the scary dog and make him bark” game, a new family had arrived. They had children who also delighted in tormenting Harold, and yes, even Robert, who when trying to nap encountered a little girl from the camp asking “Are you trying to take a nap?” Robert replied: “I was.” But the other thing about these folks was they all wore t-shirts with scary shit on them, 3% stuff and all those flags with lines and symbols Robert had to explain to me. The camp life over there was simple: Moms stayed in the camp, kids endlessly rode up and down with scooters, bikes, wagons, pausing to taunt the dog, and the men clustered around the pick up truck, drinking, apparently all day (only camping do I see someone drinking Coors Light at 8 a.m.) The last Saturday in the camp, now that we were friends with the immediate neighbors, friendly with the large family camp, having bid farewell to the young couple with the Good Dog (*most of the time), and just after the asshole with the Husky and the giant Mercedes Van had arrived, well it was Saturday night, and folks were feeling it.

            I was worn out after the Harold/Husky encounter, trying to calm down and enjoy the last moments of campfire, when a rumbling began across the way in the (what I was calling it, anyway) White Supremacist camp (and I have left out here that a perfectly lovely but brown family had left prematurely, opening the space for asshole van, the day prior). The rumbling was a peculiar thing, for you know it if you have heard it and perhaps for some of you, you would not recognize it: increasingly drunken and strident voices arguing, at length, and increasing volumes. And so, after our fire, I fell asleep safely ensconced in the Bus, cradled by Robert and with Harold a solid weight at my feet, listening to a drunken woman rant, her voice rising and falling like a city siren in a refrain of “You fucking asshole! Don’t you know that..blah, blah, blah.”

            All said, though, I had a good night’s sleep, and woke in the misty morning to pack up. The pack up was easy, and we headed out to (yes) the Cow Tipper for a last breakfast burrito on the bluffs above Moonstone beach, and coffee that didn’t spill, and then we were rolling down the Highway, the Byway, in the Bus and all his glory, headed to Cayucos for Brown Butter Cookies to take home, and a last stop at Albertson’s in Morro Bay for the amazing  Taco Works tortilla chips of the region (scored 4 kinds), and then on the road to home, stopping for a decent burrito in Isla Vista in the park at Rosaritos, heading through the PCH and all the traffic until we were delivered home. Harold immediately went to go pee everywhere and then collapsed on the couch, and Robert and I talked about the trip while unpacking just the perishables (and the chips and cookies), and I was so thankful to have such a sweet and capable husband, and Bus pilot, as he styles himself, and then we collapsed into sleep, ready to unpack, get ready for the so-called real world, and enjoy one last flower bath before we started the working week.

Good campsites on the Creekside loop:

86, 92,98,99,101, 110=OK

112&114=Creekside

75=OK Creekside

72&70=good shared camp?

68=OK

64&65=get together

62, 58, 57=OK

Links:

https://brownbuttercookies.com/

https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=590

https://www.tacoworks.net/