The Patient Etherized

The Patient Etherized
Q: Et tu, Jonathan? A: Read. Read some more. Buy Red Bull.

Friday, July 04, 2003

Woohoo, I'm going to New York tomorrow to see the fireworks and go to the Yankees-Red Sox game on Sunday. Also planning to drive to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Saturday. I'm excited and... I just can't... yes, you get the picture.

posted by Jon | 3:16:00 AM

Wednesday, July 02, 2003

There...

I return from the Valley (and Mountains) of the Hicks to the land of fast internet access (in this case, San Francisco). I'm flying out today after driving 1200 miles in the last three days, from Las Vegas to Cambria (150 miles north of Santa Barbara), along the coastline to Carmel, and then northeast to Yosemite, then back to San Francisco.

I have a farmer's tan on my arms and parts of my face which is sort of amusing. I also have decided that I should buy a house in Big Sur, California. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited. Suddenly going to law school or grad school in California looks more attractive, provided it's near the coastline or Yosemite.

Yosemite was really cool. I would love to go back there for a month and hike around the park. We drove to Glacier Point two days ago to see the sunset (supposedly the most dramatic view in the whole west, where you can see Half Dome and El Capitan and all those famous Ansel Adams pictures that you can buy for $30 in the gift store). We also went to see the Maripose grove of Sequioa redwoods. Eventually if I get a fast internet connection I can put up all 280 pictures from my trip (thank God I bought a 128mb memory card for my camera).

But let me break down the parts of the trip I liked in the past few days:

Las Vegas to Cambria: This was the worst drive I've had in a while. The highway was two lanes through the desert with many trucks in the right lane (oh wait, all of Californian highways are like that). But there was a ton of traffic leaving on Sunday, so the cars in the fast lane would speed up to 70 and then break sharply to 50. Repeat, recycle, gag. My mom nearly busted a kidney getting annoyed at my driving. I wasn't pleased. We stopped in Santa Barbara which was really nice but the shops weren't that great. I went into a Barnes & Nobles and browsed around. Oh, after getting off Route 15 (the big LA-Vegas thoroughfare), we passed all these cool rural places like Pearblossom, CA and Little Rock (where we got McDonalds and the people were really friendly). The drive from SB to Cambria was okay. This was a big 500 mile day.

Cambria to Oakdale, CA (near Yosemite): The driving along the Big Sur was impressive. The turns were really sharp and my mom again had a shitfit so I gave her a chill pill (sorry couldn't resist). We were going to stop to look at the Hearst Castle but the tour was almost two hours long and would have taken way too much of the day.

A small note on the motel we stayed at in Cambria: I think the Bates Motel had more ambience. I was scared and woke up about five times in the middle of the night, eventually getting up at 7:30. We left the motel really early at about 8:45.

Stopping at the town of Big Sur was really great. We ate at a restaurant called Nepenthe (and my Classics major helped me get the mythological reference to the drug used to forget your worries). I had the "ambrosiaburger" and my mom had a slice of pie, which was about as big as most normal pies. The whole damn town smelled like a natural kind of incense and you could almost feel hippies leaving their marks. Yes, this is the place I want to live in and sip some ambrosia and read Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller novels (both of whom resided in Big Sur for a time). After that we headed off to Carmel, where I decided that rich Valley girly types are not for me. My mom went into a store that was probably for twenty-year olds called "Paloosh." Here are some sample comments by the girls who worked at the store (who were clearly the daughters of the richer strata in the town):

"I don't think I'm ever going to school without my Juicy Couture shoes on again!" (giggle, laughter, "Oh my God!")

"I like these pants but they make my butt look soooo big!"

These comments were in between a long story about how one of the girls missed a week of school to get plastic surgery. They were in high school, by the way.

After Carmel we drove off into the hills of Californ-i-a. The next 200 miles were filled with farming and strawberries for sale. We passed towns such as Coarsegold before getting to Oakdale. I'll update one more interesting aspect to that night and to the drive back from Yosemite soon, but my hands are tired now and there are people waiting for the internet access.

posted by Jon | 12:32:00 PM