TO MOO IS THE GREAT AFFAIR

Where you come from is gone.
Where you thought you were going weren't never there.
And where you are ain't no good unless you can get away from it.

Those were the words of a Ministry song that blared from the car stereo as I sped away from Los Angeles with my roommate, Kenny. I definitely had to get away from the city. The smog the past few weeks had been exceptionally unbearable. If you've never lived here it's hard to understand how overbearing the smog is. I'm fully convinced it's alive. It feeds off the anger, ennui, and decadence that are in over-abundance in the City of Angels like some parasitic alien from a Star Trek episode. Every time someone buys a gun and puts bars on their own home, it grows. Every time a cop beats someone or otherwise abuses power, it grows. Every time a child is killed in a gang-land crossfire, it grows.

In order to create more of the negative feelings that feed it, the smog veils the natural beauty of the mountains and sky that surround the valley, asphyxiates hope in Angeleans by choking them anytime they decide to do anything physically challenging, and, when someone new enters the Los Angeles Basin, the smog tries to convert that person to someone it can feed off of by attempting to make him feel like he'll be the next person to join the ranks of the anonymous. It bombards him with images showing how far a person can fall in an attempt to create a feeling of emotional vertigo:

An unkept and unbathed homeless man in Pasadena sits on the end of a freeway ramp begging for food.

You're next.

A group of male prostitutes stand in fishnet stockings and high heels waiting for their next trick on Hollywood Boulevard.

You're next.

Five skinny and poorly dressed black men stand at the entrance to an alleyway downtown and light up another hit of crack.

You're next.

A bullet ridden body is dumped on the freeway in Reseda and then shown on T.V. during breakfast.

You're next.

The smog is even more unnerving because it can't be touched. You can feel it burning your eyes and squeezing your airpipe shut but, when you look for it, the smog always seems to be about two hundred yards away peering over you like a vulture. It doesn't matter how far or fast you run, the smog will always be there - never appearing any closer or farther - like a rainbow in reverse. Two hundred yards away. Burning your eyes. Squeezing your airpipe.

As I pressed on the gas pedal I could feel the smog staring at the back of my head as if it were saying, "Go ahead, you'll be back. You have to come back." I didn't look behind me. I just pressed harder on the accelerator. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

This is a picture taking from my apartment complex in Pasadena on a clear day.

This is the same picture on a smoggy day.

We drove for almost two hours until we reached Santa Barbara around 10:00 at night. After having a beer or two with some students at UCSB we left and found a Motel 6 in Lompoc, a small town with apparently nothing more than a few cheap hotels and a gas station. Lompoc is the closest town to Vandenburg AFB where top-secret satellites are launched but, since the traveller isn't allowed anywhere near the launch sites, the town's only attraction is that it lies on Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway. One of the most scenic drives in America. Kenny and I had no plans and nowhere in particular to go. We were just going to get on P.C.H. and drive.

The next morning the sky was hazy but it was fog, not smog. I guess the people in Lompoc aren't depraved enough for the smog to survive there. As we drove along the coast the sun began to burn off the fog until it was gone. It was as if God decided the ocean was too gorgeous to not be seen and pushed the marine layer back away from the shore with His hand.

If there is a stretch of highway anywhere in the world that is more breathtaking than the Pacific Coast Highway in California, I haven't heard of it. I opened the sunroof and put in a Jimmy Buffet tape. The music of "Grapefruit-Juicyfruit" played like a soundtrack:

Grapefruit,

The crystal blue ocean crashed against the cliffs two hundred to a thousand feet below the freeway.

A bathing suit

The cool salt air came in through the sunroof and could be smelled and tasted.

Chew a little juicy fruit.

The sky was a bright and clear blue with no clouds.

Wash away the night.

The sun glinted off the top of the waves like pixies dancing on the water.

A drive in.

The road wound around the edge of steep mountains dotted with huge boulders and towering pines.

Ya' guzzle gin.

Once white guard rails had corroded in the thick salt air and had become splattered with a rust orange that somehow added to the romantic character of the landscape.

Commit a little mortal sin.

A clear blue sky, a deep blue ocean, a gorgeous mountain range, and a sunroof.

It's good for the soul.

We continued driving up Highway 1 by Hearst Castle, Carmel, and Monterey Bay until we reached the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco about nine hours after leaving Lompoc. Normally, there's a three dollar toll but, at the time of day we crossed, it was free. On the north side there is a place to park and take in the impressive view. The bay, Alcatraz, the Presidio, Coit Tower (the almost pyramid shaped tower that's always shown in pictures of San Francisco) and the rest of the skyline could be seen from the viewing area.

After relaxing and taking some pictures Kenny went to a pay phone to call a girl he had met once through a mutual friend during his last co-op tour. He just called to say hi but when she found out we were going to stay in San Francisco for the night she insisted we stay at her place. The third rule of college is to never refuse a free place to stay if you're away from home (the first and second are to never refuse free beer or free food, respectively) so we jumped back into the car and drove to her place.

Her name was Jamie. She was a steel-blue-eyed blonde with apple cheeks that lived in the top part of a house in the city of Mill Valley, an extremely nice neighborhood just north of San Francisco. When we got there, she and her friend Wray were getting ready to leave because they had already told some other friends they were going to meet them soon. Jamie told us of some cool places to go that night and said she'd just leave the door open for us. Kenny and I looked at each other then back at her and said, "Are you sure?" She assured us by replying, "Oh yeah, its a real safe neighborhood."

"Safe neighborhood?" I thought. In L.A. safe neighborhood is an oxymoron. Imagine, a clean city with great weather, air you can breathe, and safe neighborhoods - I'm movin' to San Francisco.

After they left, Kenny and I decided to stay in Mill Valley because there were some bars and coffee shops that were within walking distance from where we were. I called some of my co-op friends that were also in town staying with a cousin. Andy answered the phone and I asked him what they were going to do that night. He said, "Oh, we're going to some place called Mill Valley."

We met Andy, Mike, Andy's cousin and her boyfriend and went to a bar called O'Leary's. The bar had an upclass Cheers kind of feel to it. The six of us sat around drinking great beers from micro-breweries until we got sick of the jokes about how we drove twelve hours to see friends we see every day.

On the way back home there was a tourist shop with a Robert Louis Stevenson quote engraved on it that read:

I travel not to reach any particular destination.
I travel for the sake of traveling.
To move is the great affair.

I like this Stevenson guy.

Kenny, Jaime and I woke up fairly early the next morning (Saturday) and said all the Thank You's, It Was Nice to See You's, and Come Visit Us's that you have to say at least ten times when you're leaving someone's house. She told us how to get back on the highway and we wound our way through the twisted knots of the San Francisco streets until we made it to the Stanford campus in Palo Alto. At the time, I was still considering going to grad school after finishing my bachelor's degree at Texas A&M and Stanford was one of the schools I was considering. The Stanford campus has a relaxed elegance to it, like a European convent without the nuns. A beautifully painted chapel anchors the view of the main quad. Red roofs cap the tops of the tan walls all around. Hoover Tower stands tall above the rest of the campus so Kenny and I decided to go up get a better view. A student tour guide at the top explained the history of the school to us: railroad magnate Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane, had a son who died of typhoid fever one month before his 16th birthday. The university was founded in his memory and is officially named Leland Stanford Junior University.

The sun roof on my old Celica was opened once again as we headed east out of San Francisco. Kenny studied the map as I drove. During road trips, it's bad karma to take any major highways (the road less traveled by and all that). We decided we'd find Highway 82 and drive east toward Yosemite National Park until the highway ended. We'd figure out the next step when we got there.

Highway 82 wasn't hard to find but once we were on it the road wound around quite a bit through surface streets. After we made it to a rural stretch of road east of the city the other cars on the highway seemed to disappear (should have been a clue). The road started to get thinner and thinner until we passed a sign that read:

(should have been a big clue). The road held on to the side of a mountain above the most lucid, crystal blue lake I've ever seen. We looked on the map to see what lake it was but the map didn't show any lakes that were next to Highway 82 (should have been a HUGE clue). We were too busy being in awe of the countryside to give it much thought. The road led us around the side of the mountain and then down the other side until we hit a city named Milpitas. We checked the map but there wasn't a city named Milpitas anywhere. Maybe the lake and the city were secret government places where they put people in the witness relocation program, or, maybe we took a wrong turn. Kenny decided to consider the latter possibility and started to survey the map. He pointed to a place on the map about fifty miles due south of where we got on Highway 82. Above his finger was the word: Milpitas. Those government guys must have created two cities named Milpitas as a diversion - how clever.

There was another highway that could get us east about ten miles south of where we were. It was only shown on one of the four maps we had so, since this was definitely the road less traveled by, we took it. Our chosen route climbed, fell, wound, and meandered through the Northern California hills. We were in the middle of nowhere and it was great. No buildings, no concrete, no traffic - no smog.

We drove for about two hours when we passed a sign.

A street sign.

A yellow street sign with a cow on it.

A yellow street sign with a cow on it and only two bolts holding it to the post.

Kenny was driving at the time and he parked the car in a little gravel turnout. I found the ratchet set I keep in my trunk and, whatta ya' know, one of them fit. I thought to myself, "Let's see . . . . righty tighty - lefty loosey," and began twisting the ratchet counter-clockwise.

Twist, twist, twist, twist . . .

I was already laughing and giggling like a drunk high school girl.

Twist, twist, twist . . .

A cow sign! And, there's a sticker on it that says, "Warning: Vandals will be Prosecuted!"

Twist, twist, twist . . .

I stopped giggling. I heard something that sounded like a car engine coming my way. I stopped twisting the ratchet and looked over at Kenny who was standing watch. He yelled, "Dude! Someone's coming!" and started pretending that he was looking for something on the side of the road. I quickly started to climb down the ledge on the side of the road but it was very loose, dry dirt. As soon as I put my weight down I fell and started sliding on my butt to the bottom of the ledge. The car (actually, it was a pickup truck) roared over my head and drove on as dry dirt and rocks continued to slide down the ledge and into my back.

I stood up and looked at Kenny. He indicated that the coast was clear so I shimmied back up the ledge and started turning the ratchet again.

Twist, twist, twist, twist, clang!

The bottom bolt came out, the sign swung out and then slammed back against the post. The top bolt wasn't as easy so I had to get Kenny to abandon his look-out post and come help me. Kenny held the sign in a way that let me get torque on the bolt.

Twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, clang!

The sign was off. Kenny grabbed hold of the sign and we both sprinted back to the car with huge, silly grins stretched across our faces. We were giggling and running with all the mischievous joy of two little boys who had just stolen their sisters' Barbies. Kenny threw the sign in the back seat as I started the car. The car fishtailed and dirt and gravel flew in the air behind us when we peeled out of the turnout like Bo and Luke Duke.

I have a cow sign.

I can die now.