I woke up early and headed downstairs, tossed the oversized briefcase that contained my clothing in the trunk and took my backpack down to the lobby with me. I'd been told there would be something resembling breakfast downstairs, and there was something resembling just that- a sort of buffet. I ate as much as I could stomach (having gone to bed hungry the night before) and stole as much as I could, stuffing muffins, apples, and cookies wrapped in napkins into my backpack. Who has cookies for breakfast, anyway? In the lobby there was a "make your own waffle" contraption- a sort of soda fountain full of batter and a waffle iron beside it. I didn't have the energy. I drank 2 cups of coffee and walked out towards the beach, leaving my car parked in the alley by the hotel.
I walked the width of the beach for hours, crawled under the pier, and headed out to the harbor to look at the array of boats. There were Germans everywhere on the pier, whole families and pairs. Along the beach were all sorts of shellfish, and seagulls spent the early hours of the day extracting the bountiful harvest from their shells. As I walked the harbor, a sign proclaimed that the sealife was contaminated and not for eating, but seagulls can't read.
Of all the images that have stayed fresh with me from the trip, one sight from Santa Barbara lingers the brightest. Perched on a rock in the harbor, a seagull pecked and peeled away at a mass of white and red that I couldn't identify at first. As I walked closer it quickly became apparent that the seagulls morning repast consisted of another less fortunate seagull. I wasn't as shocked or mortified as witnessing cannibalism normally leaves me, but rather confused. Amongst all the things available, why eat another seagull? A fresh bird-corpse, as well, not some sad stiff remainder from days previous, instead still red and probably warm. As bird one picked the flesh from the legs of bird two, a child threw bread to a cluster of gulls haunting the beach some hundred feet away. Fishermen fished. There was no shortage of food, but the bird hardly looked up from his meal. I left him to it.
I walked the beach for another hour or two, considered renting a bike, but felt increasingly overwhelmed. I had risen early hoping to catch the sun rise, but the fog on the water prevented any amber light from reaching me on the shore. I laid down on the beach and slept. When I woke up, I shuffled my sunburned body back to the car, drank a gallon of water, and got back on the road. As I closed in on LA, traffic slowly gathered until it was a complete deadlock.
When I reached LA hours later, I pulled off the highway into Hollywood and parked in an all-day lot on Sunset and began to wander. I had worn the same shirt for about 3 days, and went to a vintage store to purchase the cheapest t-shirt I could find, which happened to be a "Spring Break Phoenix 1986" shirt, which I immediatly changed into. A friend of mine and her kids were in LA, and I met with them for lunch at the Cat & Fiddle. I had worried it would be weird, but her boys were excited to see me and it felt great to see familiar faces and catch someone up on what I'd been doing.
I ended up staying in a Comfort Inn down the hall from my friend, and hung out with her and her kids, teaching the boys rock-paper-scissors-spock-lizard while eating pizza and spanakopita from a delivery Greek place. By this point I had reached the mental end of my trip- The whole time I spent in Hollywood I basically walked around, drank beer, and winced over my sunburn. All the driving had given me hours to think and keep a log of inane details. I had visited nothing of note, crawled across the state with no set destination, and worn myself down with constant high-speed driving. When I crawled into that bed I felt isolated, and the ache in my legs from all the walking and hiking was spreading up my back. I had driven thousands of miles, and yet had very little to show for it except a pile of trinkets and a napkin-wrapped muffin. I wanted to go home. I slept.
TOMORROW! LEFT COAST, PART 7: THE FINALE!
No comments:
Post a Comment