Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

I just transcribed the last of the phone posts, so that’s done now. I might do a photograph post some other time.

Hubby slept long and hard, so I wandered down to Kinko’s and got online, where I found out that I had miraculously received ten new Markeroons in my absence, which made me happy and excited to be going home instead of depressed.

Most of the day was just spent in tidying up and putting things right in the apartment, and then we set off home.

I lead; I took us home over Highway 17. It was a bit strange going up because my bike seemed very underpowered, but eventually I realised that I was in completely the wrong gear and it seemed more or less okay after that, but a bit rough. It really is a hectic road and you can’t let your attention wander for a second, but this time no break was required.

Got home safe and happy, and very relaxed and content with the world.

Miles: about 265, plus or minus.

Saturday was a lazy day, in which I finished several hundred pages of “The Mists of Avalon”. It seems to ripen with age and get better.

I wandered down to the boardwalk and had a hot dog, and looked at people, but didn’t do much else. I waited for my husband to show, which he eventually did at five; not long afterwards we went out and got what turned out to be delicious Chinese food to munch on the balcony.

That’s about it for Saturday - and very nice it was too.

Another early morning, and I was ready to depart two hours before I really needed to set out. I left just before nine and there was no traffic - the rush hour must be somewhere else in Santa Cruz!

It was foggier than yesterday - not so that I couldn’t see, but enough that I was damp and had to keep wiping the drops from my visor. Yet it went fast enough, and with the extra layer I was plenty warm.

I “lost” twenty minutes to a nasty accident coming into town; at least two cars were severely bent, and there were ambulances and police to control the traffic. But that worked out for me, since when I called LV and Lios they were just settling into their car and were with me in five minutes.

We arranged that Lios would drop us at the official “start” of the walking tour, saving us a long drag up a steep hill. As we snarfed the first of a great many landmarks, a cat came up and fluffed at us until we petted it.

I take notes, GPS readings and photogaphs; LV dictates into a tape recorder, so between us we had the whole thing covered. She brought some books to release as well.

The walking tour is very lengthy, and crammed with historic sites and markers. I had a pack full of books and leaked them out wherever I came across a state landmark - there are fourteen in Monterey and we arranged things so we’d hit lots early on.

The whole thing was both charming and overwhelming. Really, one cannot do it all justice in a day. But we tried, and got down Alvarado and round a bit before spotting the Mucky Duck British pub. That was our lunch place.

There are many gorgeous little walled gardens in Monterey, which I love. I have always loved that kind of thing. The architecture varies, but the Spanish style is so pretty. The old theatre was very interesting, and really evoked a simpler time. The Whaling House was not very politically correct, but had a unique feature: a pavement (sidewalk) made out of whalebone, perhaps the only one in the USA.

There were many, many adobes and I was much occupied trying to record everything. It will probably take me months to enter all the snarfs.

I had a ploughman’s lunch, very tasty, with odd green cheese and pickled onions that were just a bit too pickly, but they did very well. I brought some home for later.

Afterwards, Lios dropped us in a veritable thicket of historic sites to the extent where I ran completely out of steam in the Friendly Plaza and was thus out-snarfed. Really, one should take several days over the tour to visit museums where there are some and enjoy the sites more, but we were pushed for time.

At one place, a lady chatted with us and seemed intrigued by Markeroni, so we gave her a bookmark.

At the end, we met up with Lios and he drove us to the three remaining California landmarks. So I saw all fourteen, and released books at, or in honour of them all, save one which I still need to do, and all was well.

I had to go; it was 3 pm on Friday and I knew the traffic would be bad in Santa Cruz. So we said our farewells, and then I went home at a fairly cracking pace.

It probably took me about 45 minutes to get to Capitola, and an hour to ride the next five miles to home base. It was so bad that I thought that I might do some lane-splitting, but the gaps seemed too narrow and the traffic too erratic- lots of lane-changing going on. So I got into the lane for my exit and putted along at a tenth of a mile an hour and coped, though it wasn’t any fun.

Soquel Avenue was not any better, but I left it soon and made my way back over small and non-busy streets. So now I can say I have survived rush hour traffic, and not disgraced myself.

I had a quiet evening at home, writing and reading. Hubby will show up tomorrow sometime. I went through my 130-plus photos and deleted ones that my camera messed up - sometimes it aims at completely the wrong thing, and it’s had this fault since I got it. But with LV’s efforts I’m sure there will be a photograph of all the 45-plus snarfs we saw today. :-)

We went up the coast to Pacific Grove, which I found very pretty (but undoubtedly extortionate). We looked for the critters in various “known spots”, along with a lot of people doing the same. In the second place, we found one or two - dinstinguishable from clumps of kale when they turned upside down and started clomping their shellfish catch on the rock they carry with them to open the goodies.

They were quite far away and we only had a glimpse, but see them we did, my first ever otters. There were also many sealions on the rocks, including the huge one which was using the small rock as a pivot point to get comfortable, sort of like a sealion see-saw.

Bluefinch was fascinated by the little squirrels that were playing on the beach; she had never seen any in Australia. This species had no trouble coming right up to us to look at the strange human critters. Now we know why the “do not feed the squirrels” signs are there. ;-)

In time, we headed back to Monterey, with a detour here and there. I got to see a couple of landmarks, and Bluefinch got to see a couple of deer, and we all got to play in the Dennis the Menace playground. I’ll always have fond memories of three women going “whoo-whoo” through the giant pipes…

Lios knew a lot about the area as he grew up here and he remembered what all the buildings used to be or who lived there and what he used to do. It was very cool.

We had dinner at Fresh Choice, and then we had to say farewelly to Bluefinch and her friend who needed to make it back to Atascadero, and I had to go home. I borrowed a sweater which made the return significantly more comfortable for me, and it went exceedingly fast.

I spent more time in the evening reading, but was very tired and was not late to bed.

Woke up with a jolt at 5:30 - couldn’t get back to sleep, too much sunlight through the window. Sorted out a blocked toilet, yay for my hosts’ foresight, I found a plunger in the closet under the sink, and away go troubles down the drain. I had visions of having to lug a plunger on the back of my motorcycle for a while.

This is home from home. ;-)

Was ready to leave around 9:30. The whole process of preparing my bike took longer than I thought. It was misty and I was a bit nervous about that, given my previous fog experience (I crashed getting away from someone who was tailgating me), but it got better as I went along.

I snarfed a Santa Cruz landmark along the way, and then amused myself by thinking how hard people contrive to not look at me when I’m at large, arranging my penguin for his portrait.

The ride down seemed very long, both because it was my first time and because I was cold and it was windy. It’s mostly a freeway, though I did take much pleasure from the straight plunges down steep hills and up even steeper ones - they look a bit daunting when you face them like that, but my Arnie has a strong heart and didn’t let me down.

Or, in other words, “Wheeeeee!” ;-)

The area from Salinas down to past Moss Landing is a two-lane road and slower. I saw people bent double working in the fields I passed, and thought about “The Grapes Of Wrath”, even though I’ve never read it. Maybe I should, but “so many books, so little time”.

I also passed some wetlands (Alcorn Slough, I think), and Moss Landing which reminds me of my first visit to California - hubby and I stopped nearby to have lunch on the way to meeting a pal in Carmel, and I had mahi-mahi and chips because I’d never heard of mahi-mahi and I was enjoying eating lots of food I’d never heard of before. It sounded exotic.

(Gee, the sprinklers down here are making a racket - you’d think there was enough moisture from the fog. The sky is rather cloudy, almost as if rain is coming in.)

I arrived in about an hour, taking the “wrong” exit but landing without fuss at Fisherman’s Wharf. I arranged to meet my friends down there, rather than lugging tons of books the block or two.

About 11:15 we had our reunion. I hadn’t seen Lissyvigeen (LV) and Lios for years, and it was very comfortable, just a renewing of old friendships. They were among the first people I met in California. Then I got to meet Bluefinch from Australia, and her friend S. whom she was visiting, and that was lovely too.

We took a stroll down the wharf and tried to explain snarfing to Bluefinch and S. who were a bit bemused by our frequent cries of “Wildcard!” (an unexpected historical plaque). I have no idea if we got the idea across - there was so much to catch up on in a very short period of time that everything became a real jumble.

We had lunch on the wharf - I enjoyed a chowder bowl and some good conversation. By now the fog had burned off and it was pleasant - too pleasant, given the amount of red on my face when I got home, but it wasn’t hot - we didn’t know it was happening - and you’d think I would know better.

We got gifts and postcards in a touristy shop, and then decided that we would go in search of sea otters.

(OK, my wrists hurt now, so I’ll adjourn for the night.)

I discovered that all I need to do to get my creative writing juices flowing was to be absent from my home computer. At home, I have DSL and constant access to all the internet I need (except for certain commercial sites). There is always one more snarf that needs entering or one more program to write or one more forum to read. My creativity suffers.

I now known how to revamp my second novel and I know what happens in the middle and what order to do stuff in. I also wrote my first ever sex scene :: blush ::

The story continues
I wrote the journal longhand for the rest of the trip…

Got my pictures downloaded today. There are many pictures of signs, but also some neat ones of old buildings and lucious
greenery. It will take me a few days to sort everything out and rename it.

… I’ve been home for a couple of hours, but the trip isn’t over yet: I’m expecting Lios and LV in a little while.

I’ve made my release notes, am about to take a shower, and laundry is washing. I have about 140 photos to do something with, and nine Markeroons to look after. ;-)

I was hoping to do a longer update, but today’s the day I go home. I just checked my email and have it seems ten bazillion new Markeroons - happiness! My husband won’t wake up so I’m down here at Kinko’s, but it’s rather expensive and so I won’t be posting the rest until I get home. Probably just as well, since I wrote most of it longhand. I’m off to do my release notes now.