Day 77, August 21
We made an early start that morning. Normally, even though we rose with the sun, all our preparations would ensure a late start: roll up the sleeping bags and foam pads which went under them; take down the tent, rolling it up and putting it into the two bags which came with it, making sure not to misplace one of the aluminum stakes which anchored it; starting the stove and cooking coffee and breakfast, which was sometimes boiled eggs, sometimes instant oatmeal; cleaning our utensils; packing everything onto the bikes. But this morning we didn’t have enough to cook for breakfast, so we skipped the coffee and rode at 7:30 in the morning. It was cooler than usual because of the early start, and of course we were hungry, but we knew we would be stopping at the first decent restaurant. We always enjoyed eating at restaurants, and had made sure to not blow all our money doing that in the early part of the trip. But now, with the end in sight, we were doing more for enjoyment.
Sure enough, we pedaled 4 miles into Oxnard and found Granny’s Pantry. We had a nice breakfast: my breakfast orgy is pancakes and eggs over easy on top of them, with plenty of syrup poured over the whole mess. Inanna would have something less extreme, yet enjoy it just as much, and enjoy my obvious appreciation of my food. And the coffee in a restaurant was 100% better than the instant we made with boiling water on our little backpack stove.
Even after a relaxing breakfast, we were back on the road soon, and making better time than we had the day before. The winds were again negligible, and the grades were minimal. We rode away from the beach and into the Santa Monica Mountains—yet they were not serious mountains, at least along the road we were traveling. We could see significant hills looming over us to the north and east as the road began to turn toward the east.
Soon the road took us back to the beach, which was, surprisingly running east-west, not north-south, like most of the California coastline. We now rode directly east, and I commented to Inanna that we were backtracking: if we maintained this direction, we would be back in Virginia in a few weeks. As we mused in this way, I mentally added up the miles. We had covered 47 miles already today, 3300 total.
But we forgot about miles and the anomaly of riding east as we rode into the Los Angeles-area beaches, starting with Malibu. Palatial houses were built into the hillsides to our left as we road along a four-lane road full of traffic. Cars were parked all along the curb on our right, and beyond them was the beautiful beach. We stopped to gaze at the beach and have lunch.
The sun shone brightly off the water. People were playing in the water, but the beach wasn’t crowded—perhaps because this was at the extreme north of the Los Angeles area. The population would be more concentrated further south. The air smelled of the beach: salt, sun, kelp. The sound of the breakers was apparent from the ocean, and it competed with the sound of the traffic from the road we had just been riding upon.
We couldn’t stay forever, and besides, the view from the bicycles was just as nice as the view from our lunch-spot vantage point. We rested for a while and began to ride again.
Now the traffic was even more difficult, and we were squeezed between the row of parked cars on our right and the moving cars on our left. I began to become fearful that if somebody in a parked car opened his door at just the right moment, we would be forced out into the traffic. I called to Inanna to keep an eye peeled, and I began to watch every car door carefully. It was similar to my flight school instruction to watch for a farmer’s field, to always have one in mind should you have an engine failure.
Suddenly, just after Inanna passed it, a car door opened. I quickly glanced over my shoulder and saw that no traffic was just behind me, so I coasted to my left to avoid the open car door. I turned my head back from the traffic to the parked car just in time to see Lloyd Bridges, the movie and television actor, step out. I coasted past him, and our eyes met. Foolishly, I called out “You’re Lloyd Bridges!” He probably already knew that, so all he said was “How are you?” and gave me that famous dimply smile. And then I was past him.
I caught up with Inanna and told her I had just seen Lloyd Bridges and she was only mildly impressed. She was never one to idolize celebrities. And besides, in this area, there must have been plenty of celebrities. It was beautiful, and expensive enough to be exclusive.
We road six more miles into Santa Monica. The bike path left the road and meandered along the paved sidewalk alongside the beach. We had now entered an active and busy beach scene. There were roller-bladers and skate-boarders on the boardwalk with us, along with a number of strollers and bicyclists. We were clearly the only long-distance bikers, however, as could be easily told from our ragged clothes and the gear strapped to the bikes. There were sun-bathers, despite the fact that it was now past 3 PM and the day’s best rays were now gone. There were weight-lifters who had gone to much trouble to move their weight sets and benches out onto the beach from their homes and garages.
A young man with a cooler waved us down. “Want a beer?” he asked. The sun was still warm, and a cold beer would taste great, but mostly it was his engaging smile that stopped us. He gave us each an ice cold Michelob, held out in one hand with the cold water from the cooler dripping off them. He opened one himself, and the three of us stood there on the edge of the boardwalk sipping the beer. He asked us where we were bound, and where we were from—the same questions which started every conversation. We were only too happy to chat with him.
He was an Angelino who came to the beach whenever he could, which was usually about once a week. He lived and worked about 20 miles inland, but had taken off early today to meet some friends—who were not here yet, it seemed. I asked him about finding a place to camp and he was pessimistic about our chances. He said he had been hanging around L. A. beaches for years, and hadn’t seen a campground anywhere nearby. He didn‘t know what to suggest. Our map didn’t show another state campground anywhere to the south.
He offered us another beer, but he could see that we had to move on. We needed to find a place to spend the night, and the area didn’t seem hospitable to campers. We didn’t want to risk sleeping right out here on the beach, and hoped we would find something better up ahead. We thanked out host and moved on.
We rode along the boardwalk, enjoying the sights, not riding fast. Partly, it was impossible to ride fast, because there were too many people on the walkway. But the meandering pace we could manage was perfect for soaking in the ambiance of this famous beach scene.
Yet I felt anxious, too. I had always been intimidated by Los Angeles: the traffic, the smog, the fast-paced life. I have a memory of driving into L. A. with my family, my father driving. We entered one of those major multi-level cloverleaf interchanges on the highway, and Dad got confused. We drove back 50 miles in the direction in which we had come before he recognized his error. Another memory: as a young boy, running on the beach in L. A., and becoming winded, unable to catch my breath. It was painful to breathe. My mother proclaimed that it was the smog, and I believed she was right. I always remembered that claustrophobic sense of being smothered on a wide-open beach.
Now, Inanna and I were in the middle of a vortex of human energy unlike anywhere in the world. But because we were at the western edge of that vortex, we had no vehicular traffic to contend with. We were actually below a cliff at Santa Monica, and we could see large hotels and trees atop the cliff, but could only guess at what else was up there. The beach scene below, where we were, was entirely different from what we imagined life was like up above.
As we rode along, the cliff gradually became lower, and finally we were at Marina del Rey. This was an inlet for small (and not-so-small) pleasure boats, and we had to pedal around it. This short detour gave us a nice view of some pretty boats, and another view of a part of Los Angeles. Soon we were back at the beach, with the airplanes of Los Angeles International airport flying over us.
The road again became a cement boardwalk and we approached Manhattan Beach. To our left were thousands of automobiles, and small houses that cost a bundle because they were close to the beach. To our right was still the amazing Pacific Ocean, and now the sun was dropping and we wondered even more anxiously where we would spend the night.
A bicyclist joined us, a young man of about nineteen who inquired about our trip. “Where you headed?”
“San Diego,” replied Inanna.
“Where you from?”
“Virginia,” she said. “Do you live nearby?”
And so the ice was broken again, and we found out that this young man’s name was Ron Hudson and he lived a couple miles up ahead, with his mother, not far away from the beach. Inanna and I both immediately saw Ron as not only a nice person, but a potential way out of our problem of finding a place to spend the night. We rode slowly along beside him, chatting idly, hinting about our need to find a place to stay. We asked him if there were any campground nearby, already knowing the answer. We asked if there were any inexpensive hotels near, and again he couldn’t be helpful.
Finally he suggested it might be possible for us to stay with him at his house, but he would have to ask his mother. When we got to the street that he would have to take to get over to his house, he said he would go talk to his mother, but he was sure it would be all right. We said we would be happy to wait around here, and we saw a Sizzler Steak House. We said we would have dinner there and wait for him.
We sat and enjoyed our meal, waiting for Ron, but not particularly nervous about the news he would bring. He did seem to be an earnest person, who was really trying to help. We trusted that he would be back with good news. And we were right. Back he came, on his bicycle, just as we were finishing our meal. He came inside and chatted with us as we finished up and paid our check. He said it would be fine for us to stay the night, but that there were no extra beds so we would have to sleep in our sleeping bags on the carpet.
Compared to some places where we had spent the night over the past 11 weeks, a carpet didn’t sound bad. We knew we would be safe, and perhaps be able to pedal out of the Los Angeles area the next day. On the way to Ron’s house, we passed an ice cream parlor. We stopped and bought the three of us ice cream cones, which we enjoyed very much. Ron seemed to really appreciate sharing with us.
His house at 931 Highview Street was smallish, but very well furnished, and the wall-to-wall carpet was immaculate. There was no garage, so we carefully laid newspapers on the carpet and carried the bikes in to place them on the newspapers. Ron explained that his mother had gone out, and wouldn’t be back until late. We sat up and chatted, watched a little TV, and became sleepy. I could see the disappointment in Ron’s eyes—he wanted us to stay up with him longer. It was hard to explain to him that we had become used to going to bed and rising with the sun. Instead, we did stay up with him and watch TV, until we couldn’t keep our eyes open. We thanked him and crawled into our sleeping bags on the floor. He turned off the TV and we were asleep immediately. We had covered 66 miles that day, from McGrath State Park, through Oxnard, Malibu, Santa Monica and Manhattan Beach. It had been a nice day, no hills to climb or headwinds to fight, beer from a cooler, a nice steak, a safe place to sleep.
No longer so intimidated by Los Angeles, it would have been good to tell Inanna of my old friend Mike Davis. He had been my buddy and arguing partner back in high school in El Cajon. I lost track of him after high school as he went on to be quite a writer. He finally was awarded the MacArthur genius award a few years back for his book City of Quartz, an essay on Los Angeles. I have tried to contact him recently, but no luck. Now, there is a guy not intimidated by Los Angeles.