My plan for the spring was to spend it on the coast in California, taking my time on the way there and touring the southern route across the country. I didn’t have much of a plan other than I wanted to be in Northern California and find a bartending gig to take advantage of the early sunsets of the season. As the winter dragged on back east and my bank account sagged, I started to wonder if I was really going to just drive out to NorCal and live out of my car and somehow find a job when I get there. I was going to do it, but I definitely was beginning to question the legitimacy of my plan. In an attempt to cobble together some quick cash on the journey there, I hit up an old contractor I used to work for to see if I could work for him doing some roofing on a church steeple he had going on in Texas.
“What if we flew you out to Big Sur?” He sent me in reply. Apparently the house he had going on out there that I worked on three years ago was still not complete and he could use some extra hands to finish it up.
It didn’t take me long to reply. “I would definitely take you up on that”
I like to pretend that traveling around America is sort of like playing an open-world video game. All traveler types have their preferred playstyle of navigating the country. Some hitchhike or hoof it on foot. Some ride freight trains. Nowadays some get a remote tech job and buy a Sprinter van (the soap bags, as we call them.)
My preferred playstyle is to utilize what some would call a “beater car” or “shitbox.” Vehicles are pretty great important for traveling in America, as the car dependent infrastructure makes it almost necessary in the western states. The downside to traveling with vehicles is that in this day and age of smart phones, it’s very easy to isolate yourself and not have to meaningfully interact with the environment and people around you. Driving a shitbox fixes this problem. Because of the breakdowns, you tend to find yourself in situations where you have to dynamically interact with your surroundings in creative ways to fix your car. Driving is loud, slower, and less comfortable. You tend to attract attention and social interaction because of the spectacle of your early 90’s/late 80’s econobox once again crossing the continent despite all odds. In my opinion, it’s as close as you can get to driving a motorcycle, but with all the benefits having a car provides.
Instead of flying, I opt to drive. My noble steed for this journey will be “Barry Bluejeans,” my 1991 Ford Festiva. I tell my boss I can make it there in two weeks. In my own internal calculus, two weeks is the amount of time I need to make it to the opposite coast. Two weeks gives me enough time to deal with the inevitable car maintenance and repairs I will have to perform on the way there. Before I leave Kentucky, I attempt to get an alignment done. The shop informs me that my rack and pinion is completely worn out, and it will be impossible for them to align it. I take the car to my friend Will’s house, who is arguably the chief Ford Festiva guru nationwide. He looks at my car, and informs me that yes, my worn rack and pinion is preventing a proper alignment and probably will eat through my tires on the way there. “Do you think I’ll make it to California before the tires die?” I ask him.
He thinks for a minute. “Yeah, I bet you’ll make it there with plenty of tire to spare.”
I cross the Ohio river in Louisville headed due west the next day. A familiar scene every time I do a big cross continental jaunt. As with tradition, I steal a quick glance behind me at the “Welcome to Kentucky” sign behind me, bidding her farewell for now. Also with tradition, I breathe a sigh of relief to see “Governor Andy Beshear” below the sign, instead of “Governor Matt Bevin.” I drive straight west on I-64 towards Springfield, Missouri, where I have an old climbing friend I met in Mexico I haven’t seen since MeWithoutYou’s final show in Philadelphia in 2022. I crash at him and his wife’s home. I take the following day while they are at work to change my oil.
In Oklahoma my tires begin to look very bad. They’re wearing rapidly. I am beginning to question Will’s assesement that my tires will make it to California after all. My brother lives in Clovis, New Mexico a few hours away. I reason that if my tires are going to shit the bed anywhere, it might as well be near a place I can bed down comfortably for a few days that is not a truck stop parking lot. I make it to the Buc-eyes in Amarillo before I notice the metal mesh beginning to poke through my tires.
It’s not safe to keep driving on them any longer. I pull out my iPhone and chart a course for Clovis. 105 miles away. I only have one 100-mile AAA tow left for this billing cycle, so I decide to proceed down the route for another 7 miles to get within range of my tow. I take it slow, white-knuckling the steering wheel as I go. I pull in to a Love’s just 98 miles from my brother’s house, calmly call AAA to set up my tow, and lean against the hood of my car and watch the Texas sunset.
I end up being in Clovis far longer than I was planning on. The downside to driving a 30 year old vehicle is that while parts are cheap, they often have to be ordered. I decide to go ahead and fix my rack and pinion instead of sacrificing another set of tires and turning them into microplastics on the side of the road. I order the new tires and parts, hoping that they arrive on Thursday as scheduled. They end up not coming til the following Monday.
My friend in Albequerque informs me during the tow truck ride that Clovis is “the butthole of New Mexico.” I don’t like being negative towards rural spaces far from conventional “cool” places, but there is something to be said about the isolation of Clovis. It’s in the flat part of New Mexico, surrounded by so much private land that you have to drive two hours away to hunt, and stepping out of the house every morning I am greeted with the smell of cow shit. There is a cool cowboy diner, but for the most part I spend the week catching up with my brother, playing video games, working out at the local Planet Fitness, and getting stoned and going to Chili’s.
On Monday morning my new rack and pinion shows up on the front porch. Working quickly I install it, get an alignment and my new tires mounted, and hit the road. Fog coats the high desert of Eastern New Mexico as I push west. I take a brief stop in Albequerqe to catch up with a friend at the Whole Foods hot bar, and then continue on along the old Route 66 in fourth gear. I run out of steam somewhere to the southwest of the Grand Canyon, just an hour from the California border, and pass out.
The next morning I get up and continue driving. I cross the California border while Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” plays on the Bluetooth speaker, feeling very tickled, and promptly get fucked paying $8 a gallon for gas at a gas station in the middle of the Mojave. I spend a few days in the Joshua Tree area and link up with my friend Nicole from the Red River Gorge. Unfortunately, I’m unable to convince any of the local trad circuit dirtbags to go climbing with me, but we do go sample a couple boulder problems the following day.
I get moving Saturday morning and go straight to Los Angeles. Although I always end up having a great time when there, I generally try to avoid the Southern California megalopolis if I can. Six hours seems like a perfectly reasonable amount of time to spend in LA, and I head in and link up with a few college friends in rapid succession. I eat some of the best Mexican food of my life, I ride on the back of my friend’s cafe racer through Koreatown to see where the rooftop Koreans were, and I accidentally eat too many edibles and rant about the November election with my tech journalist friend. All normal things that one does in LA, and the perfect amount of time to spend there.
The next morning I wake up wide awake at 5am and am instantly filled with excitement. After a year and a half of longing it’s finally time to return to the Pacific coast. It’s still dark outside, and I pull my boots on and slip out of the house as quietly as I can. I start driving west, connect into the 1, and as the sun rises I put The Beach Boys on the Bluetooth speaker that sits on my dash.
I’ve gotten lucky every time I drive up the coast. I’ve never had to deal with the common road closures from mud and rock slides that come from the improbable setting of Highway 1. My luck runs out this trip. There’s a closure smack dab in the middle of Big Sur from a slide. There is a road called the Nacimiento-Fergusson Road just south of the closure that leads up and over the Santa Lucia range, connecting to Highway 101 to the east. Any time I am charting a course in Apple Maps and the road appears as a collection of improbable squiggles, I know that this is a road that I would like to drive a Ford Festiva through. I decide that the best (most fun) way to get to Monterey is to take the Highway 1 to the closure, go up and over the mountain, connect to Highway 101, and then take that the rest of the way north.
Returning to the Highway 1 is euphoric. There’s a particular straight section just before the road cuts west and up into the Big Sur coastline that always fills me with stoke every time I drive it. I tear up the highway, weaving back and forth through the 1’s hairpin turns. I am very glad that I have a new rack and pinion and brakes. I make it up to Lucia in no time, and park outside the entrance to the Nacimiento-Fergusson Road and get out of the car.
As I step out of the car, a blast of the cool Pacific breeze hits me. I breathe it in, accepting the rush of memories it brings. I’m very happy to be back. I’ve spent countless nights back east laying in the back of my van, fantasizing about this moment. Unfortunately, I need to get to Monterey with enough time to settle in before work the following day. I’ll have plenty of time to stare at the Sur from the job site once we start. I get back in Barry, start his engine up on the second try, and begin the climb up the mountain.
High Sublime 