I just got back from a triple-threat 10-day trip to California. Whew!
I was supposed to get the new recumbent book edition to the printer then take this trip as a big relief. But it still needed a week when the big day rolled around. I went anyway. It’s the second year my pals were meeting out there to ride bikes. And the $99 Chi > Oakland one-way fare is hard to beat.
So, first, I rode for 3 days with new and old pals north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The legendary Victor Vincente of America joined us! I publish his book, and have sold it for years, but had never met him.
Then I hopped into The City for a day and a half to visit our friend David and take in another level of scenery.
He then brought me to the airport and I caught a $50 hop down to Burbank (with a couple stars) where I visited my aunt and uncle in Hollywood, who, as they said, aren’t getting any younger, and so experienced another change of pace.
I figure I visited three of the five States of California. (The other two being San Diego and The Desert.)
Thence home.
It was a neat trip, seeing wonderful culture all around me (for a change), hanging out with special people. It was also nice to get back home. When I pulled back into the driveway, after a long late-night drive home from the airport, I stepped out of the car in the cool air and smelled those spring-has-sprung lilacs. Ahhh… back to work. Good stuff.
To kick things off, here’s a movie! My first ever on OYB! Apologies for featuring a certain show-off…
…showing some not-so-shabby pedaling form on a steep slope heading up to Pt. Reyes (and some whales).
So here’s my Trip Report. It’s a doozy. These were three very disparate adventures and some unusual things happened along the way. I hope I found some things to relate that you can relate to. Sorry it’s so long, but my usual (tough) editor (Martha) wasn’t interested in helping this time. She helps me make my reports punchier by writing “dumb” next to most of the paragraphs, but not this time. Oh well!
(If you prefer pics, here’s a photo album.)
PART ONE: THE JOURNEY OUT
I took a train from Lansing to Chicago where I met Chris and his friend Sadhu, who both “work for the city,” as they say. They’re top managers. We were meeting our friends Randy and Mike—also top managers. How does a solo DIY publisher fit in? By provoking funny stories, I guess!
Chris remarked that I looked snazzy with my new fancy lad look—blazer, seersucker shirt, khakis and OYB-logo’ed khaki baseball hat.
We had shipped our bikes out ahead of us. I paid $50 via FedEx. (Airline fee is $80, UPS $70. But ALWAYS get “Date Certain”!)
I thank Chris for making this whole thing come to life. I hesitate. Traveling for fun by plane seems to me to risk bad karma. What do I need to go anywhere for? But it’s good I went. Besides, it was work, the best kind. I was covering my beat: life out the back door. And I had an author to meet.
We got on the plane. Airplanes are time machines. You get a magazine and a snack and sit in a chair and have a little chat and a nap and then you’re 2000 miles away. Amazing!
Planes are better than trains because in the air people can’t bray into their cellphones. The quiet is lovely! It’s a bit eery, too, because I today’s people are at a loss without their metal appendages. Nobody said much to anyone!
The earlier train ride was rude, what with the loud, nonstop talking to invisible people and the blaring muzak snippets firing off all the time. I need fluorescent orange earplugs on a string, like Jack Saunders wears, to ward off the passive conversation. Memo to world: put your phones on buzz whenever in public. And talk into them quietly. And use them as often as you would use a phonebooth.
We had a perfect flight.
Randy picked us up and we went back to his house. He lives on Alameda Island, a neighborly area where little kids stop by the house asking if someone wants to play and where Randy keeps the Michigan spirit alive with a well-used tire swing in a muddy front yard.
We loaded our bikes, got another car, and drove off into the hills. I was jet-buzzed and culture-shocked, but the drive fixed all that. Randy and I rode in his M3 convertible. Jack Johnson’s cheerfully groovy “Upside Down” came up on the sense-surround sound system as we blasted up valley roads under the stars. Ahh, now we’re getting somewhere.
We stayed at Bindy and Mike’s place, our friend Nick’s parents. They have a nice guesthouse on a ridge in Inverness. Ah, bliss… Nick built it. We wish he could be here with us, but he’s injured (can’t bike) and swamped worse than me. Next year!
It’s so great that the Durries open their scene to us. DurrieFest is such a treat!
DAY ONE: RIDE TO POINT REYES & MORE
Next day we and Mike rode out to the Pt. Reyes lighthouse. We got our first taste of steep uphills and et em up. This first taste was like Scotland. Heath all the way down to the sea. Flowers everywhere.
At the beach. Note the Danger sign: sharks, currents and undertows, oh no!
Chris took off like a rocket on the first big climb. He did that every day. Clearly, bike commuting is good for you.
For the past few months I’d been avoiding beer, seconds, dessert…and no cream in my coffee. I was 5 pounds down. Yeah!
Mike said the whales come by the point in the winter but that was months ago. Suddenly a huge one spouted way down below—well, here’s a late one. Then another, with a calf. Then more. Amazing.
Seeing the sea does something to me. Makes me want to voyage.
Rolling back down the path out to the lighthouse.
We then decided to ride too far and go see the Tule elk refuge on the other arm of the peninsula. We saw elk where we thought we should see seagulls. I just LOVED the over-exertion of the day’s ride. Ride ride ride!
One of the bigger climbs of the day. Say, how did anyone get far enough ahead to stop and take a photo of those two fast-climbing mountain goats?
I wanted to blast up the huge hill to the homestead but Sadhu thought to ease up and wait for our laggers. I was shamed by the courtesy, but I had to blast.
Back at the ridgetop I showered and changed into seersucker before everyone had their helmets off. Ah, the freshness. (The outdoor tiled shower with waterfall nozzle really did the trick.) I said that Sean Kelly always hits the showers right away after Paris Roubaix. (We often remark on our heroes…and pretend to their glory as we ride.)
At the guesthouse that our friend Nick built for his parents.
Then it was off to an hour of yoga class. What?! Yep. We were glad we did. I think. What a way to come down off a daylong blast of fresh salty sea air.
My nose was still plugged from my latest cold, so I couldn’t smell much, but I could FEEL and taste the salt air on my tongue, and the eucalyptus, too.
Back at the ranch, Randy lit a marvelous cigar and I packed a pipe of luxurious tobaccy and we relaxed on the patio with tinkly highballs.
DAY TWO: MOUNT TAM & VVA
The next morning we drove to the base of Mt. Tam and headed off up the slopes.
Amazingly enough, each of us brought a friend along, making 8.
The gang at the Rez on the way up to Tam
Early that morning VVA had shown up, right on time.
I had told him we might ride from the house and start early. He’s 65 years old and said he doesn’t start very early and it was a 3-hour drive. I said, C’mon, go for it! We had tried to get together last year and it didn’t work. I really wanted to ride with him this time.
VVA is Victor Vincente of America. He’s an author I publish. His story is big. His book is called “A Dirt Road Rider’s Trek Epic & Other Dreams” (click to go to ordering page). It’s poetry and art about life and riding in the outback. The book also includes a bio section. He’s one of a handful of dual Mt-bike and Road-bike Hall-of-Famers. He was the first USA national road champion. The first American to win road races in Italy in modern times. A dual Olympian. The first to set a modern transcontinental record, which inspired RAAM. Tied for first to produce a mt-bike. One of the first to host mt-bike events and races. Artist, designer and stone mason. Whew! And he did it all on a semi-homeless basis. Uncoached. Unsponsored. He cultivated an appreciation along the way for “road prize” (things found along the road) and…roadkill cuisine. He knows roadside flora and fauna like no one else. He’s held “money burnings” at his events. In his art he’s into many metaphors—including cannibalism, suicide and the battle cry of alien-asiatic-arab warriors. He’s minted coins, some in his own visage (good for the purchase of any VVA product). He has a cabin now and says now that he’s retired from racing he’s pursuing women as a romantic, up to 8 at a time, so far. Thrice married. Double whew!
50th birthday coin.
How many athlete champs come anywhere close to this kind of level of character and range?
Well, I’ve been impressed by his work and his style for years, and we’ve talked on the phone, but I’d never met or rode with him.
VVA’s van.
Well, he showed up early. Not to be called one who sleeps in. And promptly gave me a gift of a found tee-shirt, laundered and silkscreened with “Guaranteed Recycled.” He had some moist wild flower bulbs and dirt in a baggie in his van, freshly scavenged. He said he plants all kinds of roadside flowers in his yard.
He’s smallish in height but powerful—like a sprinter who’s been a stone mason. Garbed in bracelets and clankery. His voice seems like it might go Scottish on you but it doesn’t. Not loud, crisp, measured—with a laugh waiting close to hand.
An interesting contrast is Mike’s pal: the current and many-time world champion triathlon age-grouper—now in the 65 year old group, I think. So we had two champs—one current, one legend.
VVA rode in a baseball hat. Who’s to argue.
Last year was Randy’s first try at hard riding. His bike had racing gears. Nothing for a mountain. He made it halfway. This year he had a nice, big 34-tooth cog on his freshly repainted classic Fuji.
VVA was amused at the chicanery several of us have developed.
We try to bluff, tease and provoke each other into riding in such a way as to make our rival able to be PASSED.
Eddy on the rampage!
There are references freely made to Lance, Ulrich and Pantani the Pirate (RIP). There are attempts to do The Look and blast off.
There are gambits and ploys—fake leg cramps.
Trying to bridge the gap to a fugitive.
VVA joined in on the fun. What was a little odd was when I called him Pantani and me Ulrich. The thing is that VVA *WAS ONE OF THOSE GUYS.* He’s VVA!
It was neat to ride with him. He has a loose “pro” style. Moves around on the bike quite a bit, moves the bike itself. Lots of ankling and getting out of the saddle. Relaxed hands, bent elbows—likes to be an instigator.
Very close to the top now. See the road winding down below.
Randy made it to the top of Mt. Tam in fine shape. We took a break and checked out VVA’s bike. It’s a custom Macalu…with worn-out chainrings (pointed like teeth)…and duct-taped handlebars. He said a friend gave it to him a few years ago. Up to then he had been riding his 1960’s bike from the Olympics. He said the top tube had rusted dangerously from sweat. I said “Final verdict: beyond retrief.” VVA bolted alert and laughed. –That was the last line of one of his poems. He said he’d never heard anyone quote his work out of the blue like that. …And that he’d invented the word “retrief.” It works.
Relaxing at the top of Tam.
Chris tells VVA that it’s good that the Prince is back wearing the colors of the Republic of California—more from his work. He laughed again—“You guys are good!”
Randy took off ahead of us, descending—but there are plenty of climbs that direction, too. Last year this was how he kept from being left too far behind. This year we never caught him.
This ride is lovely how it goes from moist, jungly redwood creek valley up into high meadows overlooking the sea.
A top section offers a rollercoaster ride for a couple miles, big gear all the way if you keep a blasting momentum, which I did, and relished.
Some of us were less comfy with fast’n’fun descending on bikes. VVA was the best, and gave tips. I tried to advise a bit, too, as I’ve found things that work. What most helped me, though, was discovering Jobst Brandt’s online report, “The Dark Art of Descending.” I haven’t found the exact link again yet but this will do. (Also has essay by R. Marquis on this.) Must-reads for mt-riders! Still, even when I thought I could descend, real mt-folk could drop me like I was standing.
(Here are some basics to get you started: when turning on descents or flats make sure you turn as much as you can BEFORE the apex of your turn. If the turn is fast enough you’ll be glad you have room in hand as you exit. Be relaxed. Weight both feet, outside foot forward. If turn is banked and sharp then drop torso down and twist to inside of turn and pull bike around (as it were). As your braking slows you, you can brake more and turn sharper. Fast descending turns are assymetric. Braking reduces the amount you can lean. Read the FAQs. Good luck!)
We saw turkeys all day, on the ride and the drive. Big toms puffed up strutting for their ladies. Like I’ve said, they’re the new pheasant.
VVA had been being dropped on the pitches. He would then catch back up quickly, with a whoop, on the tricky downhills.
Sadhu hadn’t done downhills before, but FLEW up the pitches with his 125 pounds of fiestiness. Lightweight Chris was strong on the pitches, too.
There was one long last steep uphill before we got back to town. We were together at its base when I attacked. I needed to make a power move to get one over on Chris and Sadhu. I was in the big-ring, out of the saddle, feeling good. I didn’t sense anyone around. Closing in on the top. Slight sense of someone. No one to the left. Slight sense of someone off my right rear. At the top VVA comes slashing past with a sprint as fast as a city crit finish. Holy smokes! He doffs his cap and bows. Wow, that was great to see and to have happen to me. Beat by a champ! When my pals and I duke it out on big hills we inch past each other. This was a spark of real pro sprint speed. What a treat. We bombed down into town. VVA said he still has it…for fifty meters. He also said thanks and that I was a worthy rival.
Swooping back down, now thru the neighborhoods.
VVA says he always likes to take a shower immediately after big rides. Ah ha! After we’re cleaned up, he appears in khakis and striped ticking-type shirt. I walk in wearing just about the same. Funny!
VVA studies the guesthouse, feeling the woodwork and stonework. At his van he gives me some eucalyptus shells and says they’re for us to put on our stove, to heat up or light a bit with fire then blow out, as an incense.
I show off the art of the main house to VVA. Our hostess is a ceramist. They have some of my wife Martha’s early big ceramic animals here, too. VVA drops to the floor in front of her colorful tapir. He studies everything, for a long time, in quiet detail.
DAY THREE: BIG BAY RIDE—TOMALES BAY
The next morning we ride into Pt. Reyes to the Bovine Bakery for sticky buns.
Bikes flock the bakery. Carbon and ti. We park ours. A local bike shop owner is lounging at a bench. He says, “That’s a really, really nice bike,” as I wheel my lugged steel RB1 by. Aw, shucks.
We notice a brace of $10K carbon bikes. A hand-wrapped Calfee. Ooooh… Eye candy.
$20K worth of bikes. They belong to father and teen son. Luckeee!
Back at the ranch, I phone home…I miss the wife and kiddy-kids. They sound good. The kids have each done strange things, which are nice to hear about.
We’re down to 5 of us now. Mike tows our butts at warp speed into the wind around Tomales Bay. But on each of the steep uphill sections, VVA cracks the whip and strings us out. He’s attacking like Pantani! No…like VVA! He says that he has to breathe hard before any hard hill effort, so he does. A secret method! (Like riding with water-filled inner tubes. Like carrying rocks then jetisoning them in front of rivals.) My nose has cleared out…all the sea, meadow and forest smells flood over me. We fly past a marina with crusty, nifty old boats boats boats. I want to swing off, but swing back on instead.
Chris taking a strong pull into the wind by the Bay.
When we get close to Tomales, Mike says, “There’s town!” and points to the top of a huge hill. Mike later said he was thinking of going hard but thought instead to provoke us. VVA and I attack the hill to our imaginary finish line. Neck and neck to the top…then I floor it, pull ahead and win. We regroup in town. He declares to the gang, “This guy isn’t just a city boy publisher. He has grit!” Then says to me with a wink, “That was a really good one. So it’s one win each. But I’ll fix you!” Oh-oh! Later on he said the fix might not be physical, might be psychological. Mysterious…
On the way back, he stops along the road to cut some fennel stalks to add to tonight’s salad. Chris says he wants to take some video clips with his digicam but instead takes off blasting down the road with Mike. We are dropped! VVA gets rolling again and takes up the chase. I can’t believe they’re going so hard. It was a ploy! VVA pours it on. I hang on for all I’m worth. We hit some big twisty descents and take the corners at max speed, the limit of adhesion. As we catch the fugitives, VVA motions to me with a wave. We blast on past and keep going. The tables are turned! We drop them hard. Then wait up. Coming into town we pass a whisk broom in the road. Sure, enough VVA stops and nabs it.
Fennel: roadside salad. We smelled it so sweet as we rode by.
Coming back to the huge hill going up to Mike’s, I tell Chris to get some vid of VVA climbing. He says, “No, you.” We’re halfway up the hill. He gives me the camera. Then takes off! Chris wins the final sprint, laughing. What a trick!
We clean up and, darn it, this whole time I’ve been wanting OYSTERS, so we go to the Pt. Reyes Oyster Ranch. They have em. We buy em, for dinner and for NOW. We sit on the curb by the Bay and crack em and slurp em for awhile. Ahhh… A French guy sits next to us, doing the same, giving us pointers. Dang, we forgot the wine. Well, there’s plenty back at the ranch.
Oysters, finally.
I notice my heel hurts. I’m lame, bruised. Darn, it must’ve been that crazy sprint against VVA.
A VVA custom tee, 4 silkscreen colors and airbrush. Ooooh!
I remark that we could probably explore much farther each day if we didn’t destroy ourselves with nonstop attacking. Hmmmm, is the response.
We have an oyster dinner party, grilled and raw, and invite our hosts to the guesthouse. Afterward, VVA reads a few of his poems for us that I’d sneakily printed out. Chris takes vids of him reading. We pass out gifts to our hosts and hit the hay.
Saying goodbye to our hosts. (Their house.)
DAY FOUR: PACK UP & HIT THE BIG CITY!
VVA takes off in the morning. Before he leaves he gives me a handful of crystals, saying “Diamonds really are found laying on the ground in California.” –More reference to his poetry. He says they’re crystals from igneous rock that gets exposed from erosion. The surface of the rock wears away, exposing the crystals which shatter and lay about. They can be found in a few-mile range near his cabin. People look for them.
VVA remarks that he looks to the margins for his signs of life. (Sounds familiar!) I recalled when he got a flat when we were riding to Tomales. As he rapidly pumped his tire back up, he paused briefly and pointed at some tiny flowers along the road, “Snake lillies, with rattlesnake grass all around them.”
Then he takes off in his van with a Hey-ho!
We all box up our bikes to FedEx back then drive to the airport. I’m continuing on. They all say how good of a time they had and how much they enjoyed our visitor, VVA. I’m glad it worked out.
It was neat seeing the interactions between the creative types and the manager types.
I catch the BART to The City.
I pop out at the Embarcadero and look for a payphone. No need. David pulls up to the curb and the next party starts.
We head to the Cliff House near North Beach for an original Ramos Gin Fizz. —Neat, but it wants to go with food. It’s a touristy area but would be neat and dramatic at night…if tourists weren’t around. I visited this place decades ago and it charmed me. The walkways up from the roaring surf, thru the gardens, to the city street.
Mural on back of SF grocery store.
Then it’s time for a world’s best margarita at Tommy’s. They have the most tequila of anywhere. Small, rustic place. Lively, with friendly staff and owners. David says after our first drink, “Watch out. You’re drunker than you think you are.” Indeed!
David. Bug.
We hit a fancy seviche place for dinner. I LOVE SEVICHE! Then a fancy cafe for…what was that? I forget.
David says that he’s tired of years of being a manager and feels a much-needed spiritual crisis welling up inside. He’s going to take time off, shift into interior study mode and re-find what he needs. It’s a good thing. Cool.
Tommy’s tequila bar. World’s best. (A pic from their website.)
Back at his place he says he’s going to watch a movie. I think, Ugh, time for bed! But he flicks on this 12-foot projection screen system (“I have fancy housmates”) and fires up a surreal Fellini flick, “City of Women.” I can’t resist. Even though I’m BEAT beyond beat.
NOW THE DAYS BLUR TOGETHER…
Scrumptious breakfast at Dottie’s Blue Plate in the Tenderloin.
Walk the Golden Gate.
Cruise the American Cyclery bike shop. (See a $3,150 one-speed in the window.)
$3150 one-speed. (Recognize the book in the window corner?)
Bloody Marys at a bistro.
Thence to the airport…and Burbank!
Bye, David! Thanks!
HOLLYWOOD!
Hello, Uncle Kent! …And off we go to the Money Tree jazz club in Burbank (OK, Toluca Lake, on Riverside). Ah, live music. A tough yet classy bartendress like Sheryl Crowe (sp?). An actress at her dayjob?
Saw a Jack Black movie sidekick on the plane. And a beautiful starlet-looking person chatting on her cell next to me to her mom about how there are 40 websites impersonating you but they’re using such old photos…you haven’t had that dress in years…
Then we’re back at Kent and Jo’s house, late at night, in the Hollywood Hills. That quiet, that smell, that view of the city. I have my old room down the hill. I first visited in ’82, in college, to do a magazine internship. What a mind expanding time! I’d come visit Kent and Jo on weekends. We’d eat out every meal, sometimes 2 dinners. Living large. Kent was “flush”, as a lawyer—after being the longest-lasting LA public defender. A few years later I came out and sold books from a dial phone on their patio. The smell. That little room. Kent says the smell is mildew. It’s youth to me. Not many traces of that left. But that room smelled great from the start, too. How’d I know what youth smelled like when I was young? It’s inspiration. Tropical and open-minded. I once went to a gallery opening in LA and a stranger asked me what I was working on. That’s how they chat. They want to know what ideas you have, if there’s a way to work together. It’s true.
Patio with a view.
The next day we go for a nice lunch and lollygag til evening. I ask them to let me out at the foot of the hill on Hollywood Blvd, as they get ready to drive up and call it a day. They say, Sure, have fun! I want to see what’s up these days. I step out of the car. They drive off. It’s less than a mile to walk back up. I walk to the intersection. A punk couple walk up. The guy projectile vomits bright purple, like a hydrant, several times. I walk the other way. Welcome to Hollywood!
Uncle Kent in his natural setting (Aunt Jo is across the table).
I check out the new mall next to Mann’s. I check out Musso’s window. A nerdy guy walks past me to the door and says, “Ready for that martini?” I say, Just looking. “When you are, come on in.” Hmmm, a bold pickup line or just bold civility? I’ll never know.
I check out swanky bistros, like the Pig’n’Whistle. Classic interiors. Throbbing music. Young crowd. Somehow not right. The people aren’t interacting. I finally get to Miceli’s—oldest Italian in LA. There’s a piano player crooning a standard. I relax instantly. Ah, finally, the real Hollywood! I order a drink and bruscetta. The bartender sings with the piano player. A guy at the bar says Hi and I say where I’m from, why I like this place. He says, “Oh I was at the Money Tree last night, too. I’m a jazz player myself, and a journalist, my paper is outside the door—grab one on your way out.” Then the piano player calls it a night and comes up and has dinner at the bar. So we all hang out and visit. Bartender is a rough yet smooth Italian from Chicago. He fills my wine glass (free) a couple times. I walk home.
Next day we go to have lunch at one the fanciest places in town, Providence. Closed. So we go have tacos at Yuca’s, a stand in a parking lot instead. I notice a gold medal from James Beard on the wall of the shed with a note that it’s one of the best places in LA. Amazing… (Later we get a call from the fancy place owner saying if he’d only known he would’ve stayed open.)
We then have dinner at Musso’s. More real Hollywood. Old waiters in red. Sweetbreads. Jellied consomme. Can’t beat it. It’s not that pricey. I like it that my aunt and uncle have been going there 40 years, just down the hill from their house.
Musso’s.
They let me off again and I stroll another section of town. Have a nice pear cider in a happening club. Chat with trendy, lively locals. Browse the late night newstands. Where I used to buy European bike racing magazines before you could get that news anywhere else. I see ladies dressed in outfits like you don’t see everywhere. See houses and classic hotels. I like how palmetto fans silhouette against the orange night sky. It’s never very dark in LA. As I walk back by the freeway a mockingbird sings beautifully.
My favorite places are courtyards, especially with different levels. Plenty of those around H’wood.
In the cul-de-sac their neighbor has a hot new VW Phaeton luxury car. What a great name for a car. But they didn’t sell and are discontinued, but I guess they’re great, innovative cars. $85K. I like the idea of reverse snobbery. Who’d think a VW could be so elite?
Later on I saw a new sub-compact Lincoln Zephyr. Huh? Elite doesn’t work that way.
Another neighbor’s car.
Once as I strolled along a new Bentley sports car ($200K) pulled to the curb with its hazards blinking. It curb-hopped slowly alongside me for a couple blocks before going into a gas station and filling up. They do need gas.
My uncle says he isn’t getting any younger so he’d like to give me a couple guns, but the airport isn’t going to let me take them. I say, Let’s see about that, and call them. They say to just lock em unloaded in a hardshell case and check em like luggage, show the lady they’re empty, and have em inspected. So Kent gives me a lovely Savage Model 99 .308 deer rifle and a Browning Model 5 20-ga grouse gun with rib. I’ll put them to good use. I’ll send him pics of next year’s buck taken with his rifle. Of the rifle all cleaned and glowing. Of some 200-yard target groups. I appreciate it, a lot.
My last night in town I was strolling past a bustling new nightclub on my way home, limos in front. I paused. It looked nice. Yellow light glowing all along the base of it, with a waterfall streaming down in the light. The huge black doorman said, It’s nice, isn’t it? I said, Yeah. Would you like to come in? He undid the rope. Well, now! He said, There’s still a cover, but you can come in if you like. I finally made the cut. That was good enough. I said, Thanks but no thanks, I’m done for the night. No other doorman ever noticed me before. I should’ve paid the $10 and just looked. What were the limo people doing in there anyway?
The next day Kent took me to the airport. The check-in people treated the guns fine. I was a little nervous, strolling around with my heavy case. The guy couldn’t get the lock to work again and invited me into his national security room. The guys in there chatted about the guns they used to hunt with as kids. I was on my way. I got a shoeshine finally.
Then got into the quiet plane home.
A neat thing was that my in-laws were at the airport (hours from their home) to pick someone up at the same time I was flying in. They go to the airport about once a year. Good timing. I’m full of coincidences.
After the drive home in the wee hours I step out of the car into our yard. It’s lush and green, I can tell. Lilac scent fills the fresh, cool air. It’s great to be home.
