It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon. The air was still crisp, but it was starting to warm after a few days of frigid weather. Well, frigid for Los Angeles. As I settled in for the business of packing my Mitsubishi Eclipse with everything I was taking on my trip, a sinking feeling swept over me. Even though, after weeks of preparation and planning, I was emotionally ready to at last hit the road, I felt like there was something that I was forgetting. It was as if I had gotten fifty miles away and realized I left the stove on back home. For five weeks the different facets of my personality had been fighting it out like they were in a UFC version of Inside Out, and clear winners had emerged − decisions had been made. So I didn’t understand why my anxiety was kicking up now.
I will always be thankful for the extra preparation time that Blake’s kindness bought me. Originally, I was only supposed to crash with him for fourteen days. Those two weeks ended up stretching to three, then four, and finally to five. There was so much to get done, both for the trip and at work, that I kept finding myself out of time, but Blake was amazing in his generosity, not even batting an eye whenever the day of my departure inevitably moved further out. In the end, his biggest gift was giving me the chance to formulate a strategy for my time on the road. Things you don’t always have to consider when traveling became huge question marks for a trip of this scale, and it took me longer than anticipated to fully process everything. Blake is the reason I had the opportunity to consider the questions, and make the subsequent preparations.
I’m a planner by nature. I like having my ducks in a row. I feel a sense of calm by having my T’s crossed and I’s dotted, especially when I travel. I’ve been known to produce detailed, even color coded itineraries, when I embark on a big trip, not that I follow them strictly each and every day. I just like to know what there is to do, how long it might take, and how much it costs. From my experience, it protects you from wasting time and money later on. Yet, on this trip I decided I would be doing none of that. I would be relying on my wits, and my wits alone. I didn’t even have a hotel booked for that first night, which for me is an enormous deviation in personal preference, yet I was very excited by it. My former fiancée’s mother used to say, and I’m paraphrasing here, “To travel, all you need is a credit card and a destination. Everything else can be found along the way.” I love that romantic view of travel, the spontaneity of it, and after years of practicing its antithesis, I was ready to adopt a similar style. I certainly met all of the criteria, except no matter how much I might want to follow her doctrine to the letter, I simply was not ready to jump in my car and hit the road with only the clothes on my back and the Visa in my wallet. No, I needed to do at least some planning, and that mostly came down to what I was taking along with me.
Since I would be visiting so many different climates during the winter and spring, and might be required to dress in anything from jeans and a T-shirt to a suit and tie, it took some time to figure out what clothes I would need to pack. Entertainment during my long drives also became a consideration. I decided books on tape were a good solution, but since my Eclipse was built on the cusp of the smartphone-era, its stereo doesn’t have an auxiliary input for an external device. So services like Audible were out, unless I wanted to spend the money to have one installed. Seeing as frugality became another of the big tenets of my trip, I decided against it. Producing this blog, and being able to work on a few other projects during my time away, also became a hurdle. I realized I would need to bring hard drives to work from, and would need other drives on which to transfer all of the photos and video I was capturing along the way. It would simply be too much data to try and upload to the cloud everyday. However, as it turned out, the most important thing I would need to consider was food, especially since I’m a vegetarian. Three meals a day in restaurants, no matter how economical, could be a very quick way to let my expenses spin out of control, and that is something I literally can’t afford.
As I began to load my car that day, carrying everything down from Blake’s third floor apartment while a few of the neighbors curiously watched, I started to understand what I was feeling. It was the same feeling that had been plaguing me for weeks. The only difference now was that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. It was simple, really; I had no idea if everything I planned on taking was going to fit into my car. I had never done a test run to make sure. In the past I would have performed at least one, and found the most optimal way to arrange everything, yet completely against type, I had decided against it. In all honesty it had nothing to do with trying to adopt a new philosophy on travel, and more to do with laziness. I had spent so long preparing for the trip, so much time packing and moving, planning and worrying, that when the time came I just didn’t have the energy to carry everything down to the street from Blake’s place, try to find the best way it would fit it in my car, only to have to haul it all back upstairs where it would wait for my actual departure day. It was all just one step beyond what I could handle. If I had done so I might have given myself time to readjust if everything didn’t work as planned, but I hadn’t, so the anxiety that had been building for weeks was positively overflowing by that afternoon.
What made matters worse was the fact that everything I had packed or bought for my trip somehow appeared smaller in the room I was occupying at Blake’s, but once exposed to the outside air, it seemed to grow exponentially. What was the size of a cigar box in Blake’s apartment grew to the dimensions of a milk crate once outside. By the time it reached my car it was approaching the size of a coffin, which I figured might be a good thing, since I would already be packed and ready to go when everything inevitably went to hell. One by one, every bag, suitcase and cooler, which had looked somewhat manageable before I moved them, doubled and then tripled in size. It was as if Hank Pym and Wayne Szalinski had come together to play the ultimate practical joke on me.
The loading order, and subsequent mental breakdown, unfolded as follows:
Trip One
Loading: The two full-sized suitcases that held my clothes.
Action: After folding my back seats down, trying to make my hatchback as roomy as possible, I arranged them inside.
Reaction: Denial (Examining the very grim state of things and believing it could all still work out).
Trip Two
Loading: 1) The midsized suitcase that held my encrypted hard drives, blank CD’s (so I could burn MP3 discs out of the few dozen audiobooks I imported onto my computer, which my stereo can thankfully play) and other various technological items. 2) The small suitcase that held half a dozen pairs of shoes and boots for various occasions.
Action: They hopelessly joined their two full-sized brethren in my Eclipse.
Reaction: Anger (A loud sustained internal scream – the neighbors were still watching − since more than half of the available space was already gone).
Trip Three
Loading: 1) One full-sized cooler stuffed with bread, oatmeal, Kettle Chips, peanut butter, granola bars, cans of soup, and various cookware and utensils. 2) Its half-sized counterpart filled with vegan hot dogs, ketchup, jelly, yogurt, carrot sticks, broccoli florets, hummus, a few dozen hardboiled eggs and a couple of ice packs.
Action: Lifting them through my car’s awkward openings like a feeble old man who could barely handle their modest weight.
Reaction: Bargaining (Wondering if Blake would mind me pushing back my departure date yet again so I could come up with a better plan).
Trip Four
Loading: The laundry basked that was filled with my air mattress, sheets, pillows, and sleeping bag.
Action: Placing it, almost flippantly, in the largest remaining piece of real estate in my trunk.
Reaction: Depression (And wondering if the bar around the corner was open yet).
Trip Five
Loading: 1) My backpack-sized camera bag, which held the three cameras I would be using to document my trip. 2) My computer bag, which held my Mac and other various related items. 3) A banker’s box, which held both the electric kettle and cigarette lighter-powered heated coffee cups I purchased (which I could use to prepare the oatmeal, soup, hot dogs, and coffee no matter my power situation), as well as various tools for road emergencies.
Action: Cramming them into my car with the fervor of an airplane passenger trying to push an oversized bag into an undersized bin.
Reaction: Acceptance (There is no way on Earth that all of this stuff is going to fit in this car!).
Trip Six
Loading: 1) A duffel bag full of toiletries, vitamins, and medicines. 2) The bag filled with fifty Starbucks Via packets (after some research I found it was the cheapest and tastiest way to fulfill my morning caffeine fix). 3) My tripod. 4) A few gallons of water. 5) A bottle of Tide. 6) The United States road atlas a friend generously gifted me in case my phone lost signal and my GPS went kaput. 7) The light for the video shooting I would be doing along the way.
Action: I sniffed out every available cranny of remaining space.
Reaction: Being faced with the incontrovertible fact that I was going to be driving cross-country steering with my teeth.
Once everything was in my car it was so full I had almost no visibility out of the rear window. My passenger seat was pushed so far forward it impeded my ability to see my side mirror, and the state of driver’s side was not much better. For five minutes I just stared at the mess I had created, and when I finally got ahold of my wits again, I decided to give it a second try. One item after another I pulled from my car, and then one by one, I loaded them back in, arranging everything in a completely different way. This time I used up the floor space behind my seats, gave up trying to keep my car’s cargo cover in its rightful place, and utilized the passenger seat to better effect. The end result was more promising, but by now I was sure I could do even better. So I tried again, and sure enough it achieved the best results yet, so I tried one more time. When I was finally done I could see out of the top-most portion of my rear window, I could check my blind spots, and could clearly see both my rearview mirrors. So what if my seat was pushed so far forward that I would reach my destination in a state of skeletal-muscular distress the likes of which I’d never seen before? Everything was in the car and I could drive safely, and that was all that mattered. When I was done, I placed the device a colleague and I designed and built, a piece of heavy-duty cardboard wrapped in black fabric with a “curtain” hanging down, on top of everything in my back seat so no one looking in would be the wiser as to what was inside. It was the only thing that day that worked exactly as was intended.
After saying my goodbyes to Blake and Eloise (and in my preoccupied state failing to wish the dogs a fond farewell) I jumped back in my car, cued up my first book on tape (Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere), and set my GPS for Buellton, California, or more specifically, the Santa Ynez Valley’s wine country. I was literally shaking with excitement by the time I finally pulled away from the curb. As I did Neil Gaiman began reading his book for me, but no matter how great a writer he is, I decided I needed the visceral release that only music can provide in a moment like that. So I skipped forward a few discs on my six-disc changer, found the Grouplove album I had loaded for just such an occasion, and started singing along. Well, screeching along is probably a more apt description. It was just past five o’clock as I pulled onto the 101 north, and rush hour and the magic hour were both already in full swing. As I inched along in the stop-and-go traffic, on my way out of L.A. for who knows how long, the sight was almost bittersweet. The sunset was breathtaking in a way that only Los Angeles can provide after a period of inclement weather, and I found myself hoping I was on a similar journey of closure and renewal.
By the time the traffic broke I was approaching Woodland Hills, a community nestled in the southwest corner of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. It was just around the same time that Grouplove’s Naked Kids started blaring out of my car stereo with the opening line, “Cruising down the highway with my friends, top down, and we’re all on our way to the beach.” To me the song is quintessential L.A., the perfect mix of The Beach Boys and Weezer, and exemplifies the playful and unencumbered energy of the city I’ve called home for the last fifteen years. I sang along, letting that energy wash over me one last time, and glanced in my rearview every minute or so as the lights of L.A. disappeared behind me. It wasn’t so much a “goodbye,” as an “I’ll see you when I see you.” It made me realize how much I still love the city despite everything that’s happened there.
The drive to Buellton was entirely uneventful. I expected to hit traffic near Santa Barbara like I always do, or near Montecito, the community sadly devastated first by fires, then mudslides this past winter, but I didn’t encounter a single snarl. I made it to Pea Soup Andersen’s Inn in a little under two and a half hours, which is amazing for that time of day. I found the hotel exactly as it was the last time I stayed there with my former fiancée, almost two years ago to the day, and as I parked my car I was overcome by a hurricane of emotion. Memories of her, and of us, were all over the place, both the hotel and the Santa Ynez Valley in general. I had first visited the area a few years before we met, and while I enjoyed its picturesque landscapes and unique little towns, it was with her that I began my love affair with wine and wine tasting, and with the region. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to return since our relationship ended, and so much came surging back so quickly that it was almost hard to be there. Part of me wanted to flee, to get back on the road and find another place to land, but I reminded myself that this was exactly the reason I was there: to purge her and those memories from my mind, to make new ones, and to reclaim everything I had come to love for myself. So instead of jumping back into my car I went inside to inquire about a room, not knowing if they even had a vacancy. It was the first test of my romanticized mode of travel, and my dark thoughts soon gave way to excitement.
As I sauntered into the quaintly appointed office the lady behind the counter smiled at me. I smiled back and told her I was looking for a room for a couple of nights. I had originally intended to stay for just one, but during my drive I decided to change my plans. I wanted to see more than could be accomplished in a single day, and to confront head-on the demons that existed for me in those places.
“First time in the area?” she asked me cheerily.
“No,” I told her. “I’ve been here quite a few times.”
“To Pea Soup Andersen’s?”
“Yeah, the hotel and the restaurant,” I told her, referring to the eatery next door, which makes the best pea soup I’ve ever had. “I love them both.”
“Well, welcome back,” she said, her smile widening, and she quickly found me a room. With my newly acquired AAA membership it was only about $70 a night, very inexpensive for the area. I thanked her, took my key card, and got back in my car. I pulled around to the side of the building, parked directly in front of my room, and spent the next thirty minutes carrying everything I had loaded into my car just a few hours earlier into my temporary home.
Once I was settled, and everything was in it’s place for the next 36 hours or so, I sat down on the bed, and suddenly felt entirely exhausted. It was as if my body had been waiting patiently for this exact moment to power down. I tried to fight it. I had just arrived, after all, and couldn’t go to sleep yet. So I decided to give myself five minutes. Five minutes to catch a second wind. Five minutes to succumb to my fatigue. After that I was going to get up, make dinner, and see what the night had in store for me. I reclined backwards, with my feet still firmly planted on the floor, and shut my eyes, my cellphone strategically still in my hand so I could make sure I didn’t go over the allotted time. Within seconds I could feel myself drifting away.
Twenty-seven minutes later I snapped awake, and checked the time. Realizing I had overshot my goal by twenty-two whole minutes, I sprang to my feet. It felt as if I had been asleep for days. I felt disoriented, yet reinvigorated, and I was more than ready to get on with my night. But first I needed to eat something. So clumsily I unpacked my electric kettle and cookware from the cornucopia of bags and boxes, and started preparing dinner. While I cooked I hooked my iPad up to the television so I could watch Sideways, a movie that not only takes place in the area, but is also one of my favorites – a love my former fiancée and I shared. So much so we both eventually read all three of the books. I’ve related to both Jack and Miles at different points in my life, but at this particular moment I was entirely Miles. There was no question about it, seeing as both of us were struggling to let go of a lost love, maybe the lost love, and trying to make our peace with unrealized potential. It was then that it occurred to me that after dinner I should head across the street to The Clubhouse, the dive bar at The Windmill Inn − now called Sideways Inn − where Jack and Miles stayed in both the book and the film. If you’ve seen the movie, it’s the place where Jack tells Miles that he’s thinking about calling off his wedding and relocating to the Santa Ynez Valley to be with Stephanie, and Miles tell him that he’s crazy. It seemed like a good place to start some demon facing.
After I ate I freshened up a bit, made my way across Highway 246, and walked towards the motel. As I got closer I could see that the rebranding and complete update of the property, that started when it was purchased a couple of years ago, was almost complete. I’ve stayed at The Windmill Inn on numerous occasions, and have even stayed in the room that Miles and Jack occupied in the movie. It was where my former fiancée and I stayed the weekend we got engaged, and one of the places we stayed during our last wine country road trip together, after the remodeling had begun. I might have gotten a room there, but it no longer feels the same to me. I liked it better when it was a second-rate motel stuck in the 1980s. Now it just seems way too full of itself, which is reflected in its current rates.
As I turned down the hotel’s driveway I couldn’t yet see The Clubhouse, which was partially obstructed by a Shell station, but as I moved further into the parking lot I caught my first glimpse of my favorite Santa Ynez Valley dive bar. It had not been spared in the remodeling like I had hoped, but was in the process of being completely redone. The watering hole that once had plenty of pool tables and a good jukebox, where I had met and talked with many interesting “townies” through the years, had been renamed the Sideways Lounge, and was now becoming more trendy restaurant than dive bar, with none of the entertainment or quirks that it held before. That’s not to say it isn’t well done, it just wasn’t at all what I wanted it to be. For a moment I considered leaving, maybe heading down the street to The Hitching Post, another location featured in Sideways, but in the end I decided to stay. The Hitching Post would be closing soon, and I didn’t know if they would serve me at such a late hour. So I ordered a beer, and amongst all the completed and impending changes to the place that I once loved, attempted to enjoy it.
As I gazed around, trying to imagine where everything used to be and what it once looked like, where in happier days I shared magical moments with my former fiancée, I couldn’t help but be struck by how time is at once the biggest gift life has to give, and its most horrible burden. We wish we had it, we try to carve it out, and we attempt to make it. We have great times, bad times, and every so often the time of our lives. We wish we had more of it, and endeavor to waste less of it. It is money, of the essence, and it will tell. Yet it’s in the single moments where we find time’s greatest measure – the ones we share with those who, for us, stop time. It’s there that life finds meaning. We tick them like mile markers as they inevitably change the progression of our lives, and it’s because of them, when their meaning sometimes fleets and fizzles, that we are left desperately thrashing in an attempt to find significance again. In the shadow of their once enormous importance, we find ourselves in the dark. That night I was sitting just a few feet from the place I, at long last, first convinced my former fiancée to dance with me. She was not what you’d call an enthusiastic participant in the activity, unless the circumstances were just right, and that night, at the insistence of Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel,” they were. To me, it is one of those moments. It wasn’t long after we started dating for the first time, and I could feel something big was happening between us. I can still feel what I felt that night, except now it is so bittersweet I wish I’d long forgotten it. So much came afterwards it eventually spoiled. Just like the one time dive bar in which I found myself sitting. I knew what it was, what it had been, and while I liked it better before, I was resigned to accept this new reality. Yet my memories made me despise it.
After I finished my beer I decided to call it a night. All I wanted by that point was to sleep. Every ounce of joy I had experienced at the beginning of the day had been nullified by its end. I was still excited about waking up to the first full day of my journey, but I was hurting in a way I hadn’t felt in months. Sleep was the only answer I had. So I carried myself back across the street, crawled under the covers, and mercifully found it relatively quickly. Except that night, for the first time in a long time, she was in my dreams. And there we were happy.
If only time had told differently.
Dislocated 