King of Valley Junction Prologue

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I recently completed a one-week road trip from West Des Moines to San Francisco, and back, just Beezer and I. Much like last summer’s trip to the Great Lakes, but better. We logged about 4,300 miles on the cruiser in a single week, including a 32-hour straight shot from Salt Point State Park in Jenner, California, to my place in WDM, Iowa. For me, that is a lifetime driving record. It was a much-needed getaway. Lots of changes have occurred in the last year, and there will be more, as always. I found myself spending too much time on the pine, watching television and YouTube videos and needed to get out of the fishbowl that is Iowa and into the open sea, figuratively. There is much to be said for the fishbowl philosophy of life. Somewhere around half of Americans do not even own passports. Of those that do, half are only interested in going on cruise ships or all-inclusive resorts with a herd of other Americans more focused on the all inclusive fixed price deal where latinos treat them like royalty, and, they can get shit faced and gorge themselves for pre determined price. I have avoided these folks on travels for years and advise you to do the same for all the right reasons.
 

Right out of there gate, I ran into some drama from above. The Nebraska State Troopers had a sting operation going on right after the archway in Kearney. There were maybe 6-8 troopers in cars picking off drivers caught by the plane above. I had the cruise control set at 10 mph an hour over, so it seemed odd I got pulled over. The trooper was probably the coolest guy that has ever pulled me over, and there have been many in my driving career. He ran my drivers license and plates and we talked for a bit on the side of the road. He was a former Marine and had been on the force for about a decade. I was showing him pics from the old Navy days and asking him questions about his job. I asked him if they ever caught anything in the roadside stings, and he told me they caught a guy with 50 lbs. of cocaine last week. I have made some dumb mistakes in my life; smuggling 50 lbs. of cocaine was not one of them. I asked him what he felt about marijuana legalization and mushrooms now in the next state over, Colorado. I informed him I am a service-connected veteran that meets the exact criterion the advocates are saying would benefit from their alternative medicines they are now selling over the counter in the next state over. I ask any health care professional at the VA and they officially can’t give me an opinion 100% of the time. It was a difficult question from one veteran to another with one enforcing the law and the other being me. In the big picture, the cops and courts are not looking for people smoking weed and eating gummies. They are searching for the stuff they should be and I do support that. The pills and powders on the street are terrible and always have been for human kind. Marijuana is only used as a reason to search for other more significant crimes. Most criminals smoke weed I am willing to wager. Cops, vets and military guys, however, love to listen to guys like Joe Rogan and the other right-of-center podcasters. These exact guys have audiences in the millions of listeners and they been talking about the benefits of mushrooms and psychedelics for a while now, years. The cops know there is a substantial crowd of Americans, including current and former law enforcement, who find benefit from them. He let me go with a warning and I gave him a fist bump for being a cool guy. It definitely would be an interesting job, but Kearney, Nebraska? Ummm…yeah, no. Wrong guy. 

I drove until we were in Colorado and opted for Boulder, Colorado. I was there 30 years ago and remembered walking out of a bar on to Pearl Street but that was it. I remembered nothing as we walked along. Boulder is a typical American college town with a pedestrian area, a football stadium, and a youthful, liberal vibe to the city. I filmed a guy playing cello and a few minutes of walking up and down Pearl Street for footage. There were no homeless, dirtbags, or pan handlers I noticed. It was clean. The city is also dotted with outdoor athletes on expensive bicycles tooling around in even more expensive neighborhoods and the surrounding mountains. It is a nice enough town, but I am not 23 anymore, and the Vespa gets more use these days than the mountain bike with fat tires. The third ACL surgery on the same leg ended the skiing career a decade ago. I had seen enough. We found Pleasant Valley campground in the vicinity and pitched our tent. The price ranged from $11 to $41 for the site, and the twenty-something campsite hosts said it didn’t really matter to them. These were not folks wearing a Colorado Parks and Recreation uniform if you know what I mean. It was the only night we slept in the tent. Tossing, turning, and snuggling with the dog to keep warm the entire night had to be marked up as a flop on the sleep chart. Didn’t matter; I picked up the camping gear at sunrise, and we headed back to Interstate 80. Onward.
 

The miles passed listening to various AM Jesus/Trump geeks babbling until I could no longer take it, seconds. The rest of the dial was full of country twangers crooning of the virtues working hard, drinking, pick-up trucks, fat girls and dip shits. It made me want to spit out the window. I switched over to the podcasts. It is a welcome change in media format to be able to listen to long-format interviews where people swear, drink alcohol, smoke cigars, weed, wear casual clothing and converse outside of the PG format that is American television. American network television is terrible outside of broadcasting NFL Games. It is not entertaining, it is not informative, and it is completely scripted talking points. It evolved into a platform to run sappy commercials for overpriced pharmaceuticals and piss-pound the American constituency with pathetic political advertisements no one wants to see. The rest is 7-minute increments of PG-rated garbage that amounts to cheese whiz for your head. For me, yeah, I would keep asking questions about Epstein in I were a news anchor. Enough of the closed-door testimony that is not under oath. Les Wexner and Bill Gates’ testimony is quite entertaining, to be honest. Billionaires who were caught red handed with that fucker and any jury will be able to see that. Donnie is a habitually lying, malignant narcissist who has risen to the level of the strongest position in the world. What if it is true, and Epstein was an intermediary intelligence agent for the Mossad? Kind of makes the background checks pretty hard to pass I suspect. Hmmm….who would be next in the investigation after these high-profile billionaires flops on film? What happened to Pam Bondi? Oh, yeah. Cancer? Been there and done that, Pam. From the Epstein files on her desk to there is nothing left without ever revealing what files she was in reference to. So, no-one picks up where she left off? No, donnie needed an escape route from testimony and….voila, the Strait of Epstein! What? The Jews talked Donnie into bombing Iran? Imagine that. But let’s cut to the chase, folks. Donnie is going to pardon every single member of his family, all his friends, all his supporters, and all his business partners, and himself for any and all crimes ever committed, and there is nothing America can do about it. Whatever nefarious business Biden and the bozo son, Hunter, were up to was nothing in comparison to the, size, scale and depth of the graft and corruption currently at with the unregulated crypto tokens. Influence can be peddled completely off the books and regulation is for the slower and dumber I suspect is the play. Donnie’s version of off shore accounts and the old Silk Road.  Two wrongs, do not make a right. Capitalism is not perfect, sports fans. It is an economic theory. We live in a social society. I turned off the podcasts and drove in silence or carried on a conversation with Beezer for the remainder of the day. 

After hundreds of miles, the day ended outside Bonneville, Utah. This was a desert that went for miles in all directions just off Interstate 80. I pulled off to get some gas when I noticed these youngsters in a car head into the desert from the parking area behind the convenience store and…. kept on going, way out there. I had the binoculars with me and zoomed in on an old abandoned party bus a mile or two out on the horizon. They didn’t have all-wheel drive on their sedan, so I felt confident about the Benzo with the all-wheel drive. A few minutes into the terrain was enough. There is a reason the land speed records are set out on the Bonneville Salt Flats; nothing grows there, except salt. This was just east of the salt flats, and the soil seemed almost like a powdery pumice, almost like the surface of the moon. It was also not completely flat like the salt flats were. The area has been frequented by many travelers, partiers, and off-road racers over the decades from the unidentifiable fragments of plastic, an old chair, and the abandoned, graffiti-tagged old bus. The bus itself had been stripped of anything that could be removed by tools and bare hands. It is hard to tell who owned the land or if it was public land. I could see the other sedan parked a few miles from me and was met by another truck that had motorcycles in the back. They rode the bikes until dark and then left. I opted to move the front seats up and fold the back seats down, creating a large open space in the back. All of our gear that was in the back went in the front seats for the night, except the air mattresses and sleeping bag. We were safely locked inside with the vehicle running and the air conditioning keeping us at 68 degrees throughout the night. This arrangement, unfortunately, led to another night of tossing and turning, realizing that I indeed was not sleeping but instead cuddling with Beezer in the back of my vehicle. The sun rose, and again we were alone. No raving band of desert gypsies or wild animals attacked us. Onward.
 

We stopped off at the Bonneville Salt Flats down the road. This is one of America’s most interesting treasures. They set the world record for land speed out there in rocket cars. It is so vast, so flat, and rock salt hard. The crystalline structures of the salt bed that extended for miles across the entire horizon seemed more like a white volcanic rock or fossilized rock salt than anything granular in shape. No one is pitching a tent or driving on that rugged terrain. They actually scrape the track area where the rocket cars race to keep it smooth. Driving over the natural salt bed without it being scraped first would destroy the rubber tires in short order. I picked up a chunk of it for a keepsake. We drove the rest of the way to San Francisco that day. I was going to stop in Salt Lake City, but it is quite the traffic jam with two main interstates in the state, 15 and 80, intersecting in the city. I wanted to see a few sites, but am allergic to traffic jams. We kept on going until we got to the Golden Gate Bridge after dark. You can sleep in the parking lot there, except it was July 3rd, the night before the 4th of July fireworks show. The area was secured except for one small utility parking area right by the pedestrian entrance on the Marin side. It was too foggy to see the columns of the bridge so I set up our sleeping configuration in the Benzo again, except not this time with my head in the opposite direction. This allowed me to completely stretch out my legs and torso but not my arms really. But it was better, and I was surprised it worked when I woke up a few hours later. I was going to try and take Beezer for a brief walk on the bridge so I put the sleeping bag and air mattresses away. Lucky for me because the cops came in to clear out the area a couple minutes after that. I was already up making coffee and told him I would vacate. It was security for the day’s event, and the timing was perfect. He took off, and we headed into the city.
 

San Francisco is my favorite city in the world. There, I said it. I loved it from the moment I first set foot in 1987. I love almost everything about the city, except the costs. I saw a few deadbeats the city would be better off without, but almost every big city has that. Everyone who has spent any time in San Francisco knows it has a unique vibe of its own and always has. The thick marine layer that blankets the city comes and goes like attitudes. The Fourth of July fireworks from the bridge were eventually canceled because the fog was that heavy. I think it is a wonderful phenomenon. The fresh smell of the sea and the fog thick as smoke comes pouring over the hills and homes on the peninsula that is San Francisco. We walked around Fisherman’s Wharf, the Palace of Fine Arts, the North Beach neighborhood, and the Marina that morning. We drove up and down Fillmore Street like Steve McQueen in Bullitt and then headed out to Sunset Dunes for beach time. Low and behold, there are parking spots right at the end of Judah Street, beside the city’s electric train stop, with no parking meters, no hours limitations, and apparently not much in the way of restrictions. Beezer and I played in the surf on the beach, then talked to a long-haired native American guy in a Captain America suit wanting me to sign a petition to release the Epstein files. A harmless lunatic expressing his political fantasy. I signed up, Beezer. We walked around the neighborhood for a bit and ate a pizza at Damn Fine Pizza on Judah Street. Great dough, but the pizza sauce has no oregano in it? Umm….swing and a miss. I consider myself a world-class connoisseur of Margherita Neapolitan slices. It was good enough and better than delivery. Plus, Beezer laid on the sidewalk while I ate it at a table outside. Then it was back to the car to realize the person beside me in the truck was sleeping already with the window shades up in all the windows. We followed suit, except I left the sunroof and one of the windows slightly open to catch some of the overnight maritime marine layer while we slept. I caught a replay of the Giants game on my transistor radio. What an iconic sound of a baseball game being announced on a radio. The Giants won. I cracked open another chemical light and threw it up in the dash. The sound of the game and the oddity of a glowing light were free security to deter anyone approaching. No one would be able to get in the car anyways without Beezer going nuts with her big girl voice. We crashed there undisturbed until sunrise. I made my typical morning coffee with my Jet Boil in the back the following morning, and we were off to Point Reyes.
 

No trip to San Francisco can remain only within the city. The choices are north or south from the city for this old shipwreck. To the east lies Oakland. I lived aboard the USS New Orleans (LPH-11) in a coffin rack in the Air Department berthing on Pier 50 across the bay in 1987. An older sailor on the New Orleans asked me if I knew what the longest bridge in the world was. I thought he was alluding to the Golden Gate, but he instead stated it was the other bridge, the Bay Bridge. “Yeah, it goes from San Francisco to Africa.” Sure, it is a racist joke, but the truth hurts. Since that one-liner was told to me in the late 1980s, what has happened to the city of Oakland? The navy base closed. The NFL franchise, the Oakland Raiders, left again. The MLB franchise left Oakland A’s also left leaving empty stadiums. Now it is a well documented YouTube ghetto overrun by black thugs who are always more concerned about stacks of cash, guns, drugs, and rapping than building a community. Retail stores have closed because of the crime, and that is not just because of shitbags roaming in off the street and stealing under $950 worth of merchandise and simply walking out the door fearing only a misdemeanor charge. One must also consider the car jackings, flash mobs, and the huge Ghost Ship fire that killed dozens of partygoers in an abandoned Oakland building a decade ago when looking at the neighborhood map. To the south leads to Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz, Monterrey, and further on down towards San Simeon. To the north is Marin and Sonoma County, my old stomping grounds. We opted for the latter, as usual. California’s Highway 1 is one of the most scenic routes in our country. We rolled into the center square of Mill Valley after 7 a.m. The Depot was still closed, but the Equator Coffee store across the street was open. I bought a couple of danishes for about $7 each. Welcome to Marin. We opted for Highway 1 and the beach route instead of Muir Woods. I remember a guy from the Navy named Greg Fox from Michigan. We dropped some acid and took his café motorcycle around those winding hills. That was the greatest motorcycle ride of my life. The tight, winding two-lane roads of Highway 1 that hug the cliff are the exact same ones that fall into the sea up and down the entire coast when there are landslides. For twenty minutes, it is 15-20 mph around most of the peek-a-boo turns around the cliffs. The slope ends at Stinson Beach, but it was too early and they still closed as it was before 9 a.m. We continued on the Bear Valley Visitor Center and found out no dogs were allowed on the trail. Whatever, I used their restroom to do my business and their water fountain to refill my water supply. I fired up the Sterno and did my laundry in some hot water in a pan and then strung my clothes out in the back on a para-cord line to dry. I dumped that water and warmed up another pan full for my bath. We received a map from the guide who informed me the only place I could go with a dog was Kehoe Beach, damn near the very end of the seashore. We were in no hurry, so we headed out.
 

We stopped off at the old red General Store in Inverness to resupply. A must for any Point Reyes journey. The middle-aged English guy working in there is quite friendly and knowledgeable. At the end of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard is the famous landmark Point Reyes Lighthouse. The small parking lot is often full as dozens of cars are lined up pulled off the road near the entrance. There is a decent walk from the little parking lot to the actual lighthouse. Before you even set foot in the lighthouse, it first must be accessed by climbing down the famous 313 stairs to get there. I spoke to a friendly park ranger on duty. He said he is up and down the steps daily. He said he has been up and down the stairs six times in a day often. That is one hell of a stair climber. They have a small four-plex apartment complex near the entrance that is for a few employees to live. The volunteers get to live there free, and the others could be rented by employees working in the park apparently. Crazy view of the ocean, but very remote. I am not sure anyone was living in any of the apartments at the moment, maybe. The park ranger told me most employees to the job do not last long. The loneliness from the remoteness causes most to drop out. The fog can last for days at a time, making the journey difficult, so few tourists show up and then eventually no one at night. Eerily cool in a way. Anyone can pull off on the side of the road and sleep in their vehicle almost anywhere out there without a cop responding. So, the odds of the psycho serial killer on the loose looking for low-hanging fruit in the fog at the end of the desolate Sir Francis Drake Boulevard is not zero. A few sounds in the woods on a foggy night during the night watch, with no one to come help you, and, yeah, most people probably look for less spooky employment. I got some good footage of going down the stairs and walking around the lighthouse. I made it up all 313 stairs without stopping, and it is an accomplishment. There is a sign at the top warning people out of shape not to try it. I wonder who the fattest guy to ever make it down to the lighthouse at the bottom and all the way back up? No dogs are allowed, and Beezer had to stay in the Benzo. It is a good thing too, as she would not have made it up the stairs, and I would have found out the hard way. She was glad to see me upon my conquest, and we departed. 

We drove back north on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and then pulled off the road across from Kehoe Beach. There were only four other cars parked there. Beezer and I walked almost a mile down a path to get to the beach, but it was worth the walk. The sheer distance to drive to the spot and then walk to the desolate beach keeps the vast majority of visitors further south towards the city, perfect. The long beach walks in the surf are tremendous soup for the soul. No food, no water, no mobile phone connection. My soul needs much soup too. A combination of the passing of my mother, stepfather, and old friend in a single year, along with the cancer, gives me a moment to pause. As the waves crash on the beach, it is the perfect personification that has been my life. There is a romance to the tumultuous waves crashing onto the beach. There is a resonance with the sea unmatched by any other environment in nature. There is an obvious rhythm and unpredictability in each wave that seems to personify my life. The energy contained within the waves is impossible not to capture your attention. To some, it is too cold, too deep, and too scary to approach. There are, in fact, more casualties than I would like to admit from those waded a bit too far into my surf. At the crest of the knave, when it looks the best? There can be an infinite amount of energy expended in this endeavor. When it crashes onto the beach, evolving into nothing but foam…time and time again, in a predictable cycle. I am confident the what, where, why, how and who with would not have mattered, I would have blown it regardless. The complex trauma of my child hood was far worse than I was willing to admit. These invisible scars are shown when I get triggered. Out pops the ego to defend the wounded self and the comments and behavior speak for themselves. Like the back of your head, the ego and personality are there for others to observe. For me, this cycle played out many times, over many different episodes involving many different people. When someone spouts off all the time is a defense mechanism when inferiority complex is triggered. About a decade ago I was diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) by the old VA therapist. It is kind of like little man’s disease for taller people, maybe. Think of Trump as the most extreme version of the disorder. It takes on to know one, right. Like all disorders there is a spectrum, some mild and some severe. He is a severe case, a malignant narcissist…and he is the goddamn president of America. Absolutely, unrealistic, but true. Millions of people love the guy. Let’s just say there are worse problems to have. What I have always wondered is can it be corrected? What exactly needs to be corrected? Let’s just hand the microphone over to some of the ladies of my past and see what they have to say, or not. You get the idea. But learning is a lifetime thing and there is nothing wrong with self improvement. 

The tests themselves were well known industry standards, multiple and thorough. It was very interesting and I think everyone should take some of those exams. The evaluation after the test results were brutally honest. Like the waves, a consistent pattern develops and repeats in people’s personalities, mine too. Much like the back of your head the part you that you can’t see is your personality. It is definitely there. There are a variety of psychologists and psychiatrists who have weighed in over the decades on the human mind. The science has come a long way. Can mental illness and personality disorders be fixed? I am hopeful. No, I was not pleased to hear the diagnosis years ago and had my disagreements with it. Ask anyone who knows me and see what they think. How is it possible there has been so much drama, so many episodes, in so many places, involving so many people, and in the end I am walking the beautiful beach alone with Beezer contemplating purpose and relationships? I am used to being alone and, honestly, probably best off single. Personally, I believe at the lowest common denominator we all want attention. You can’t survive without it as an infant. When the parents are defective, abusive, negligent, or incapable of providing for children’s needs, the children grow up in a survival mode and resort to whatever means necessary to get the attention they need and deserve. Truth is, my mother was a walking basket case, and her mom was colorful, to say the least. Hard to imagine the matriarchal great-grandmother before them I never knew was a stable genius. The waves crash, turn into foam on the sand, and the tide retreats, undercutting the next wave’s efforts in a timeless pattern. I am disappointed in my losses, failures, and personal shortcomings in this life. I am, however, convinced few would have made it this far given the same circumstances. Yes, there are far worse diagnoses in the world than NPD. I don’t just admit to a clinical diagnosis of the disorder; I think it is wise to open up about it. The stigma with mental illness is it is always the manifested comments and behaviors that are the symptoms something is off with the person. The online Youtube therapist, Tim Fletcher, and his complex trauma theory are spot on. I have to admit it but it is much like a version of Good Will Hunting… with a much dumber guy. I am optimistic. Watching, listening, smelling, and feeling the waves crash just feet from us, we trudge on through the sand to the end of the beach, heavy in thought.
 

At the very end, we found a driftwood structure that had been assembled by others who had ventured so far. I added a couple of pieces for the cause. I found some smaller pieces and formed the letter J in the front. It can be seen in the picture of Beezer and I in the lower right-hand corner beside the two rocks. We left our mark and ventured back. There was no getting in the water here either. So many of the coves around this area are dangerous with rip currents and quickly disappearing beach sand at your feet that prohibits you from getting any footing while getting sucked back out into the surf. We walked back to the car to find only two of the other cars remaining. I popped a North Point Brewing’s Red Seal Ale and sat down in my camping chair looking off into the sea as Beezer posted up in the Benzo. It was a priceless view, and the privacy was as good as you could possibly get for free. Within an hour, the other two cars left, and we were alone, I thought. No cars passed for hours. I spotted some tule elk in the high brush around the trail. I got out the binoculars and spotted a bunch more of them further out on the hill. They looked a lot like deer. The second the sun went down, the mosquitoes got bad. We jumped in the cruiser and killed the ones that were inside before falling asleep correctly for the first time in the car. I was stunned when I saw daylight just beginning. It meant I slept for at least four or five hours straight. I made coffee and breakfast with my Jet Boil and Sterno portable kitchen set up. Bacon, eggs, and coffee never go out of style. We loaded up the car and headed for the very tip of Point Reyes National Seashore on Pierce Point Road just to say we went the entire way. Lo and behold, McClure Ranch was there with a greenish-blue Subaru parked beside an old house just off the parking area. They had been there the whole night too. Surely, it was an employee of the park with a very remote housing benefit. There were several abandoned ranch homes and structures on Point Reyes, but there was actually electricity running from the pole in the street to this house. It was kind of creepy, but it was early in the morning, maybe 6 a.m. McClure Ranch is a historic site at the very tip of Point Reyes, and there is a path to McClure Beach. We didn’t go down to the beach; instead, we drove back down Pierce Point Road to Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to then reconnect with Highway 1 North.
 

We stopped at Doran Beach just up the road and paid the $8 day use fee and $2 in quarters for the hot shower. It was one of the best $2 investments I have made. The beach was crowded even though several had already left by early Sunday morning. I headed north to Jenner and then into Gurneville. Jenner is where the mouth of the Russian River meets the Pacific Ocean in Sonoma County. It is about as picturesque as California gets. There are hundreds of seagulls, sea lions, and elephant seals sunning themselves on the beach as the Russian River quietly empties into the Pacific in the background. Every visit to the Russian River area requires a stop in Gurneville. It is a quaint little town on Highway 116 along the Russian River. The Safeway there has been resupplying travelers, campers, and the weekend getaway crowd since at least 1991 that I can testify to. I opted not to bring a cooler and just buy cold stuff as needed on the journey. It was a good call. After the Safeway stop came the dispensary. This has to be the worst-run dispensary in America. I walked up to the place and there is a little clock sign on the front door saying I’ll be back in 10 minutes. Sure, there were a couple of guys standing beside the place and one of them was the guy that worked there chatting with a couple of other burnouts about the wind while hitting a vape pen. I stood there for five minutes and looked around. Cleetus didn’t get the clue that there was business to tend to and not break time. It never crossed his mind and when break time was over he opened back up. Funny, my name was still in the database from a few years back. Not sure what was purchased back in the day but today there was nothing but 1/8th ounce bags at $35 for sale? It has been a completely recreational state for years now. All that was missing from this operation, unfortunately, was an Indian guy and a slurpee machine. I made a small purchase of herbal medicine, Banana Peel something or other. It has always been premier weed in California during my lifetime. The Russian River reminds me of romances that have come and gone. Impossible not to think of those ladies from time to time. Those were great memories too. This time, my woman was a 40-pound Staffordshire terrier named Beezer. She likes the area too. 

Our final destination was Salt Point and Gerstle Cove. As a youngster in the Navy, I was a diver, and we used to do our open water qualifications there. Once we were done with those, we would take off the tanks and hunt for abalone. I did manage to get two in my career, which I still proudly display the shells on my bathroom sink. It was difficult. They didn’t start growing until 10’-15’ below the surface. On a breath hold, it is harder than it sounds. The old rule back in the day was you could not hunt abalone with tanks north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Today’s rule is zero hunting at all. The abalone were over-hunted, and the California Department of Natural Resources banned it years ago. There were a couple of women putting on wet suits to go for a swim who shared the info. I saw no one else around, but it was already late Sunday afternoon now. We drove further down the road and pulled off at a turnout. Traffic was very light already. I unpacked my folding chair and cooking gear and cooked up some chicken thighs, beans, and peppers on the Sterno and popped a bottle of Chardonnay, tailgate style; with the bottle tucked away in the gear and the plastic cup from the convenience store disguising the actual contents. Beezer completely gave up on the kibble I brought along for her and refused to eat anything except what I cooked and a couple of cans of canned dog food. I can’t blame her. We ate all the homemade beef and chicken jerky in the first two days. The traffic trickled down to one car an hour doing 20 mph going past. There is hardly anyone who lives out in these parts. Maybe a few of the remote folks like the guy out on Point Reyes, but for the most part, there is nothing out there. It was beautiful to see the sun set into the Pacific from the side of the mountain. I organized our sleeping configuration, and I was out. I woke up and it was still dark but would be turning light soon. It was 4:30 a.m. on the Casio Pro Trek. I made my ritual coffee on the Jet Boil and cooked up the rest of the bacon and eggs for breakfast on the sterno. I cleaned up and reconfigured the car back to our driving mode, and we began the long ride home.
 

I stopped off at Mare Island on my way home. This was the last base I was on in my Navy days. The historic base is part of my new story that is coming along nicely. The base itself, however, has changed immensely from my old memories. The old barracks, Navy exchange, and many of the support buildings have been demolished long ago. The events that took place in those barracks and the people and episodes that occurred are fresh, maybe not fresh, but still in my mind. I took some pictures and video of the base then turned the Benzo towards the east. We drove to Sacramento before needing gas, and at this point, I realized I had only brought my debit card and some cash for the journey. At the convenience store in Sacramento, I realized the debit card was left at the last gas station. Oh, man. We were a long way from home with a total of $350 cash. I had to make it in a straight shot. It would be the longest drive of my entire life. There were some tough moments there at the wheel around 5 a.m. the next day in Wyoming when I caught myself nodding off a couple of times. I pulled into a convenience store for gas, washed up in the restroom, got a fresh cup of string coffee and caught a second wind. I rode this wind all the way into Kearney, Nebraska, again, this time doing only 5 mph over the speed limit. Sure enough, bam, maybe ten different Nebraska state troopers this time. There were even more cops than before. I didn’t get pulled over, but as soon as I crossed the Iowa border, there were three different Iowa State Troopers posted up. I am not sure how much money the state is making from these seizures, fines, and tickets, but all the dispensaries around the state of Iowa are swamped with Iowa license plates in their parking lots. The state of Iowa receives zero of that tax revenue. It was once the same way with casinos. I do agree with the cops in some regards, the pills, the fentanyl, the coke, the heroin, and the meth…? Yeah, no. It is terrible stuff. But why not let the pot heads and hippies pay for a new helicopter, K9s, troopers’ cruisers, etc.? 

I drove 32 hours straight without pulling off to sleep to make it home with over $100 still in the wallet. That was cutting it close. I am glad that I went and strongly recommend anyone the adventure to anyone. Onward.