on the road again
I could probably name almost every post “On the road again,” but this particular departure is significant merely because I am beginning my trek north from San Diego — the southern most destination. This coastline is the reason I decided to take this trip, and it’s something of a right of passage for any aspiring adventurer.
The first interesting thing that someone traveling routes like Highway 1 finds is that there is no realistic way to navigate the route. Granted, in my particular case the navigation is relatively straight forward, it would have been impossible to get a GPS to direct me via highway 1 — I tried several different apps and approaches. The reason is simple: navigation systems are optimized for efficiency, and Highway 1 is never the most efficient route to get from one place to another.
I think this illuminates something interesting about our society. Namely, that we often value things inappropriately. What I mean by that is that to assume that a person wants the fastest route or the shortest route values the duration of the trip the most — in most cases, that is a fair assumption. But what if I value a route by the breath-taking views and hairpin turns? Then it becomes 1, more difficult to quantify and 2, more difficult to suggest the best route to take, so typically software developers ignore this edge case.
Basically, this means that I was on my own to fend for myself. I should be fine so long as i just stick with Highway 1 and make sure I’m going north. Sounds easy right? Well, it’s not because sometimes 1 merges into 101, and other times, I see a road that is closer to the ocean, so I try to take that one. Sometimes it pays off, other times, I have to go back from where I came from. Spontaneous uncertainty is something I’ve been forced to become comfortable with, but that’s great because I find myself impressed with surprises more frequently. Here’s one:
All I had to do was get to UCSB at some point in order to meet a friend there. This is the view from her house:
After catching up wit my friend at UCSB, I decided to find a place to stay. I knew that there was a youth hostel in downtown, and I’ve never done that before, so I decided to check it out. I went over there and got a room for like $50, and I was put into a room with 9 other beds — probably like 6 of them occupied.
They had a map with pins that people use to mark where they’re visiting from, and a wall for people to tag the same. It was like living in the dorms all over again: no AC, communal bathrooms, and as many people crammed into a tiny room as possible.
I was sitting in the lounge area when a guy struck up a conversation with me. After a few exchanges back and forth, he quickly asks if I smoke or not. Replying no, he said that he was going to invite me to smoke a joint with him if I did. It occurred to me that smoking is pretty good self-motivator to get you to talk to people. It’s not weird striking up a conversation if the end goal to get them to smoke with you. Anyway, I went for it. I said, “Hey, well if the offers, still good, I’m down to try it.” You could see that made his day.
That’s the thing that kind of freaks me out about addicts — doubt he was an “addict,” though it did seem like he smokes a lot. They take pleasure in getting other people to enjoy libations with them. I don’t know exactly led to such uncharacteristic behavior for me, but I suspect that it was due to a few factors; one of which was being able to say:
yea, the first time and last time I ever smoked was with a bunch of strangers in a youth hostel in Santa Barbara.
That sounded like a good enough reason to me.
We go out to the porch, and like 4 other people join us. It was the guy, his girlfriend, some other student from Finland, and the hostel attendant. After talking to these people, I found out that the guy and the girl met in Nashville — miss my country music — and that they were attending Santa Barbara Community College and were living out of the hostel until they found an apartment (He was from Chilé and she was from Japan). The guy from Finland was here studying too before trying to transfer to get this: UCLA. Go Bruins! And the hostel attendant moved to Santa Barbara from Texas — GO TEXAS BBQ.
It’s crazy how traveling affords you the ability to relate to people so naturally; places seem to unite people.
So anyway, the guy lights this joint, the end smoldering red in the Santa Barbara air as he takes a long drawn out puff into the cavity of his lungs. His eyes narrow, and as he exhales, he says in that evidently chilean accent, “So do you know how to do this?”
“Well,” I said “I’ve never done this before.”
And as if excited by the prospect of having found a potential convert, he animates. His eyes get big and wide; his hands — as if drawn by a puppeteers’ strings — rise in excessive and dramatic motions, gesturing for what seems to be a lack of english words. Then he puts his hands down and says while demonstrating, “you take it like this, and breath in a deep breath. Then you hold it in. Let it stay there. Then breathe out.”
It was weird. I have never given smoking enough of a thought to even consider what was going on, but I had already committed myself to giving this a try, and I wasn’t about to shut down a new experience. So I took the haphazardly rolled paper, smoldering still at one end, and took a deep breath just like he said — admittedly, I was probably a bit too ambitious. And as I sat there, holding the disgusting odor of smoke inside the most intimate cavity of my body, I had a moment of complete mindfulness. What occupied my mind was totally clear — as if to counter that which was currently and intermittently attacking my alveoli.
I could feel the stuff inside me, swirling around and drying out the cells on the inside of my lungs. I didn’t realize how intimate smoking was. It infiltrates you, fills you through and through, and when it leaves you, you respond with a cough, as if a manifestation of the deep regret from the preceding affair. This continued for a few more times because I knew this was the last time I would smoke, and if I didn’t get high, it would have been a waste. The next several hours were filled with inquiries from my chilean friend:
are you high yet?
and each time, my response was, “well, I don’t know.”
I think I was, but I’m still not confident. It was like a less intense form of being drunk. I got really sleepy and time seemed to pass by really fast. I also found that when I brought a bag of nuts to the table, it was almost full, but when I woke up the next morning there were very few left. Another pretty telling sign is that I didn’t notice when people left or came — that’s pretty indicative of when you’re drunk too. I actually talked to a random passerbyer to figure out if I was high, and I don’t even remember what she said. Apparently, her leg was hurting or something so she wasn’t paying attention. I also thought it was a good idea to take a video to see myself when I woke up.
None of the evidence is conclusive, but what is conclusive is that I am never smoking again.
On the road again.
The next drive was just as long as the last: from Santa Barbara and Foster City, CA where my grandparents live. I was planning to stay with them for a night to recover and see family. The drive was gorgeous. It’s kind of one of those things that you see, and you’re like all this is here and going on all the time, even when I’m sitting at school thinking “why am I here?” That’s a thing.
Even though psychologists say that we grow out of object permanence after the age of 5, I think people still experience the lingering effects with people and places. We tend to assume that people we know are like on pause when we’re not with them. Likewise, we believe that beautiful places aren’t beautiful when we’re not there. When you recognize this fallacy, you become liable to wanderlust and intrigue in people. I warned you.
Here are pics from the drive:
The sad thing is that when everything you see is beautiful, the individual beauty diminishes. I began to see gorgeous California coastlines, and was like “ehhh it’s alright, not even worth a stop.” But hey, we’ve got places to be, things to do, people to see.
Likely the result of hardcore brainwashing from all of the country music I‘ve listened to in my lifetime, I have a strong proclivity towards offroading. Everytime, I see a dirt road leadin’ somewhere, I feel a seductive pull to see where it goes. More often than not, it leads to a gate with a black and orange “No Trespassing” sign (shout out to Keith Urban), but I got lucky and found a great road right off of Highway 1. I went 10 miles into uncharted territory, and it was awesome.
It’s kind of scary. There’s no cell phone service, so if something happens, you’ve gotta figure out how to get 10 miles out back to the road, then find someone to help you. You’ve gotta be completely self-reliant.
The point of all of this is to embrace wanderlust.
A compound word consisting of German words wandern meaning “to hike,” and lust meaning “desire.” I implore you to follow wherever your desires take you. Not just geographically, but in every aspect of your life. Be brave. Embrace what you want and go get it. Go do it. Every second that you convince yourself that you do not want something, you compromise your identity for mediocrity, and that’s not who you are. Or is it?
