Hello Everyone!
The weather is very strange here in California. There is a lot of snow up in the mountains and a lot of rain in the rest of the state. Even the desert is getting rain right now. We desperately need all of this water and it’s generally a very good thing but it doesn’t make for great traveling weather. My plans to head to the mountains first were changed to a nice drive down the coast, but then landslides closed Route 1 so I’ve been hanging around somewhere in between. I’ve gotten to some nice museums this week and eaten some delicious meals, but I haven’t done too much or traveled too far. The price of gas in California is outrageous, so when I’m driving it needs to be deliberate. I have been getting through some of my Arizona photos from last winter and working on my podcast and I’ve definitely been getting to the gym every day so that’s good. But I really want to explore California with the time I have and this week has been more about reacclimating to the van life and trying to stay out of the way of the weather.
I started this leg in Sacramento, where my buddy Dave had been watching my van while I was at home and in Europe. I was hoping to head up to Lake Tahoe from there to visit some friends and get some skiing in, but the snowstorms in the mountains closed the roads and kept me from going. I spent a couple of days in Sacramento trying to wait it out, visiting the State Capitol and a few museums and getting a few things fixed on my van before giving up on the mountains and making my way out to Napa Valley.
Napa Valley is not my favorite region of California. I have spent a fair bit of time there over the years trying to find some places I enjoy, but to no avail. It’s a beautiful valley and I enjoyed driving through it, especially with the early spring bloom going on, but it’s a very wealthy area which has been built up to welcome the moneyed elite and not the average Joe. It reminds me a lot of Hilton Head in South Carolina and I just feel very out of place there. I know some people really love it and return year after year, but it’s just not the place for me. I did enjoy a brief visit to the Robert Louis Stevenson museum in St. Helena which, while small, has some interesting artifacts from Stevenson’s life and his time in California. Stevenson spent his honeymoon squatting in an old miners’ cabin in Napa Valley, a story he recounts in his book The Sacramento Squatters. I also had a delightful meal at Bouchon in Yountville which is owned by Thomas Keller, one of America’s most famous chefs
Hello Everyone! I can’t believe it’s November already. That means it’s almost 5 months since I left home and that it’s almost time to turn my headlights back in that general direction. I turned 46 last weekend in the Twin Cities and really enjoyed the weekend. I caught up with some friends and found some Halloween festivities as well and even went to the Vikings game at U.S. Bank Stadium. After a fun-filled but tiring weekend, I traveled up the St. Croix River through some really cool historic towns and have once again turned west for my final run across Minnesota. There’s been a lot of sun this week which has made the freezing and near-freezing temperatures pretty easy to bear, but with the sun coming up at 8am and going down before 6, it’s been a challenge to get everything I want to accomplish done during daylight hours. Daylight Savings Time is ending this week and while I’m looking forward to getting up with light in the sky, it will be dark by 5 and that’s not so easy. There was even a little bit of snow this week which was fun, but definitely a reminder of what is right ahead of us. I’m going to be pushing hard this week to see and do the things I want to get done so I can get out of here before the real snow flies. It’s been a busy week, so let’s get right into it.
After finishing this post last week in St. Cloud, I told you I was looking forward to an open-mic night in town. What I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know was that it was an open-mic comedy night which was quite something to see in a mid-sized Minnesota town, especially since most of the comedians were in some form of costume. On the whole, they were pretty terrible and bombed pretty hard if they could even remember their jokes at all. Some read directly off of their cue cards while others blanked entirely and wished they’d brought some. As far as hilarious stand-up goes - this was not that, but as far as observing life in St. Cloud, it was fascinating. Some people just spilled their guts and I wondered if there was supposed to be any jokes in it at all or if it was some form of humiliation therapy (although I sincerely applaud their courage to get up on stage at all). My favorite was probably Large Marge, a 40-something drag queen who had the best delivery and was actually pretty funny. The crowd was small, but generally supportive and I had a great time. The $4 craft beer pitchers didn’t hurt. Before the show I went across the street to Pioneer Place, an old theatre which was having a live radio performance. I wish I had known it was going on because it’s been a long time since I’ve attended such an event, but I did catch a little bit of it and it was also a lot of fun.
Thursday I headed out of St. Cloud and made a beeline for the Twin Cities. I had a great conversation with my old friend Peter as I drove. Peter lived near me when I lived in Japan and it was nice to catch up with him. When I got to Minneapolis, I ran around and did a bunch of errands and then spent the afternoon with my friend, Val. The last time I saw Val was at her place in Dallas on my drive home from South Texas at the beginning of the pandemic. It was good to see her and we spent the whole afternoon just hanging out and catching up.
The next day was my birthday and I started the day with a delicious breakfast at a little hole-in-the-wall called Junior’s. Then I headed up to the town of Anoka, which bills itself as the “Halloween Capital of the World”. There were banners on the light posts in town declaring the same and a giant pumpkin down by the river. The stores along the main street were all decorated, but mostly in a very subtle way and I was surprised how little decoration I saw around town seeing as it was 2 days before Halloween. While their big Halloween parade was on Saturday, I was there to see the schoolchildren’s parade. It was really wonderful with all of the different schools in town participating and hundreds of costumed kids marching down the street.
