To: wordy@Corp
Subject: chapter-28

ESCAPE FROM THE CITY

#28 in the second online CAA series

by

Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)

Pigeon Point, CA; 12,140 miles

May 15, 1987



     F I N A L L Y ! ! !



     I'm on the beach at Half Moon Bay, the evening calm almost disquieting

after the unrelenting noise of the City.  It feels good, damn good... Maggie

and I grin at each other every few minutes, gush something about being back on

the road at last, then fall into each other's arms for a trembling hug.  Three

months we stayed in Palo Alto -- and despite all the productivity of the

layover, this return to movement has the sweet flavor of liberation.



     Our new porta-condo, all 108 square feet of it, is sprawled in a field of

purple and white flowers.  Maggie's over there, backing her trailer into one of

the garages (the tent's vestibules are large enough to hold our rolling

chests-of-drawers and still allow bodies to pass).  Birds twitter and scree;

surf rumbles; small planes buzz the beach; my toes dig like autonomous prairie

dogs into the soft, welcoming sand.  We're doing it, we're finally doing it!



     It began as any other pedaling day:  we let all the conflicting snippets

of road advice null each other out, meandered through residential areas as long

as possible, spent a misleadingly lazy hour on Canada Road, then hit 92.

Whoosh!  Big-time motorized urgency! Though this is the easiest pass over the

mountains for our atrophied cycle-legs, it's also the busiest -- freeway-like

traffic on a winding 2-lane road with shoulders that vary from adequate to

nonexistent. You can almost live with that, except when the pavement abruptly

disappears on right-hand switchbacks and the wheels of a Big Rig drop into your

space... or when some redneck (yes, even in California) leans on his horn while

crowding you into the glass-sparkled gravel, the seconds of his life so

precious that he gladly risks all of yours to make each one of his count.



     Ahem.  But those are just moments.  In Half Moon Bay, the crowd was

delightful, plying us with smiles and the addresses of distant friends while

marveling and tsk-tsking at our survival of 92.  The obligatory small-town

newspaper interview, the shopping for provisions, the surprise offer of free

tooth-cleaning by a young local dentist <flashy grin>...



     And then a surprise.  At the State Park campground's check-in station, we

paid our $2 for space in the hiker-biker area and were informed by the guard

that there was a surprise in store -- whereupon she produced a cooler and

handed it over the counter.  Inside, on ice: bananas, oranges, watermelon, and

Gatorade... a gift from Melissa of the Pigeon Point Hostel, 25 miles down the

road.



                                * * *



     We awoke comfortable, well-rested.  The camping experience has changed

completely since last I wrote of it -- with roughly 20 cubic feet of pack

space, we now carry folding stools, the megatent, and even, yes, even a pair of

big fluffy feather pillows.  This all seems insane, decadent, a violent

departure from the spirit of camping (whatever that is), but hey, why not be

comfy?  I never was the macho outdoorsman type anyway...



     We emerged lazily and fed stale danish to a bead-encrusted drifter who,

the night before, had circled the camground seeking "doob" then crashed

unfulfilled under a picnic table.  Our own breakfast was a celebration of the

50th anniversary of canned porcine DAF (dead animal flesh) with a classic Spam

'n eggs breakfast:  on the road, every little event, even an embarrassing

repast like that, is flavored by the exotic spices of Change.



     After rolling back into Half Moon Bay for Dr. Leupp's dental work, we hit

the road again -- sun baking shoulders, sweat glistening on bellies not yet

road-lean, the hills of California rewarding hours of 4-mph effort with minutes

of 40-mph ecstasy.  The usual ratio.  But there were great sweeping vistas of

surf and sun, vegetation that would cost $50 per square foot in potted form

back east, waves from passing cars, and thumbs-ups from leathered bikers.  We

stopped at every temptation, whether an alluring beach, a hint of tidepools, a

particularly breathtaking view, or the flower raised like a toast by the

weathered hairy chap in purple jogging suit who spoke cryptically of Magic

Elixirs.



     I rode along, making bike-notes in a file called FIX and comments for this

article in one called GE28... and then came to the hostel.



     Ah, hostels.  I'm always delighted by these places, these dynamic

monuments to the wandering spirit.  Much of their appeal lies in absolute

unpredictability -- hostels are quite the opposite of motels. If you seek

plastic key fobs that you can drop in any mailbox, split- image postcards with

both aerial and in-room views, wake-up calls, bolted-down TV sets, and little

paper strips that are Sanitized For Your Protection... go ring a bell for

service and plop down a credit card.  But if you want unpredictable roommates,

a melange of languages, morning chores, dubious mattresses, no security, and a

lights-out curfew -- all for only $6/night -- try a hostel.



     Why go through this?  Why prefer crowding and confusion to, say, the

Regency Hyatt with its grossly overpriced veneer of luxury? Well...



     The vaporous community of travelers condenses every night, forming circles

around campfires real or imagined -- all over the planet.  Stories flow as

friendships form; even the part-time nomads swap equipment tips, road advice,

addresses, and snippets of their native culture.  The net effect?  A sense of

family that keeps the mad anonymous rushing unknowns of the highway at bay.

Safety.  Warmth. Home.



     The same need touches everyone on the road, even business travelers:

watch the action in a Holiday Inn cocktail lounge sometime as people struggle

with internal battles between loneliness and shyness, tipping the odds by

tipping the elbow, hoping someone else will make the first move.



     But hostels make it easy.  There are no more walls than necessary.



     Pigeon Point is a delightful discovery.  We're living at the base of a

115-year-old lighthouse perched on a cliff, a place steeped in maritime history

and named after the most famous of a series of shipwrecks on the foam-swirling

black rocks jutting offshore (the Carrier Pigeon, lost in 1853).  Lashing the

foggy night at 10-second intervals, the light has become one of the best-known

navigational features of the Pacific coast.  It's been automated for years, of

course, so the cluster of former Coast Guard housing surrounding the tower is

now a hostel.



     And what a hostel it is!  Last night we arrived in a flurry of excitement,

the rapid-fire questions and comments colored by the speech patterns of a

half-dozen different countries.  Natural drinks from Odwalla in Davenport

("Juice for Humans").  Bright, alive faces; knowing smiles; other cyclists.

Melissa of cooler fame, shaking her head and grinning.  And as we all walked to

cliff edge for sunset and stood amid the ice plants and rocks with the

lighthouse towering behind us, I recalled once again the hosteling allure that

almost always makes them ideal places to stay.  (Imagine instant rapport and

food-sharing with a community of guests in a Motel 6 along the freeway...)



     Night.  I sprawled in the hot tub with three pretty women -- a German, an

Aussie, and a Buckeye.  The German, young and new at this, had been uncertain

(asking in broken English if she should bring soap).  The Australian, a wise

and confident traveler named Lynora, was an emigre of the computer business who

felt, at age 30, that it was time to start thinking about her own life before
iff, tang legs in rumbling hot water while gazing out

over the rumbling cold.



     Beside us, heaps of clothes glowed a ghostly green in the indirect

lighting.  Above us, starlight danced its way through a 3- mile refractive

jumble after light-years of perfect clarity.  Seaward, their glittering

pinpoints softened into mist, then disappeared behind a cloak of fog that

seemed the product of our own tub-generated steam. And through it all, insanely

surreal like the set of a science-fiction movie, lashed the thick

680,000-candlepower beam of the Pigeon Point lighthouse, beginning immediately

over our heads and ending somewhere out there, sweeping the horizon.  Every ten

seconds the cycle repeated, arresting, intriguing, as much an intensification

of NIGHT as a busy Air Force Base or a head full of Magic Elixir.  The German,

the Aussie, and the Buckeye lay their heads back on the deck, half out of the

luminous froth, gazing quietly skyward as light played gently across smooth wet

skin -- as soft breath merged with the steam, merged with the mist, and merged

us all into a single pulsing universe of light and color.



                                * * *



     It's so easy to forget this in the swirl of distraction, noise, and

responsibility.  So easy to forget the infinite range of possibilities; so easy

to believe the fiction about America's media- driven homogeniety.  We may have

a lot of the same icons and newsjokes, but there's a diversity out here that

quite outdistances the imagination.  Why, ANYTHING is possible in a land where,

in a single month, one man can collect $8 million by claiming that God will

kill him if he fails and another can lose a presidency by being accused of

doing what any man would love to do.  It's a strange land, as limitless as life

itself, and I'm delighted to announce that I'm once again loose in it.



     The doors of the shop are closed.  We're on the road.