I once had an adventure by myself. It was early in 1998, the year was barely a week old and I wanted to get away.

I was living by myself in a bachelor pad much like the one I live in now only it was a couple of blocks away from USC. It was the last weekend before classes commenced after the winter break so most of my friends were still far. I had unnaturally bright red Manic Panic hair and liked wearing an ankh. I was partly bored and partly trying to sort out some feelings for a girl I knew who wasn't reciprocating. I had my father's car for the next few days (she would eventually become my car and I would christen her Deitrich) and I decided to take advantage of it.

I was full up with feelings but they were a great mix of good and bad and I needed to go think about them somewhere away from all that was familiar. So around four in the afternoon on Saturday I packed a sandwich, a soda, a stuffed duck with a bell in it's belly that I've had since I was an infant, some cassettes, a book I was reading (I think it was one of Neil Gaiman's anthologies but I forget which one), a journal in case the mood to write struck me, and my throw into the car and set off.

I went up to the 10 and headed west as far as it would go until it turned into PCH. From there I headed north. I don't remember much about this leg of the journey. The sunset might have been interesting but this was in the middle of El Nino so darkness didn't settle in so much as crashed.

The first stop was in Isla Vista, the tiny college town where the UCSB students who don't want to stay in college housing live. It was drizzling lightly. This made everything absolutely quiet and peaceful, so much so I forgot the cold immediately and happiness washed over me. I find sense memory hard to describe but I remember standing in an empty parking lot on the campus staring up at the sky with my mouth open and crying a little bit while my arms were streched out at my sides. I stopped by a coffee shop and browsed in a used music store before setting off again.

I headed up to San Luis Obispo and wandered around the streets for a little while. Compared to the abandoned streets of IV this place was one huge party. All of the bars were open as were most of the restaurants. The mission was quiet and its white walls caught the tiniest bit of light so that it nearly glowed. The CalPoly campus was silent and dim but most of the people looked college age. When I parked and walked along one of the main streets cars would drive by and honk and people on the street would wave at the guys in the car and shout their names with glee. I found a small Mexican diner and ate there. I headed off again got somewhat lost in unlit residential streets. This caused me to resume my trek on the 101 instead of PCH.

This leg was long and got more dangerous by the hour. It began to rain long and hard. There are (for obvious reasons) long stretches of the highway that are not lit at night. It made me somewhat nervous to note that I could see just barely over five feet and front of me, less than half of that behind me and mere inches to either side. There are many lonely sections of the 101, and at that time there were also some sections that were under construction causing the lane markings to occasionally be very confusing. I distinctly remember being herded to my left on a part of the highway where there was only one lane in each direction by a temporary cement wall. I was trying to keep from scraping my right side on it when I happened to look to my left and see a semi hurtling past me less than a hand's width away.

I stopped a couple of anonymous towns to gas up, relieve myself and fill up on coffee.

I recognized San Jose when I went through it.

I couldn't help but grin when I saw the signs that guided me into the heart of San Francisco. The City on the Bay and I have always had an odd relationship, but he's always made me smile. My parent's like to recount the first time I went. I was two years old and instantly fell in love with it. I have a few dim memories of trolleys and flower stands, but according to my parents I cried when we came back home and wanted to return at once. My dad said he spent the next year singing the old Sinatra stand-by to me. "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"

At this point it was the middle of the night and I didn't see anything that I was open. I wasn't trying especially hard and I know if I had been patient some diner or other would open for breakfast soon. But I didn't feel like waiting. Since this was an experiment to follow my instincts, I wandered a little bit more until I found a freeway headed west with a sign promising me PCH.

I followed it for a little bit but somewhere around four or five I couldn't ignore the fatigue anymore. I pulled into some small town and found a little place that serves normal food from six am to two am and coffee and doughnuts all of the time. I relaxed and recouped in there and wanted very much to curl and sleep for a few hours. But I get nervous of sleeping in public places and I think people would probably get nervous/annoyed with me if I just camped out there. I catnapped for maybe ten minutes and decided to shove off again.

The road - and maybe it was the 1 - wound itself up into the coastal mountains and over toward the see. It was still quite dark and though it wasn't really raining the air was rather wet. It was pre-dawn but at that stage where the night is wearing away and the world stands silhouetted against itself. I drove through a forest and I think it is about the most beautiful I've ever been in - eventhough I couldn't really see it. The road was narrow and very twisty and semis used it as well, taking the curves altogether too fast for my liking.

When I reached the cliffs over the ocean there was just a whisper of light overhead. I turned south and moved on.

The road was very slick from the night's rain, both it and my tires were completely saturated. I've always found friction to be somewhat useful. And that day I found it's true value.

Approximately half way between LA and San Francisco on PCH is San Simeon which is home to Big Sur and the Hearst Castle. It's a very interesting place but quite isolated from the rest of the world. This has not been lost on the folks who sell gasoline. See when your indicator is resting on the line pointing to "E" and the last gas station you passed was some 30 miles earlier and your not sure that it won't be less than 30 miles to the next gas station you realize very quickly how much you're going to need the gas at the station you're at, eventhough the prices there are easily a dollar more than anything you've ever seen. Not only that but it's 6:45 am and the station doesn't open until eight. The two pumps have great big chains around them with heavy pad locks. This forces you to wait.

But let me tell you: if you ever find yourself in Big Sur in the early morning and sunrise isn't entirely over yet, Get out of Your Car. Walk around. Breathe the beatiful air. Walk between the great big trees and admire the moss and ivy. There's a rushing sound always present and I'm not sure if it's water or air moving through the trees but it's a great liberating noise. Do this and everything will come into focus.

The station owner eventually showed up and I gassed up and grabbed some munchies and headed out. The strech of HWY 1 around here is known for being quite treacherous. Yes, yes... beauty...treachery...whatever.... But this is when I found that my tires needed more braking distance and that in general I needed to exert much greater control over my car than normal. Deitrich was an eight cylinder Pontiac Firebird. Damn right she had muscle and I didn't have to force the issue for her to flex them. But the thing about the 1 is that it has something of a grade to it and when you're headed southbound you lose altitude, and gravity, being what it is, lends you push. The other thing about the 1 here is that winds *very* sharply around the bluffs, constantly surprising you with another hair-pin (and hair-raising) turn. At one point I lost some control of Deitrich and couldn't make the turn. I slammed on the brakes and watched helplessly as my car skidded off the road and onto a sandy look out over the ocean.

Folks, the speed limit around here is 25 for a reason.

When my heart rate returned to normal I pulled out and pushed on. At a spot in the road when I was very nearly down with all of that I lost control again. This time I didn't have the space to stop and crashed into a four foot mound of sand, dirt, grass and weeds. I'm pretty sure the mound was there on purpose and I'm more or less happy for that as without it my final resting place would likely have been at the bottom of the gulch some forty feel below.

The sort of two-door sports car that Pontiac makes and then sells to late middle-aged men to make them feel young can't really handle getting stuck in a sandy mound. Deitrich had this fiberglass guard thing under the carriage that went around the front end I guess maybe to keep debris from flying into the engine. But since the mound was moist and squishy from the night's rain Deitrich just sank right in and that guard acted like an anchor. Of course on of the tires also sank right in and I spent a half hour trying to coax her out again. Finally after I smelled something burn I gave up and accepted the offer of an elderly couple who had driven by to give me a lift back up civilization where I could get a tow.

So someone else had to haul my dad's car out of this dirt mound and that process broke the guard up pretty good. I headed out slowly, cautiously until I got to a stretch where I could see the road moving mostly straight for miles.

I followed signs into Santa Barbara thinking to take the 101 the rest of the way but the sleep dep grabbed me first. That's the only time I've "whited out." I was driving and nodding off and I was doing everything I could stay awake - smacking myself, rubbing my eyes vigorously - but a couple of times my eyes just refused to function, or maybe my brain decided I could force my eyes to work but there was no way I could force it to continue to interpret all the data my eyes sent. There was maybe twice where, for the space of a couple of heart beats all I could see was white, and then I'd come to and notice I was drifting into another lane. I finally found an exit into SB and headed in. I wandered around for a little while and then found a residential street to park on and conked out for a little while. I was quite a sight: filthy, exhausted, the red from hair had gotten wet and thus gotten *everywhere* stained into the back rest of my seat, coating my forehead and my hands, and then there was the car that was scraped up and covered in sandy mud.

I found a gas station where I could fill up and wash some of the mud off, tried to tidy up and headed home. The trip into LA was uneventful but I was happy to be home. I took a shower straightened things out there and then headed down to Fullerton to tell my father about his car.

I've always wanted to share this adventure with someone. I've told plenty of people about it but I've always wanted someone else to know what I felt then. Especially Big Sur, I've always wanted the opportunity to take someone there and have them take in the dawn, the beauty and the peace. I think my dad would like it. I can't of a single person who wouldn't. There are always complications, aren't there?

So I think in this, I can't force life to give me the opportunity that I want. I figure I have to just tell people about my experiences and sort of cast a wide net and maybe someone will come to me and say "really? tell me more" or maybe even, "wow, I totally know what you're talking about! Let me tell you about when I got to watch the sun rise over Big Sur."

But anyway, I finally took the time to listen to Scarlet's Walk today. I've been holding off because I like to listen to new Tori Amos music when I'm not distracted. While I was listening I kept remembering that night and morning I spent on my own private adventure. The album holds soft, quiet rain, the mysteries of a dark night, a half dozen nameless diners and will creep into your heart like a peaceful sunrise. See if it doesn't.