Nothing happened yesterday.
Ha, ha. OK, that’s not true. Yesterday was relatively uneventful, but a few things did happen that made for interesting stories. The first is that I stayed last night in an RV park - in fact, in an actual RV - for the first time in my life. That story is a bit of a follow up to yesterday’s story. I got off to a late start, and was running late. I had called ahead to a motel I found online right by the highway that the reviews said was a bit sketchy but super cheap, and they had rooms for $35. I was passing an RV park called Elk Country and it caught my eye, I think because my ex was from a small town whose mascot was the Elks. I pulled in next to two middle aged folks who clearly were running the place. I walked in and bought some (amazingly good) blackberry pie and a coke, and struck up a conversation with them. Over the course of that conversation I told them I was headed for the Green Valley Motel. The man stopped and looked at me. I said, “what do you think of the Green Valley?”. He paused - as rural folks do - and said, carefully, “You should stay at the Palms up the road.” He then told me to tell Martha that Dwayne had sent me and that they should match the Green Valley rate. He had this look in his eyes that said “Son, you are going to get murdered if you stay at the Green Valley.” I sighed and sat on his couch and said “well, it’s just that it’s so close.” He looked at the woman, and, long story short, I stayed in their own trailer for $35 that night. And the lesson is: sometimes people can help you out! Now, I know that those of you who are natural extroverts and sales folks are shaking your head and saying “Well, duh”, but you have to understand that this is quite a revelation for me! Living in a city, and being who I am, I just don’t expect people to be helpful. But not only did I get to sleep in this trailer, I got to eat homemade banana jam and peanut butter sandwiches, which was basically amazing. And the next day, about 8 miles up the road, I did ride by the Green Valley Motel. Murder-y? I’ll let you be the judge….
Another cool thing about staying at the RV park was that I got to meet the guy who was camping next to me in a pull trailer. His name was Drew, and he was really nice - if socially awkward. It was obvious to me he was even lonelier than I was feeling, so we struck up a conversation. He was driving from Las Vegas through to near Seattle, where he had family. He gave me some interesting advice about state parks, etc. After talking for a bit, he told me that he was getting married in a couple of months. I remember the way he put it was “I can’t get out of it now”. :) The next morning I saw him and he said he’d had a nightmare the night before where he was being chased. (I avoided the obvious psychoanalysis - too much projection. :) Besides the obvious benefits of getting to know a new person, I also ended up getting 50 cents from him to dry my clothes, plus two tiny pots of jam (straight from room service at the Bellagio, no less!) Seriously: again, I know you extroverts and such are saying “Of *course* people are helpful! What kind of screwed up world do you live in where you think otherwise?” Well, the answer is: being mildly introverted, having two engineer parents, living in San Francisco, dating online, having (past) roommates from Craigslist that you don’t even like, etc., etc. And yes, it is a screwed up, sad little world - which is why I left it to ride 4500 miles on a bicycle and figure out what I’m doing wrong!
I want to blog briefly about another experience I had as well yesterday which brought something into focus. I was biking around in Trinidad, CA, along a very small and rural road that ran along the coast. It was a beautiful sunny day, and although I was tired, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the scenery was, overlooking the water. As I turned the corner - and remember, I am literally in the middle of nowhere - all of a sudden there were signs for a casino. A casino? I was a bit hungry, so I decided I had to see this - and so a minute later, I was walking inside the Cher-Ae tribal casino, standing in the snack stand. Now, we’ve all been to this snack stand. It had linoleum flooring, fluorescent lighting, and chicken strips. The coke was free. It was surreal. Right outside - literally a few hundred feet away - there was incredibly natural beauty and splendor. And here I was - here we all were, because the place was busy - in this snack stand. And in that moment, I realized something: we all make a choice about how we spend our time. Now, it would be easy to be elitist, and I’m going to avoid that trap. I understand that many of the people in there are seniors, and riding a bike along the coast is just not in the cards for them. But there was just something - *empty* - about that place, and the juxtaposition of it with what I was doing - what I had, 5 minutes prior, just been doing - was so stark. And I looked at the TV - Entertainment Tonight - and I looked at the people - eyes dead, waiting for a new round of Keno to start - and I just…had a moment. I just hoped, with all my heart, that those people were happy, and that if they really were, fine, but if they weren’t, that they had the guts - no matter how young, or old they may be, and no matter how they may feel about the choices available to them - and they make at least a start, to go outside and take a walk, and see the water, and feel the sun on their face, and just - *live* a little. I don’t want them to change to suit my vision of what a person should be - I just want to make sure that these things - this seemingly hollow pursuit of a shallow version of happiness - is really working for them. I hope that doesn’t come across as bullshit. I realized another thing, too - to me, Vegas is a fun place. When I think about Vegas, my Vegas is Cirque du Soleil shows, and great restaurants, the pinball hall of fame, and bachelor parties, and cigars at midnight. But when I talk to people in SF about Vegas, they universally recoil in disgust. And now I understand why. The whole “casino thing” - good as it has been for the Indian tribes - is empty, and the part of it that relies on gambling, on this false pursuit of a fake reward, is spiritually bankrupt. And so now I understand why people hate Vegas.