There’s really not much I can add to these 1977 stills except to note the talents of the costume designers and make-up artist…

Kyle is really enjoying his First Class experience with bottomless “Bloody Mary” mix in glass with lime, hot nuts and real food. He had corn flakes on the Phoenix-Chicago leg and is now salivating at the grilled salmon. For a guy who relishes the Olive Garden, this food is pretty tasty. Just looking at his culinary anticipating eyes is more frosting on a perfect vacation cake that was not left out in the rain.

Being served a meal on a plane may be Kyle’s most fun dining experience, but earlier research indicates the Chilean Sea Bass in a curry reduction as San Francisco’s Tadich Grill was his favorite meal. Here are some other bests and worsts of the trip.

Drive
Best: Pismo Beach to SF along the PCH.
Worst: Tucson to San Diego when we came 26 miles from no gas.

Surprise
Best: Finding the Hitching Post on a random exit during favorite drive…
Worst: $25 parking fee/night in a lot at the Mission Bay Hilton.

Hotel
Best: Trump in Vegas – Very nice accommodations, pool, and beds.
Worst: Trump in Vegas – No personality whatsoever. Next time in Vegas I’d like to try the Mandalay Bay affiliated “The Hotel.” It reeked of cool.

Beef Jerky
Best: Local teriyaki in Bishop, CA, but it was $34.95/lb and Kyle ate it all. He said it was delicious…
Worst: $9.99 bag of “Jim Beam” branded corporate crap at DFW.

Tourist Trap
Best: Titanic Exhibit at Luxor – Included a 100% scale reconstruction of the Grand Staircase.
Worst: $8 for chips and a Coke at the San Diego Zoo.

Experience
Best: Catching up with Mike G and his family.
Worst: Changing a flat tire on a 6 lane highway near dusk outside SF.

Sedona, Arizona is famous for its vortexes, or “highly concentrated energies conducive to prayer, meditation and healing.”

Our itinerary was pretty well planned, and included highlights like San Diego’s beautiful zoo, the Queen Mary, the Pacific Coast Highway, the Korn family, Yosemite, Death Valley, the Lion King in Vegas, the rust red beauty of Sedona, and the canyon grand, but hanging out in a honky-tonk Karaoke bar with my friend Michael Gonnella, his girls and my son was at the top of the list and was a late addition to our own South by Southwest 2009.

Taking advantage of Arizona’s 75 mile per hour speed allowance, we sailed South down the long, wide lanes of I17 from Sedona to Anthem, Arizona in about an hour to Dillard’s digs. Almost immediately the old photo albums came out with pictures that trace back some 35 years including early high school and college snaps documenting our desert life, full KISS regalia and our house-rousing “air-band” performance of AC/DC’s “Whole Lotta Rosie.” And yes, in a rip-off of pal RustedRobot’s recent series of hilarious archive photo commentary, I’ll have some doozies gracing this site soon.

While Kyle made himself at home watching a movie in Mike’s desert decorated room, we drove to the Boulder Creek High School to pick up Nina, Mike’s daughter I hadn’t seen since she was a toddler. Now 16, Nina possesses the beauty of Mike’s mom and the heart of her dad. She and Kyle chatted up some “Harry Potter” as she baked muffins to take to her friend’s house. A short time later, 6 year old Anna arrived and proceeded to spin like a top for the next several hours, peaking back at her mom’s with a delicious and genuine Italian gelato from mom’s gelato shop. The rambunctious Anna is a near clone of her big sis with the marked difference of sparkly blue eyes in place of Nina’s doe brown. Mike and Elena have two beautiful girls.

Prior to our gelato break though, there were three hours of drinks, grub and singing at Mike’s throw down, the Roadrunner. Mike opened for Kyle warming up the crowd with “Runaway Train” by Soul Asylum, followed up with Kyle’s too-early-in-the-show rendition of “My Heart Will Go On.” (Video at 11…) I spent most of the night meeting Mike’s many and mostly-female friends and avoiding singing by telling Nina stories of her dad’s early days… Like Megan and her dad, Nina now lives full-time with Mike and really adores him. She enjoyed hearing the stories, but most of them served either as confirmation her dad’s yarns were true, or that we collaborated on them, which I recall we had to do often as misguided youth.

As for my boy, it was certainly a first for him being in a bar, albeit outdoors enjoying an overcast cool breeze, lightning and even some desert rain, but the fact he could be handed a mike to sing whenever he wanted made it everlasting for him. And for me. Seeing the smile on his face and the excitement in his voice delivered more healing energy than any vortex ever could.

Last night in Sedona included two of my best friends, my son Kyle and Michael Gonnella. After dining Mexicano, we grabbed cigars (2), a bottle of Maker’s Mark, two nips of Absinthe, plus ice, then retreated to the balcony overlooking red rocks and eventually overlooked by a sky of stars I haven’t seen in a very long time. If you were to see him on the street today, you’d think “Biker” from the tattoos, head scarf and black leather vest, but as I learned, he’s so much more. Two words that come to mind after our hours of conversation are “heart” and “soul.” I knew about the heart already. He is the toughest person I know and his story of sustaining a double leg fracture two years ago during an exhibition with real pro wrestlers reinforced both the “heart” and the “crazy” traits I remember. Most enlightening though was hearing him speak about his children and his attempts to instill the spirit of the Navajo Ten Commandments in his eldest Nina, I better understood the soul part and why he signs every email with “Peace.”

We had a great time reminiscing and filling in gaps like loose grout in our life’s mosaic. There was definitely one disagreement about the infamous “hot dog with everything” incident the summer (circa 1974) we worked my Dad’s food concession on Revere Beach. Let’s just say one difficult customer earned a chapter in “Kitchen Confidential,” and I’ll just leave it at that.

By the time I had eaten my words about us “not doing a very good job on the Maker’s,” the cigars were cinder and my boy was long asleep, we had recounted about 30 years of women, wives, children, music, working and living. We’ll catch up some more Friday when we meet Nina and head to Mike’s favorite karaoke joint. Kyle’s really looking forward to singing his heart out in public. I just hope they have some Celine Dion…

Navajo Ten Commandments

1. The Earth is our Mother; care for Her
2. Honor all your relations.
3. Open your heart and soul to the Great Spirit.
4. All life is sacred; treat all beings with respect.
5. Take from the Earth what is needed and nothing more.
6. Do what needs to be done for the good of all.
7. Give constant thanks to the Great Spirit for each day.
8. Speak the truth but only for the good in others.
9. Follow the rythms of Nature.
10. Enjoy life’s journey; but leave no tracks.

We got a pretty early start (for us) on Sunday for the Sacramento – Yosemite – Mammoth Lakes leg. I’m disappointed we didn’t get to see 2 of the 3 friends/family we hoped to see in California’s Capital, but we doubled down with the Korn Family and had a great time. Kyle felt so at home with them and as a special bonus, all the brothers Korn were in town. I hadn’t seen Michael’s brothers Christopher and Patrick since the great bachelor party weekend in Chicago for Michael back on Memorial Day weekend ten years ago! As for the other two, one was unable to see us due to some personal issues, and the last I can’t really say. I tried.

One thing to consider when planning to see epic National Parks like Yosemite (Sunday) and Death Valley (today) is the white knuckle driving conditions up and down some of the narrow (no shoulder) and steep inclines. Add to that the absence of guardrails on curves above sheer terror drops and, well, let’s just say it inhibits visions of grandeur. As for the parks themselves, I’m not going to attempt written description, but I’ll try to make it up to you in pictures later after I’ve had more time for the scenes to simmer.

When visits to National Parks highlight an itinerary, stops in places like Mammoth Lakes or Bishop, California are relegated to a sub-head in the mental trip-kit. Still, for some reason the hotel manager planted image of bears ripping the doors off my rented Altima for a scrap of beef jerky will stay with me for a while and limited my slumber in Mammoth Lakes. Bishop was an hour South of Yogi-ville and provided my best meal of the trip, Chili Verde and eggs over easy at the fantastic Petite Pantry. This family run desert jewel is headlined by the Master of the House, Jose Jimenez. He whirled around the little place, taking great care of every table and entertaining travelers and locals with funny one-liners for the locals and stories for all.

Hours later, as I soaked like an olive in gin with just a vapor of vermouth, vacation continued to creep up on me like ascending the first big hill of a wooden coaster. With the massive golden wall of the Trump reflecting the desert sky and Kyle relaxing on a nearby lounger, I stared out into nowhere and thought about nothing. (Well, I did think of the olive in gin / vapor vermouth line there…) One thing’s for sure: Nowhere and nothing is a place I wanted this vacation to take me.

“The world about us would be desolate
Except for the world within us.”

– Wallace Stevens

It turns out we couldn’t get the tire repaired, but for $111.90, the fine folks at Toscalito Tire & Automotive in Novato, CA replaced it. If you ever happen to break down on an interstate near San Francisco, call Hertz for help but after an hour they don’t show so you change the thing yourself then have to replace it, I recommend Toscalito Tire.

It’s such an easy ride from the shiny city to the aging vines of Sonoma and Napa. Our first stop was Cornerstone Gardens, a place friend Barb and I visited and the site of the picture currently coloring this black blog. I badly wanted to recreate the shot with Kyle, but he wasn’t as agreeable as me as a photo model, so this was the best I could muster while Kyle bitched about it.

I can’t take a trip to Napa without visiting V. Sattui, and this tasting was the first I ever had to pay for. I went for the premium tasting while Kyle hung close, oddly more cooperative than he was at Cornerstone, and without any sedative of the grape. I picked up a couple bottles and gifted one last night to Michael, Maddy and Margaret Korn. I hadn’t seen them in a few years and had never met the adorable and gregarious Ms. Margaret. The last time I had been to their home (and it is a home) was for their wedding ten years ago. That day their back yard was glowing with tiki torches and the brightness of a wedding day. Last night it was our passage to Mike’s moms as we moved things for a yard sale today. The Korn’s are off to Hotlanta for Mike’s new job, and the other good news is they’re keeping their home here in the Sacramento area. I really feel the familiarity of “home” there and Kyle enjoyed himself fully, especially the rag-top ride with Mike to pick up dinner. Thanks to the Korn family. It was great to see them again.

It’s now 1:24PM and Kyle’s just got out of bed to take a shower. This is one of those days to get some rest for the second half of our journey. We haven’t yet eaten, but I snuck in a workout while Kyle watched some TV. My boy is way out of his home routine and he needs some down time, even if that means watching TV from his hotel at the Rancho Cordova Marriott (formerly Sheraton). He’s been great so far and I’ve not once heard, “When are we going to be there?” He’s enjoying the journey.

The point of a road trip, aside from the “buddy movie” bonding moments, is seeing cool stuff. Yesterday’s cool stuff was the Pacific Coast Highway Northbound from Pismo Beach to San Francisco. As a bonus, albeit destructive, was seeing the Santa Cruz forest fire and its huge dark beige cloud, now trailing in the Pacific down below the Mexican border. Navigating the PCH along some of its narrow mountain passages was like riding a long, twisted “Slinky” up, down and all around an M.C. Escher painting.

Contrasting that, and in hindsight also a bonus was being selected as extras in a remake of “The Road Warrior,” aka, “I280 North” where Kyle and I enjoyed a flat tire and got to change it in a narrow breakdown lane as crazed California drivers whizzed their array of deadly weapons past us at well above the speed limit. As the car teetered on the flimsy jack, I had dueling thoughts of it collapsing and of a Hummer adorned with a mohawked meth addict for a hood ornament smashing us from behind in a glorious, slow-motion roadside slaughter. Kyle encouraged me from behind the guardrail above a trash strewn steep hill by saying, “this really sucks” about every 30 seconds…

I was shaking and dirty when we arrived at the San Francisco Marriott, but quickly realized we had survived when the Valet informed me overnight parking was $50. Less than an hour from playing breakdown lane bingo, we were seated at San Francisco’s oldest restaurant, the Tadich Grill dining on grilled Pacific salmon and Chilean Sea Bass in a curry reduction. Oh, and we were drinking. Kyle knocked back tres 7-Up’s while the tire changer applied the soul salve of a Bombay Martini, up with olives.

Now where the hell can I get this tire fixed?

There are rare moments in life when you hold cards and simply can’t believe the cosmic tumblers have flipped such a great hand your way. Yesterday’s journey mostly up the bending heather-green hills of Southern California were lit by the glinting sunlight bouncing up off the Pacific and darkened by a ghost tour on the majestic Queen Mary.

The fact Kyle doesn’t draw a firm line between fantasy and reality (must be genetic) makes a “scary ride” like that on the QM all the better, and when water began crashing through the hull a la “Titanic” and my boy buried his face into the protection of my armpit, he was done with the ghosts and I was happy the ride was over. After refusing to participate in the “huck a lungee off the side like Jack taught Rose” part of the tour, the boy and I returned to the safety of shore and the Pacific Coast Highway.

The coast hugging path has spectacular moments of what seems to be mountains sloping right into the sea, and others passing through towns off the coast the Beach Boys never wrote about. There’s just nothing lyrical about crawling from red light to red light, past Walgreens, McDonalds and Carl Jr’s. After an hour of that, I bolted for highway 101N where other than passing an accident, the vastness of California agriculture could be observed at 75MPH.

At about 6:20PM, the GPS still had us an hour from the hotel near Pismo Beach and Kyle was hungry, so I exited at Highway 246 in Buellton, CA, drawn in by a sign that claimed it was the home of Split Pea Soup. As I scanned the ample commercial signage adorning this rural route, a mustard yellow sign stood out: “The Hitching Post.” No, it couldn’t be… As I turned into the entrance, the perspective changed and as I looked back to the restaurant on the left and the sign on the right, I swear I saw Paul Giamatti as “Miles,” stumbling out toward the orange setting sun. I was giddy. Could this really be “The Hitching Post” from one of my all-time favorite films, “Sideways?” It was, and the cards I held were the wine list and menu.

At about the same time I received a reminder email regarding an off-site meeting for work in Newport, RI on September 17th. I quickly looked up another email and confirmed what I suspected. The 17th is the date of an “NEC Reunion” for employees of our old facility in Boxborough, MA. That’s when the Led Zeppelin song popped into my head. “What is” was sitting at the “Hitching Post” having dinner with my son, “and what should never be” is the haunting of old ghosts.

Not every day on vacation is going to have a great story, but a day without multitasking is vacation bliss. As Kyle snored a tired song this morning, I realized over stimulating my boy takes a toll on him, so after a 6 hour cross desert drive Monday and a still synching 3 time zone transition, today’s pace would be Kyle’s. I blogged as Kyle giggled at Rachel Ray cooking humor. (It’s 8:09PM and he’s done for the day…) After shaves, showers and morning meds, we headed out for a satellite guided trip to Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo. In a short visit, we did the bus tour, tram and searched unsuccessfully for the Basilisk in the Reptile house. Maybe they knew Kyle was coming and didn’t want their snake stabbed through the roof of the mouth with the Gryffindor sword. I’m just sayin’.

From there we roller-coasted the Coronado Bridge so Kyle could see where his big sister stayed when she visited with Dad in 2003. As I parked parallel style, Kyle was unimpressed and asked, “what are you doing?” “You want to see the hotel, right?” A quick head shake – sour puss said no. Tired guy…

Back at the hotel, Kyle found a favorite spot mid-pool and just was. Submerged to the neck, he slowly rotated and took it all in. His father lay on a lounge chair occasionally looking up at an orgy of wind tangled palm leaves drenched by the sun and backlit by a brilliant blue screen. The iPod wasn’t on shuffle, but I flipped through some Tom Petty (so California to me), Uncle Tupelo and even VH “Ain’t talkin’ ‘bout Love.” All those songs brought me back to places we visit while watching eye floaters behind pink lids. You know, close tight and redden; lighten up and almost get to yellow while you make them move… And any day you’re doing that doesn’t really need a story.

The Landing

I imagine Neil Armstrong’s bio-suit was firing off all sorts of “oh shit, I’m gonna die” signals as his body tried to cope with the stress of having one eye out the window of the “LEM” (Lunar Exploration Module) and the other on a fuel tank that said, “Idiot: you should have gassed up at that old floating Gemini carcass in Earth orbit.”

Yesterday’s trip from Tucson across a landscape that constantly reminded Kyle of some “Star Wars” (Sand Dunes) or Narnia (Mountains made of giant boulders) began of course with my boy ordering the “All American” breakfast in-room at the hotel of baked Pringles and 4 sides of assorted chocolate candies. He had so much sugar in him for the trip, only a breakfast of peyote & eggs would have provided the same buzz for Dad. Sadly, the “Blue Willow” was all out of peyote, so I settled for turkey sausage with dual cackleberries, scrambled.

Unsurprisingly, my boy wasn’t hungry when we sat for breakfast, nor was he very energetic as we cruised slowly through the U of A campus. For most of that he was reclined, only poking his head up on occasion to satisfy the old man. That sugar comedown is a bitch. After scoring a $9.95 “Arizona Baseball” tee, we (and when I write “we” I mean “me”) were off to see a few of the old apartment complexes I lived over 30 years ago. They were all still there… Casa Royale, Casa Espana, and of course, Casa Del Oro which had been re-named to “Arizona Commons.” Renamed or not, the ghosts are still there.

I’ve got to say, while Priceline can occasionally zing you (hotel in Arroyo Grande, CA when “Pismo Beach Area” was selected is an example), it’s been great so far, and our sweet metallic blue 2009 Nissan Altima with under 5,000 miles for $27 a day is Exhibit A. At the counter, I specifically asked for an iPod friendly car and that’s what we got! Anyway, as we cruised along Interstate 8 munching organic fruit, trail mix and beef jerky, the dulcet tones of Jim Dale poured out of the tweeters and woofers reading us “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”

OK, so skipping gas in Yuma at under ½ tank wasn’t too bad, but breezing by El Centro like a dementor on a mission was in hindsight, stupid. As we approached yet another set of mountains, the gas light came on and indicated 60 miles left in the tank. By the time it was in the 30’s I was engineering siphoning plans. Someone would stop AND have a hose, right? “Ocotillo – 8 Miles” was some solace, but was there gas there? The mountains were looming and my stomach was churning. We were in a desolate area so close to Mexico, there are way more Border Patrol employees than inhabitants. Oh! “Trust your car to the man who wears the star! – Texaco!” I was never so happy to hand cash to a young Mexican man working for a giant multinational corporation.

From there it was an easy couple hours (and 2 Border Patrol stops) to our hotel on Mission Bay Boulevard and directly into the beverage. After a nice dip, we headed to a “Gringos,” a Mexican joint in Pacific Beach. About 30 seconds from the restaurant I realized I forgot my wallet… and I didn’t care.