Scooter Mania

Anybody remember the "mods" and the "rockers" that duked it out it England in the '60s?

The Mods, or modernists, as they were known, were a sub culture that liked Scooters, ska music, parka jackets and were generally regarded as being the smarter dressed of the two groups.

The Rockers preferred motorcycles and had their own uniform which consisted of a black leather jacket, denim jeans, black leather boots with white socks which were rolled over the tops of the boots. A white scarf was regarded as a great fashion accessory.

Rockers and Mods were often engaged in brawls. BBC News stories from May 1964 stated that mods and rockers were jailed after riots in seaside resort towns on the south coast of England. Fights occurred where territories overlapped or rival factions happened upon each other.

Skip forward to the "oughts," and the dichotomy still exists, although without the attendant animosity. We went on an outing recently with the LA Scooter Club through the hills behind Malibu. First stop was the infamous "Rock Store" in the middle of the mountains, long a hangout destination for bikers. The scoots arrived, more or less en masse, and we slotted in with the hogs and the boy racers. That's us on the left in the lime green and red (pictures courtesy of "Scootz Kapboots", the rally organizer):

The scoots are a cheerful bunch, without the requisite posturing of the bad ass bikers:

After a couple of hours through the canyons and back roads, we met up with a group from Ventura
for a joint ride down the coast on Pacific Coast Highway (Hwy 1) to another biker hangout north of Malibu called Neptune's Net for a late lunch. There, the bikers had already occupied all of the real estate in front of NN on the land side of PCH, so the scoots were obliged to line up on the ocean side in a cross-highway faceoff. Shades of "TheWild One."
No fisticuffs ensued, and the only damage done was to our digestive systems. EVERYthing is fried. After this it was a straight shot for us down PCH to home. The others had to wander considerably further back across the mountains to home.

SCOOTIN & PADDLING AT MORRO BAY

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Last week we drug Albatross out of storage, gave it a bath, and loaded up for a long weekend at Morro Bay State Park. This is a gem of a park in a beautiful setting. This was our second visit, and as last year it was with the Yahoo West LazyDazers. 27 rigs were in attendance, which is way up from last year. We also got to spend time with Keith and Gloria who showed up in their SOB Class A, sporting Cal decals all over the back. Keith and I went to high school together in Modesto, and we hadn’t seen them in quite a while. According to the camp host, who’s been there for five months, we lucked into the first weekend of good weather. We made good use of it. The kayak got its maiden voyage! First step is to unbag it and roll it out. That’s the footpump to the right.

Next, you find a willing foot.

There’s bound to be one handy. :)

A few minutes and a distaff charleyhorse later . . .

It’s just light enough for the two of us to carry, but the cord handholds get pretty uncomfortable after a while, so we’ll have to rig up some handles to fit over them. We lugged it over to the boat harbor to launch, attracting quite a ghoulish following along the way who no doubt had visions of punctures, swamping, and general mayhem. Larry and Renee effortlessly wheeled their carbon fiber kayaks over on little carts. Hmmm. They know the estuary and harbor well, had actually researched the tides (say, what?), and kindly kept tabs on us newbies. Disappointing the assembled camera-wielding masses, the launch went off without a hitch. I tested the stability by rocking side to side and got a whack with the paddle from the rear seat. No more testing. The tide was slack, the wind was calm, and off we went, looking quite coordinated thank you very much. That lasted until we hit the first current. Now, as in canoes, the back seater is the helmsperson and is responsible for keeping the straight course by dragging the paddle to the left or right side as necessary. Well, that’s the theory. And, after about a half hour of gentle reminders, terse directions, and silent epithets, el pilota got it into practice. Next time, we’ll be exchanging seats. We paddled north into the harbor area of the city of Morro Bay. Everything from gorgeous yachts to derelict cement barges was anchored there, and the resident sea lion left his feeding spot by a restaurant pier to dive around Larry’s kayak. Flocks of seabirds were skimming the surface and a couple of otters were trolling along. It was a beautiful paddle. The Sea Eagle isn’t as directionally stable, nor as fast as the hard kayaks, but it will serve us just fine for the casual poking about on lakes and streams. It’s rated for Class III rapids, but we’ll just have to take their word for it. After two hours of paddling, we dragged our dead arms out and walked 50 feet to the Bayside Cafe for clam chowder and a wedge of carrot cake the size of Manhattan. Home made. Oh, yeah. The previous evening we ate there and I had the best seafood pasta I’ve ever eaten, along with a warm boysenberry cobbler (with heavy cream to pour over). Two Lipitor, please. Did I mention my taster is much improved? :p

The next day we noticed a classic Vespa on a trailer a couple of campsites over. When the owner came out to get ready to take it out, I went over to admire and smooze. He said he’d seen ours the night before and assumed we were there for “the ride.” Ride? What ride? Turns out the San Luis Obispo Scooter Club was sponsoring one of the main scooter events on the West Coast, a 114 mile ride along the bay and back into the wine country, starting in just 30 minutes from SLO, about 15 miles away. We had been all set to go hiking with the LDers at Montano De Oro State Park, which we had done last year, but we couldn’t resist a mass scooter ride through wine country. The guy left us the turn-by-turn route instructions, then took off to make the start. We had to get ourselves ready, so we didn’t make the start, but intercepted the pack about ten miles into the rallye, at Los Osos Valley Road and Turri Road, if anyone’s tracking. Quite a sight to see 80-85 scooters strung out down the road. We jumped in towards the end of the line and had a blast for the next four or five hours. The Central Coast area is especially green right now after all the rains we’ve had, and the two-lane back roads are all curves, dips, and hills. We kept up just fine, thank you.

We had to bail out before the very end, which was at a park in SLO where they were to have a barbeque and raffle for a classic Vespa. We had to get back to Morro for the Saturday potluck and Loni had some cooking to do. As usual, the dishes were varied and tasty and no one went home hungry.

Sunday we packed up and went to load the scoot on the rack. One of the other LDers wanted to take a few photos of the process, and three guys at the adjacent campsite were observing as well. So, of course, I blew it. Done this dozens of times without a hitch. 37th time is the charm. We load the thing by firing it up and gently (key word) throttling it up the ramp and onto the rack while I walk beside and below it, holding on to the grips and throttle. As it was just making the transition from the ramp to the track, I made a misstep, stumbled, and opened the throttle. The scoot did a wheelie, jumped the stop at the end of the track, flew up into the air, swan dived the 3 or 4 feet to the ground, all the while with me holding on for dear life. It and I both ended up on our sides, the scoot with a nice dent in the left sidepod, an me with the mother of all subdural hematomas on my right tricep. Not sure what hit it, but the rack ripped the pocket off my jeans as the final indignity. Sigh. All I needed was an audience. The scoot still runs straight and I’m still upright. Fortunately for what’s left of my ego, the guy taking pictures stopped when things went haywire, so there are no photos of the launch.

Indignity needs drowning, and we took off for SLO to have dinner with my fraternity bro, Paul. Paul personally knows every winemaker in the Central Coast, and has a very well-stocked wine cabinet and cooks a mean roast beef (with Yorkshire pudding!). There were seven at dinner, and we managed to polish off a minor portion of his stock. We had the champagnes with local artisan cheeses. The magnum of Marlstone and the Justin Isosceles were incredible with the beef, and the Zin Port was served with homemade chocolate truffles. Paul, you da man! After all that, there was nothing left but to go home.

Sea Eagle Has Landed

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UPS today dropped off our Sea Eagle inflatable kayak in two boxes. We opened them on the porch and put everything together to make sure it held air, etc. Actually, the only things to put together were the paddles, which had snap-button connections, easy as pie. The kayak is one long piece that has three inflatable sections: both sides, and the bottom. It comes with a foot pump that was all set to go. Just insert the nozzle into one of the three fill valves and start pumping. Each filled quite fast, probably a minute or two for each. There are two inflatable seats that took only a couple of pumps each and they were ready. It really was simple to set up. Too bad we don't have a lake close by. I'm not ready to try to launch it in the waves down at Will Rogers Beach! It's rated for class 3 rapids (uh-huh, not for me, I think) and is said to do better in the ocean than on lakes. We'll give that proposition a tryout when we go to Morro Bay in a couple of weeks. I'll have to get cracking and buy some life vests or we're sure to get nailed by the harbor patrol. Everything folds up quite nicely in the big bag, although we opted to keep the paddles in a separate one. Now, where are we going to stuff this thing in the RV?

BUSTED!

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Wrong place at the wrong time. On our way to the Caravan at Buena Vista Aquatic Recreation Area (whew! BV, from now on), we were tooling along in the northbound slow lane on the I-405 just before it gets to the junction with the I-5. A trash truck was parked on the shoulder and I could see the driver hanging on to the side where the cab met the bed. I could only drift to the leftmost side of my lane as there was a car next to me. Just as we passed the truck, the driver gave a mighty pull and yanked something from the space behind the cab. Unfortunately, the prodigious pull flung his arm all the way into the traffic lane and his hand collided with the front housing of our right mirror. KaBAM! We stopped and backed up, inspected the damage (broken glass in the mirror, and who knows what with his hand). We exchanged information, but he had called his supervisor, so we waited around for him to arrive. The driver seemed to be writing all right with the hand, but that might have been adrenalin working. Supervisor arrived, he took his pictures, told me to get an estimate for repair, gave me his card and that was that. I hope. If the driver tries to make a claim against my insurance he's in for a fight.

BV, once we got there, was a very nice place in the middle of nowhere. It's 23 miles SW of Bakersfield, to the west of the I-5, towards Taft. Two lakes, one quite big, allowing powerboating, fishing, etc. Huge pull-through sites with full hookups. Trees for shade and plenty of open area for games, etc. Who knew? I guess the LD Caravaners did. We've been up I-5 many dozens of times and never had a clue anything was out in this remote corner of the Valley.

I inveigled Loni into participating in the washer toss tournament, with the usual protests of not being any good at that stuff, etc. etc. Turns out she did just as well as anyone, and loved it! I know, I know, washer toss? Sounds like the quintessential geriatric pastime, and I guess that's what it looks like. But, all smirking aside, it's a lot of fun. The weird scoring keeps it interesting, and the luck factor accounting for 75% of what happens keeps everyone in the game.

We went exploring on the scoot, intent on going over the mountains to the west to another lake. We ended up in a sea of oil rigs dating back to the early 1900's. When we pushed on, the paved road turned to dirt, and then to mud in the low parts. We forded one mire, but turned back as we were sinking up to the rims. The Vespa isn't made for off-roading. We did stumble across the hamlet of Tupman. Since that's the last name of Mom's friends in Indy, we took a picture and later sent it on to them. Offered to steal a sign. :)

At the gathering I told my tale of mirror woe and was offered a free set of replacement mirrors by the resident go-to guy for all things dealing with LD repairs. He had a number of them in his garage resulting from others upgrading to the bigger wide-view mirrors. When we got back to L.A., I picked them up and installed the right one in about 90 seconds. Bingo, and no claim against the trash company.

HAWAI'I NO KA OI

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Mahalo! Well, this year certainly started off better than last. I'll trade the Big-H for the Big-C anytime. Courtesy of a two-decade client and generous friend, we flew to Kona on the Big Island the afternoon of January 10, having first deposited Mom that morning on her flight back to Indy and it's sub-freezing temps. Sorry, Mom. Couldn't risk your bringing your bad-weather mojo to the islands. This was our first visit to the Big Island, after numerous trips to the other big three, and it has displaced Maui as our favorite, no contest. Our hosts, Mike and Betty, moved here three years ago after a two-year construction of their fabulous house high above the north coast (near the town of Hawi, but 1,500 feet up the hill). Incredible view of green slopes down to the ocean channel, and 22 miles across to Maui. Yes, the phrase "died and gone to heaven" applies to the living. The interior view is from our guest suite, looking across the channel to Maui. There's not a resort on the island that can match it. The outside view is roughly the same thing, and is the view you get from anywhere along the property. That's Haleakala in the center just above the clouds. A wider angle would take in Hana on the right and the Kihei coast on the left. It's one fabulous panorama. And one fabulous house. Out of respect for our hosts' privacy, I'm not going to post any pics of the house. Trust me when I say that the two years it took to build and furnish were worth it. Drool.

Using my trusty TomTom GPS (Xmas gift, thanks boyos), we set the house as home base and navigated all over the island, which is huge. The interior is beautiful in its own right, with vast square miles devoted to cattle raising and crops. Everywhere you go there's a view of one of the two major volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Kea is the northernmost, is inactive, and has observatory domes and buildings on its peak. This time of year, there was plenty of snow up there, making for a pretty neat sight. Here's a shot of Kea from the hills above Waimea (Kailua). Loa is the southern volcano, along with the smaller Kilauea, and those are the active ones. They're part of Volcanoes National Park. We had a nice, clear day when we went down there. Although there were no active lava flows, the "volcano-within-a-volcano" was spewing prodigious steam. When others in our party (explain later) went down a couple of days later, the cloud cover was so low they couldn't see anything, like being in a thick fog. We also stopped at the steam vents, which are adjacent to the caldera, which smelled richly of sulphur. We started coughing right away and didn't stop for quite a while afterwards.
One of the neatest sights on the Island, IOHO, is the Akaka Falls, with a single drop of some 440 feet. Beautiful place, reached by a path over a bridge, along small waterfalls, and through Jurassic Park jungle. This was our last stop of a long day of touring before having to meet everyone at Merrimans restaurant in Waimea. We used the Falls park restrooms to change from our shorts to our dinner duds, amusing a few other visitors no end, I'm sure. Hey, we're laid back --- it's Hawai'i!

Mike, our host, is the North American sales manager for one of Germany's oldest breweries, and along with us he brought over four other couples that represented beverage distributors in New Jersey, Kentucky, and Texas. They all stayed at the very posh Mauna Lani resort along the Kohala coast. While we were out touring every day, they were playing golf, shopping, and sightseeing on their own. Each night the entire group (13 in all) met for dinner at top-drawer restaurants. We got to know them and found them all delightful, especially the accents. When you have New Jersey, Kentucky, and Texas voices in full regional song at the same table, it's quite a sound. Can't say I understood every word, but I'll put that down to the general noise level. Somehow I ended up as the only one to order dessert the first night, and thereafter I became the butt of the dessert menu jokes each night. That's ok, I have a thick skin, a buttercream palate, and, thanks to Lipitor, newly-won low cholesterol. I was good to go every night.

One of the most unusual places we visited was St. Benedict's Painted Church near Honaunau. Built in 1899, and still in use, it features wall paintings done by the first priests, which were used as a visual aid to teaching the congregation. These were not professional artists, but the scenes are nicely rendered and quite powerful in appearance. The church itself is a wooden gem. I'm surprised that it, and especially the murals, have survived a century in such a damp climate. The adjacent cemetery was a riot of flowers and worn tombstones. It was a good thing we had the GPS, as we'd have been lost in the warren of roads in the area. It put us right in the parking lot. The GPS was invaluable at night when trying to navigate back to the house. There's no street lights out there to warn you of the upcoming roads. We generally stopped for lunch at places that looked like they catered to the locals more than tourists, and were happy that we did. Two places stand out: the Yellow Bird down near the Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park (Portuguese Bean soup and curried chicken sandwiches) and the Short 'N Sweet Bakery & Cafe in Hawi (scrumptious, world-class desserts). The master baker(ess) also makes whimsical and elegant wedding and special occasion cakes. Check out www.shortnsweet.biz . Too bad they can't deliver to the mainland.

Our last day we decided to hike down to a black sand beach which wasn't too far, at the end of the road at the Polulu Valley overlook. The beach is about 400 feet below, a 20 minute hike down. Loni is standing at the beginning, and the shot is the East coast looking South. Beautiful, dramatic shoreline. the Trail is steep, but not too bad. At the bottom of the trail you come out on this incredible valley-river scene that hasn't changed for eons, at least not at the hand of humans. I think this is why we liked the Big Island so much. There's a lot of untouched wilderness beauty with nary a condo in sight. The river in the pic disappears entirely underground right when it reaches the beach. That's a lot of water to suddenly go poof! We walked up the beach to the first cliff. The tide was coming in so we couldn't go any further, but this was a very relaxing place to be so we just sat, looked, and listened to the surf until it was time to go. Nice way to end the trip. We had dinner that night at the Canoehouse at the Mauna Lani. It's set right on the beach, crashing surf, tiki torches, bamboo & wicker, and great food. We debated staying forever, but economics took hold and we hightailed it down the coast to the airport for our redeye back to (sigh) L.A. At least it was easier this time with Homeland Security. On the way over, Loni got put in the "cage," and had to be individually searched. Her ticket said "Loni," but all her i.d. is in her given name, Alana. Big no-no. Don't go there. We almost didn't make it out of L.A. Thanks, Mike and Betty, for a fabulous time!