Heading Home!

This past Monday morning, I woke up at my campsite at Silverwood Lake State Park northeast of Los Angeles. I'd been as far west as I could go. Going north sounded intriguing, but it was still cold in that direction. Besides, I was really missing my family. Driving north on I-15, I came to the cutoff for the beginning of I-40. It starts at Barstow, California, and goes east all the way across the country. A sign at the cutoff says "Wilmington, North Carolina 2,550 miles." I took that sign as a sign.

Six days of hard driving later, I sit here on Saturday night at my campsite in eastern Tennessee in the foothills of the Smokies. Tomorrow I continue over the mountains and on to Charlotte where I'll see my mother, my sister and brother-in-law, and my niece and her new baby, who was born while I was out west. In a few more days, I'll be back in Maryland, very happy to see Tracey. Eric and Malina, too.

Tracey and I have talked on the phone every day, usually three or four times. So in a sense, she's been on the trip with me. She's kept up with my locations and has a map on the wall plotting my course.

It took me nearly six weeks to reach the West Coast, and just six days to get almost back. This is the first time I've essentially crossed the whole country in one swoop. It really lets you appreciate how things "unfold" as you move eastward. The California coast gives way fairly quickly to a series of hefty mountain ranges. Western mountains are for the most part treeless and seem newly-made and "toothy" with their craggy projections. Downright fangy, some of them. Others look just like gigantic rock piles. I don't know how they stay assembled. I thought of the Joad family in "The Grapes of Wrath" and how they spent weeks crossing these mountains in their old truck on their way west from Oklahoma. And here I was just zipping over them in a couple of days. Then you get to Arizona and New Mexico where everything flattens out into desert with distant views of barren mountains. The Texas panhandle is a bleached white expanse of flatness. At the Oklahoma border, things start to green up. Halfway through that state and on in to Arkansas and Tennessee, it just gets greener and greener. The distant western vistas shrink as the foliage encroaches. By eastern Arkansas, trees have essentially blocked the view. But the trees are a welcome sight and I don't begrudge their encroachment. In fact, they are like a cool and soothing balm after weeks in the dry and brown west, not that the desert doesn't have it's many merits.

I have really enjoyed this trip. Amazingly (and here I'm looking for some wood to knock on), there have been no real problems. In fact, all has gone extremely smoothly. GoJoe has performed like a charm and has proven to be an excellent home on wheels. The weather - well, I just can't believe the weather. Aside from a few days of cold and rain in Texas, I've basked in 70 and 80 degree sunny weather the whole time. Of course, in the desert west, the temps drop like a lead balloon at night, but that's OK. That's what cozy RVs are for.

I'm grateful that I was able to travel with no particular itinerary or time limit. I found that I was just fine with whatever materialized each day. Maybe because there were no expectations, there were no disappointments. I particularly liked the long drives that gave the opportunity to look long and hard at the ever-changing scenery. And the people in the campgrounds were invariably enjoyable. Most RVers are curious about where you're from, where you're going. And you're curious about them.

I'll have lots of memories to savor over the coming months and years. Getting used to driving GoJoe and then realizing that I'm now whizzing around like I'm driving a Volkswagen. Living it up at Betty's RV Park in the Cajun country of Louisiana. Seeing how Tabasco Sauce and Taylor guitars and Lazy Daze RVs are made. Walking around LBJ's ranch. Being awestruck and feeling small and away from everything at Big Bend. Enjoying the absence of humidity in the western air. Being dazzled by a zillion stars in the sky. Meeting a man who built a mountain. Scooting over the desert on an off-road four-wheeler. Standing on a bluff watching the Pacific waves crash on the beach below. And best of all seeing and enjoying and spending time with old friends and meeting new ones.

All these things add up to one great experience. I consider myself very lucky to have had it. And the cool thing is -- there'll be more down the road.

Takin' It Easy

I was standin' on the corner in Winslow, Arizona, when I noticed this fellow with a guitar. He seemed to be waiting for something.

Fans of the Eagles will recognize this scenario from the song "Take it Easy." Winslow has immortalized it with this statue and the mural on the wall. Note the eagle on the window ledge. They've even parked a real flatbed Ford truck at the curb. "It's a girl, my lord, in flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me."

My brother-in-law John told me about this statue and when I saw the cutoff for Winslow, I just had to stop. This one's for you, John!

Lazy Daze!

Well, I couldn't come to the LA area and not visit the home of Lazy Daze RVs, GoJoe's birth place. Known affectionately as the "Mother Ship" to legions of Lazy Daze owners, the factory is a surprisingly low-key place in an industrial part of Montclair, east of Los Angeles.

I showed up there last Saturday afternoon when the production line was closed for the weekend. I encountered one employee who appeared to be running the whole show. I'm sorry I didn't get her name, but she was very friendly and down-home. We chatted a bit about my cross-country trip and she invited me to look around and check out the Lazy Daze models in the showroom including one of the first ones ever built. As I was doing that, another employee ambled out munching a plate of nachos. He offered to turn on the lights in the RVs. We, too, chatted for a bit and then I asked, "Are you Steve?" When he nodded (still munching nachos) I realized that this was the owner of the place. This is one of the most informal business settings you can imagine. Steve and I talked about Lazy Dazes for the next half hour or so. He told me about the company's history - his uncle and father started the business - and his own 30-year career there. He patiently answered all the questions that had popped into my mind about my RV over the past weeks.

Neither Steve nor the other employee wanted to be photographed and I could understand. It seemed fitting for this low-key company. No splash, no razzle-dazzle. Just a good, quality, timeless product. I left feeling better than ever about GoJoe.

Judy and Bert

I did something I wouldn't have thought possible a month ago: I drove GoJoe on the Los Angeles Freeways. I did this so I could go see old friend Judy Crown and her husband Bert, who live in the northern fringes of LA. But I drove first to their picture framing store in Sherman Oaks and that took some city driving.

Judy is a retired film industry hairdresser. For thirty years she worked on the sets of such TV shows as CSI, Seinfeld, Dallas, Moonlighting, Designing Women and many others. She won two emmy awards for her work and she has great stories of Hollywood stars. Her favorite was Gregory Peck. For years Judy would go to Mr. Peck's home and cut his hair. Early on, Mr. Peck encouraged her to bring along her dog, who would frolic with the Peck pooch while Judy cut hair. Some years ago on a visit to LA, she took me to a taping of Seinfeld. It was great fun to see how one of these shows is put together.

Judy and Bert live in a very cool house in the hills in the far north of LA. It's like a mini-ranch, replete with horses, even though technically it's within the Los Angeles city limits. Judy is a major animal lover, so the five dogs and two cats have the run of the house. The two horses and goat live outside.

Meditation Gardens

These beautiful gardens are on the grounds of the Self Realization Fellowship on a bluff overlooking the Pacific at Encinitas, California.

Taylor Guitars

I have several guitars, but my absolute favorite is my Taylor 510. There are a handful of guitar brands that are widely known such as Martin, Gibson, and a few others. Most of these companies have been around for a long time. Martin was founded in 1833 and is still run by the Martin family. Gibson got its start in 1902.

But Taylor is relatively new on the scene. Founded in 1974 by 19-year-old Bob Taylor, the Taylor guitar company now rivals its venerable competetors. Taylor guitars, instantly recognizable by their distinctively-shaped pick guards, are played by notable musicians in all genres. The factory, in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon, offers tours that show every step of the guitar construction process. The people at Taylor seem especially happy to show their production facility and encourage photography.

Our tour guide (ironically named Martin) was terrific. He had a great sense of humor, explained the nuances of guitar-making very well, and obviously knew music and the music business. He had a bunch of guitar afficianados following him around the factory.

The process starts off with the woods used in the guitars. We saw stacks of Sitka spruce, used for guitar tops, Brazilian rosewood, for the sides and backs, and mahogany for the necks.

Here a guitar side is being bent by a machine invented by a Taylor employee. The wood is seen wrapped in protective paper. The wood is bent dry and is held for a time in a clamp to maintain its shape.

Martin is describing here the ribbing used to reinforce the undersides of guitar tops. He explained that when guitar makers started using steel strings instead of ones made of cat gut, they found that the increased tension would splinter the tops. Thus the cross ribbing seen here.



These fellows are making guitar necks. Much of the guitar building process is done by hand by experts in various areas. However, machines, such as the side-bender, also play a significant role. The cutting of the wood is performed by a precision, computer-operated process. And every Taylor guitar receives its polyester finish from a robotic sprayer. No guitars were being sprayed when we went through, but Martin assured us that it's an amazing sight to see.

Guitar bodies are glued together and allowed to dry overnight. There are numerous steps to making a guitar, and I won't go into them all here. You can click the heading to this post to go to the Taylor website if you wish.



This young woman was introduced to us as one of Taylors top post-production inspectors. Each guitar is personally examined and played extensively before it is shipped.




Here are a few more shots that may appeal to other guitar players:

San Diego

I followed Mary Joe and the boys from the desert to her home in San Diego where she graciously let me camp in her driveway for a couple of days. San Diego is a beautiful place and I wanted to see some things I'd missed on past visits. First off was to go see the Pacific Ocean because the ocean is always a sight for sore eyes and I wanted to know that my RV journey had taken me right to the edge of the continent.



Random shots around San Diego ...













Balboa Park

Right in the middle of downtown San Diego is a huge and wonderful place called Balboa Park. It is billed as the largest urban cultural park in the United States. Within its 1,400 acres are fifteen major museums, performing arts centers, a sports complex, lush formal gardens and the famous San Diego Zoo. Amazingly, the land for the park was set aside way back in 1835 by the Mexican government, which ruled that part of the world in those days. It would take at least a week to fully tour the many things Balboa Park has to offer. I spent part of one day walking around shooting pictures. The only building I entered was the Botanical Building. Here is some of what I saw: