Viva Los Angeles

A brisk wind cuts from the southeast through a chrystal-blue sky. It is a sunny day - a good day for riding - and the LA plan is now up in the air. The plan was to hug the coast and blow through town by sunset and set up shop somewhere near Huntington Beach for the night. Plans, like the winds, have a way of changing. Enter the poision oak.

Three nights ago we wanted to climb a mountain. In wine country. Santa Barbara County, you've all seen Sideways. It was a tough climb. We stashed the bikes in the bush along Santa Rosa Road and started the climb to the top of the mountain with with the hopes of being rewarded at the end of the trek with a stunning 360 view of Santa Barbara wine country. Dark - the sage brush got thick and the track sodden with mud and we stopped. In the thick bramble just short of the summit we made a makeshift camp and wrapped our cheese in tortillas and told stories; awaiting the brilliant sunrise to follow.

Back in Malibu. Three days later and I have a little poision oak on my hands and feet from the trek into the Santa Barbara hills. Matt is not so lucky. The poision oak has spread over his legs and is making its way north. North to a difficult region for irritation for cyclists. We parted ways this morning over coffee as he went to search for the mirage of reasonably priced medical care in the desert of corporate health care institutions that prey upon the uninsured in the most expensive zip code of the country with the most overpriced medical care in the world.

I, however, have remained fortunate and experienced a limited reaction - to this point - to the poision oak. For the time being I'll have to hang out in LA and wait for my buddy's yarbles to mend so we can get back on the road and make like Hernan Cortes - minus the genocide - and conquor Mexico on bicycle.

Now I am looking for a place to stay in LA. At the Pepperdine University library - beats the hell out of the public library - and trying to round up some sort of quarters for the evening. I used to know a couple of pretty girls that moved out here from Ohio, but their old numbers don't work any more. So I'm looking for a writer buddy of my brother's who is living out here - working on a cure for cancer, or something - with a place in Hollywood. Viva Los Angeles.