Okay, this was going to be an artful and engaging string of anecdotes about the road trip down to LA, then back up to the farm in the new car. But it just kept getting longer and less interesting, and I began getting distracted by the preparations for the next looming road trip. Which at this point is more than just looming: I’m packed and have my alarm set for my ride to the airport tomorrow morning at 6:45. So if I’m going to catch you up at all, I’d better make it quick.

When I last left you, I was southbound from Kettleman City in the shiny new/used Tesla, wondering what exact sort of cult I had just bought into. Spoiler: I’m still getting used to the car. It’s a hoot to drive, but I have some reservations about the whole thing.

The southbound drive was to see my mother (Hi mom!) in her new digs, where she is spending a year with an experimental “downsizing” in Santa Monica. The lovely, well-laid-out apartment is a few floors down from some of her closest friends, with the beach a block away in one direction, and countless coffee shops, bakeries and delightful little cafes in the other. It’s…a nice setup, and I’m looking forward to more excuses to visit. I mean, in addition to getting to see my mom again.

But by this point I’d already been away from the farm for over a week on short notice, and there was stuff that really needed to be getting done up north.

First stop on the way north was Eden and Brian on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. I’ve known Eden since half-past high school, when she played Sloane to my friend Robert’s Ferris Bueller, and I tagged along haplessly as Cameron though one inadvisable adventure after another. Eden and I survived; Robert, years after we went our separate ways, did not. I think she and I bonded as much over survivor guilt as with our common obsession with writing well (you can find some of her stuff over at emkennedy.net and Substack, and there are a couple of books out there from her mommyblogging years).

A quick recharge in Goleta, then again in Pismo Beach, then on to Cayucos to call on college friend and musicians Russ and Claire. (Russ and Claire have an even more musical son who is basically a young clone of Pete Townsend. I kid you not. One of his projects in his teens was recording a complete reproduction of the Tommy album for fun).

I made the final dart up the coast to Palo Alto as the sun set over the coastal range and made it back to Palo Alto in time to kiss the wife and daughter, get a good night’s sleep and…

…head out the next morning, north to the farm.

Now, it’s March, and we’d had a mild winter, so I’d planned a delightful electric stroll up the coast, seeing other friends along the way – Olivia and Brian outside of Eureka, and Tito in Portland. Right?

Remember that saying, “If you want to hear the gods laugh, tell them your plans?” I should have kept my mouth shut.

Because you also remember that crazy storm two weeks ago that wiped out the Sierra and brought a couple of feet of fluffy skiable goodness to our own Cascades? Well, that was just hitting the mountains as Keith and I headed north.

And…wait – who’s Keith?

Oh yeah. Before heading south, Devon and I went out to dinner with my college housemate Keith and his wife Kristina. Kristina teaches for Stanford, but Keith is recently retired. So when I told them for the Nth time that we needed to find time for them to come up and see the farm, Keith carpe’d the diem and offered to drive up with me when I passed through again on the way north.

Reading the highway reports of state highways closed all across northern California and southern Oregon, we realized we were going to have to bail out on the coastal route through the Siskiyous and stick to the Big Road: I-5, which was going to be in the shadow of the worst of it, and have – by far – the most snow clearing machinery dedicated to keeping it open.

Monday morning I loaded up on snacks at home and electricity at the nearby Supercharger station, picked Keith up, and launched northward. 

Honestly, I don’t remember half the stops we made. We talked the whole way, following the little blue line on the car’s screen, keeping half an eye on the “charge remaining at destination” estimator, which invariably crept lower as each leg progressed. There was the Italian diner populated by big hats and adorned with the mounted heads of pretty much every mammal I could name in North America (and a sizable fraction of Africa on the opposing wall). There was “Wine Tasting, Burgers, Shakes and Fries” at a repurposed truck stop half past Oregon. There was pelting rain in the passes and great big gobs of snow chasing us north to the Willamette Valley. Somewhere short of Portland there was a semi with a legless Halloween skeleton clinging to the loading doors. I’m sure there was more, that I’ve forgotten because I didn’t have the presence of mind to pull out the camera, but we…saw stuff.

And then, early evening on the second day, we were home.

Keith stayed on for a few days to meet farm folks, explore the area and work in a couple of hikes before heading back south, leaving me to play catch up with the farm and brace myself for the next trip.

As I said, the next trip kicks off tomorrow with about 30 hours of planes, shuttles and airports to get me to Hobart, Tasmania, where I’ll be helping lead a software workshop next week. I’m trying to not let my expectations run away from me, but more than one well-traveled friend has told me that Hobart is the most beautiful city they’ve ever seen, so I’m kind of looking forward to this.

My hosts have thoughtfully allowed me to book free time at the end of the trip, but up front is going to be a good, solid, intense week of work, with me in the hot seat for almost all of it. For all I know, I’m going to be so burnt out at the end that I’m going to just want to lie on the beach and try to coax someone to pour whatever it is they drink down there into me during my brief spells of wakefulness.

I’ll keep you posted.