This is Dedicated to the One I Love - Sunday 8/24/2008 (Part 2)

Yeah, you can boast about your significant others all you want. Hydra gets the prize!

To make what could be a very long story short, we stopped in Tehachapi for lunch on the drive home. We were pretty much ignored by the servers, so we got up and left. Prices were not great, menu was not exciting. We moved on.

Stopped a couple more places but nothing looked interesting. Ended up at Cafe 58 in Mojave (formerly Jerry's, where we've stopped for years.)

Got all the way to Palmdale, and as we were walking into Trader Joe's I realized that I might have left my notebook and my Waterman pen in that first restaurant, about 50 miles back. I got out my (admittedly lame) cell phone and found that someone had left a message about ten minutes (and fewer miles) after we left.

I was willing to take Hydra the last 12 miles home and go back for it myself. But he knew I was tired and said it would be almost fun if we did it together, and so without being grumpy about it in the least, we turned around and went back!


By the time we got back to Kelcy's, the server who had called was gone for the day. I left a note and $20.

The notebook offers a reward for return. (I've lost one and had one stolen and they still feel like holes.)

I figure that if she'd been there she might have declined the reward. But I also figure that she would at least want to have it offer and be able to decline. It seemed like much better karma to leave a little money along with a note in which I thanked her and told her I hoped she'd accept my token of gratitude with the same open heart with which it was given. (Also don't want to insult a person by implicitly implying that they wouldn't have done it without the reward.)



Hydra, on top of being a really good sport who is always supportive of my writing and other life choices, is a good photo scout. He wanted to make sure we had a shot of this, too.


Classic California.

When we finally pulled off the freeway 100 miles (what is it with that distance?) and 2 hours later than expected, I dialed my iPod to Bridge Over Troubled Waters and improvised these lyrics:

Like a bridge over troubled waters
I will drive around
Like a bridge over troubled waters
Till all your stuff is found

Hey. It's love. It doesn't have to be eloquent.

The Lemonade of Love - Saturday 8/11/2007

Okay, you would probably respect me more if I didn't tell you how we came to drive over this bridge on Big Tujunga Canyon Road on Saturday. But I can't seem to help myself.

After the fabulous Mort Sahl concert on Friday night, I realized that I hadn't brought home the work I needed so I could sleep in after watching Sunday's Perseid meteor showers. Hydra offered to drive us from the West Side to Toluca Lake at 9:30 at night without batting an eye.

As we approached, I realized that I left my keys on my desk in the office. Good grief. I mean, really. To make a long story short, on Saturday OneL graciously agreed to meet me at the office so I could retrieve my files and my keys. (I'd offered to pick them up at her house, but she is just that helpful!)

Hydra drives down with me to get the keys, etc., and we took the long scenic way home, stopping along the way to take photos.

You ask how we made it 20 years? I'll tell you: it's all his fault!

(I can see the movie title now: I Married a Lemonade Machine.)



I saw these steps down to a little tunnel.

"Hey," I called up to Hydra, "I'll bet you could totally tumble right out of this opening!"


I was right! The other side of the little tunnel. This doesn't really show how far you would continue to drop if you fell out this end. It's a couple hundred feet to the creek bed.



Is this not a lovely vestige of old school road building? I love stuff like this. Next time I need to get a shot from the other side of the bridge. One of the nearby tunnels was built in 1941, so I'm guessing this is of a similar age.

Hydra likes to say things like, "Don't count on those pillars too much when you're taking that photo," when I do stuff like hang over the edge to get a shot of the dangling broken chain against the pretty stone wall.



Probably every time we drive past this road house cafe I fantasize about living in some place remote like this (but still only about 50 minutes from L.A.), running a business where people would come to you, so you wouldn't get lonely and start behaving like some character out of a Stephen King novel.

I promise, Hydra, we won't even own an ax.