Farewell, Suzi.

After 7.5 years and over 100,000 miles, I've let Suzi the Tiny Camper go.

We were in an accident that caused major cosmetic and minor structural damage, and then I found that she needed serious engine repairs. And so, it was time.

I took a photo of her good side as she left.

There is mourning, and of course I would rather have not been in a collision, but this unfortunate event was a significant source of self-learning and a catalyst for a kind of milestone in my family life.

Starting 2017 car-free. That actually feels pretty good to me. We'll see how long that lasts.

From Car-Free to Car-Dweller

Four years ago, I celebrated becoming car-free in Los Angeles. Now, I'm writing from the Bay Area various places and am very, very attached to my car. When I was living in Downtown LA and spending most of my time there, it was easy to ditch the car and use public transit and bicycles. I still use public transit and my bicycle, when I can. But I've found that I really like camping out of my car on BLM land. And it's lovely being able to wake up to scenes like this after pulling over to sleep among eighteen-wheelers:

Vista Point, Highway 101, Santa Barbara.

I've driven between Los Angeles, Bishop, and the Bay Area many times over the last few months. It's hard for me to think about how much gas I've consumed in such a short period of time. Hundreds of gallons, I'm sure, though I get good mileage and drive conservatively. My current lifestyle includes a lot of driving, which I once tried so hard to get away from, and now, I don't really see myself getting away from it any time soon. It's harder to interact with the outdoors, be car-free, and still be very mobile. But it's possible.

If I were planning to live in one place for a long time, and commute to only a few specific places on a regular basis, it would be easier to imagine working out a way to avoid using a car for outdoors excursions. The truth is that right now, I'm not so willing to try that hard. I'm still hauling around quite a few belongings, I like being able to tuck into my home like a turtle, and I like the feeling of independence I get hurtling down highways between cities, where it can seem so desolate.

Sagebrush Campsite, Owens River Gorge, Eastern Sierra.

For now, the best course I see is in staying in places for longer stretches of time than the weeklong trips I've been taking. Where those places might be, and how far I'll have to drive to get there, are all up in the air. A few days ago I plotted out a dozen different climbing areas to visit around the western US. I've met quite a few people traveling around for a month or more (or indefinitely) for climbing. That doesn't feel like long enough, not at all. I want to take more time than that. And I want to make it sustainable for that time, both financially and environmentally, as much as possible. It's hard to imagine how that is going to work. But I'm trying.

When You Break Your Car Key in the Trunk Lock

After a lovely 3-day, 2-night backpacking trip along the Skyline to the Sea Trail with friends (see Carol's write-up), I arrived at my temporary home-base in Daly City at around 7PM. I open the trunk using my usual insert key-twist-lift motion, began to unload, and then needed to get into the driver's side door again. When I reached for the key to unlock the door, I saw to my confusion and dismay that the end of the key was gone. Then, I went to look at the trunk, and sure enough, there was a bit of silver showing inside the lock.

I went up to my friend's apartment and called AAA. They told me that to have someone come out right then would cost me $235, and $135 if I waited until morning. Being that I'm in transition, I opted to wait until morning. And in the morning, I decided to see if I could somehow get the bit of key out of the lock myself. When I inserted the broken key into the lock, I was still able to turn the lock. This led me to come up with what I realized later was a silly idea to put superglue on the part of the key in my hand, then shove it into the lock and get the other end stuck to it to pull it out. I didn't fully consider the repercussions of getting superglue on other parts inside the lock.

Luckily, my search for superglue in my friend's apartment was fruitless, and when I went to the auto service station around the corner, the workers there seemed dubious enough about my plan that when I finally got Loctite from one of the staff, I paused and tried to figure out some way to compromise between my DIY plan and the pay-someone-to-do-it option.  I lifted the trunk and looked at the lock from behind, and saw that the mechanism holding it in place was relatively simple, just one large and one small metal clip. I used a small screwdriver to pry the clips out of the way, and had my hefty, somewhat greasy little lock in my hand. This took about five minutes. I didn't use the internet, though I could have. I've never done more than jump-start a car and check oil levels, but having an auto mechanic uncle and being around car repairs most of my life probably gave me more motivation to figure it out.

Lock in hand, I walked the mile or so up Mission Boulevard to Daly City Locksmith, which I'd been to once before years ago. They weren't too busy, and Jay was able to remove the key bit and cut me two new keys (somehow I've lost track of all my spares-- they're... somewhere) within about fifteen minutes, and it cost me over $100 less than if I'd had roadside service. I had spent nearly two hours finagling with solutions to get to that point. Going by the penny-saved, penny-earned maxim, I made $50 an hour. Not bad. I'm really lucky the key broke in the most easily removable lock on the car, or else this would have been much more expensive and complicated and stressful. On top of that, I would have gotten a parking ticket the next day if I couldn't move my car.

I was so relieved and grateful that I told Jay and Yvette that I would say nice things about them on the internet. Yvette said to check out Yelp and see the "essay" review on there. Indeed, there have been a few people who were not very happy with their service. Well, it's inevitable that there are bad days now and then, with customers and with staff, and it's a good rule of thumb to always take reviews with a grain of salt. Since I experienced friendly, affordable, quick service from them, I'll be going back.

Other things I ought to write about: the backpacking trip I mentioned, my new occasional gig at a climbing gym, upcoming travel plans, new climbing-related endeavors, and a project picking up again. All in good time.

Car-free Adventures (Bikes are Helpful)

I just subscribed to The Dirtbag Diaries podcast after hearing about its 5th anniversary, and I downloaded a handful of episodes with titles that seemed interesting. I listened to No Car, No Problem tonight. In it, Fitz Cahall (think Ira Glass, dirtbag edition) shares his epic travels from Seattle to the mountains without a car. 

As with many car-free long-distance travels, a bike is integral to success, and even with the bike and Seattle's transit system, it's still sort of grueling. Fitz touches on something important in the episode which I remember from my epic journeys from LA to Orange County by bike, bus, and rail: there was something about the adventure of figuring out how to make it work that made the extra time and sweat and dirt and stress worth it. 

Cahall hits a nerve when he mentions his sense of contradiction in logging so many driving miles while trying to get away from all the pollution-- I've been feeling that since becoming a wuss about biking home in the cold and dark from the climbing gym that's only 6 (very flat) miles from home. Now that longer, warmer days are on the way, I'll try to get back into alignment. It's hard to believe that just four or five months ago I was carrying my skimboard to work, taking a bus for an hour and a half minutes for twenty minutes of daylight on the water in Hermosa Beach, then busing another hour and a half back home in the dark. How times have changed.

I mentioned in a recent post that one of the reasons I can imagine myself holding onto a car is that it's so hard to get outdoors without one. This podcast from 2008 (which is perhaps when going car-free was at its maximum fad-iness? and when I joined in) reminds me that I haven't actually tried to go climbing without my car. To be honest, it feels inconceivable, being 95 pounds and carrying over a third of my body weight in climbing gear while biking uphill. Someday, though, someday.

Slowing Down and Saving Gas // Reluctant Motorist

Photo by Becky Simmons

My period of car-freedom in Los Angeles was relatively short. "There's something revolutionary about not having a car in LA," a car-free colleague said to me recently, and I agree with that. The other part of it was that being car-free takes a degree of strategizing, planning, and safety considerations that a typical Southern California upbringing does not teach. I have friends who have grown up in LA without a car, and continue to do so, and someday maybe I'll have that kind of resolve again. Right now, though, I'm really glad I have a functional, right-with-the-law vehicle because it's pretty hard to get out to nature without a car (car-pooling is preferred, of course, unless it's your first time meeting some stranger from a rock climbing website at the crag-- it's okay to trust your life with them on the other end of the rope, not okay to drive together... there's a trace of flawed-ness in my logic, but only a trace).

I sort of made peace with getting a car back in 2009 when my life was pretty erratic and I was regularly traveling between Culver City, East LA, Little Tokyo, Gardena, Bellflower, and Redondo Beach. With the horrendous spike in gas prices, I've been making a game of trying to get the most miles-per-gallon possible.

What I do to maximize my mileage:

Take my foot off the gas. A lot. I coast to toward yellow and red lights so that I don't have to brake as much to stop. I like to also try to time it so that I'll roll close to the intersection just as the light turns green again, and then not have to use my brakes at all! And I gloat a little inside about people who zoom past me and are still trying to get started up again as I ease past them. I rarely, rarely ever use my brakes on the freeway. Whenever I see traffic moving freely and people's brake lights come on, I wonder what the heck is going on. My first memory of being a passenger with someone who used the brakes to slow down on the freeway when just easing off the gas would have done the job was pretty unpleasant.

I thought I had more tricks than that for mileage, but I guess this is my main one. Also, I weigh under 100 pounds most of the time so maybe that's a factor, too. Every little bit counts, no? My car is twelve years old and rated at about 26 average mpg, and I've been getting between 28-30 (maybe a tiny bit more on those longer drives to New Jack City).

My games might be annoying to some people, but as we quickly approach $5/gallon, saving a gallon here and there might be a game more are willing to play.

Rethinking Los Angeles Driving

On July 1st last year, my reluctant quest to become a car-owner again ended with my acquisition of an automobile and the requisite insurance policy. Mostly, I wasn't very happy about having a car-dependent lifestyle again, especially after having articulated my passion for making it car-free in Los Angeles.

I've adjusted again, as many people who live and drive in Los Angeles must. It takes a shift in thinking. Of course, this doesn't mean being complacent about a world where we create so much pollution just to get around in our own big chunks of metal (some prettier than others), but it does mean perhaps shifting to a kinder, gentler view of our fellow commuters.

Everyone is just trying to get around, and I honestly don't believe the ass-holery that we see on the road is often intentional. I thought about how I have no idea how many times I've done things that frustrated others on the road, and how many times I have made moves that were embarrassing and probably annoyed people. To avoid becoming too jaded, angry, overwhelmed by all the traffic mishaps, I've had to learn to be forgiving. Driving Angelenos might be a much more understanding, forgiving people than we realize. Drive from East LA to Santa Monica on a Friday during rush hour and see.

In the end, the person in the car that cut you off is as much a person as you are; equally human, equally imperfect (though at the moment you might think them much moreso).

Compassion is a great coping mechanism.

Image from alforque

Left in the Meter

Parking meters. Hate them. Especially when, in many parts of the city, the rates are as high as $3 per hour. It's scary that we can now pay for metered parking with credit cards. How much more expensive are these things going to get? Hideous.

I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but when I put too much change in a meter and come back well before it's up, I get a bit frustrated. I get this feeling that I should stick around just to get my money's worth or something. Weird, I know.

I did that today, but it was after arriving at a meter that already had time in it. And I remembered how happy--almost giddy-- I get when I park at a meter and find that there's still time on it.

So I let go of my annoyance at spending a quarter needlessly, knowing that the next person who parked in that spot would experience that same pleasant surprise and (hopefully) goodwill toward the universe that I felt when I found time left on the meter.



Image by get directly down

A City of Amateurs

These days I do most of my online writing with The Undeniables. I often find myself writing about Los Angeles. Thought I'd share something here that I wrote recently:

A City Of Amateurs

The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror. “So where are you from?”


“Los Angeles,” she said. On yet another business trip to New York, Taylor prepared herself for the typical New Yorker critique of her home town. She heard the same complaints about LA being glitzy, superficial, and materialistic over and over again throughout her travels, and she prepared herself to defend the city yet again. There were parts of LA that few outsiders understood, and some inhabitants never found.


“Ah, LA.” The driver sighed.


Here it comes, Taylor thought.


“Kinda miss it. When you think about it, people trust each other a lot out there.”


Slightly bewildered, Taylor asked “What do you mean?”


“Well out here most people leave the driving to the pros, like me. To the delivery guys and whatnot. All their trust is in the trained people and the–well, the train operators. Out there in LA, people get into cars every single day and everyone has some degree of faith in the skills of the other drivers. I mean when you think about it, it’s 90% amateurs operating two-ton or heavier machines to get all over the city.”


“I’ve lived there all my life and never thought about it exactly that way,” Taylor said, “but you’re right. That is a lot of trust.”


“I think about going back sometimes, but the taxi franchises out there are killer. Maybe in a couple of years the LA Taxi Workers Alliance will get somewhere and I’ll give the city another go.” The cab came to a slow halt. “Here we are. $7.60.”


Taylor handed him a ten. “Thanks. It was good talking to you. Maybe I’ll get this cab again sometime.”


He smiled, “Yeah, maybe. Maybe in LA.” And he winked.

Written 23 November 2009.
--

My life currently has me spending time in East LA, the South Bay, West LA, and Long Beach, with some Orange County and West Hollywood thrown in from time to time.

This means I drive. A lot.

Driving is so much a part of our lives in Southern California that we don't think much of it. It's not a big deal to have a license. It was while driving that I realized how much trust we have on the road. Of course, we're always on guard in case something goes wrong, but for the most part, we have to trust (to some extent) that the people in the cars around us know how to drive properly, or none of us would ever get on the road.

I wonder what that says about us, and the Southern Californian mentality, that we trust each other to get in our cars and generally not do anything crazy. That day in and day out, we drive miles and miles to get to where we need to go with some degree of faith that the dozens or even hundreds of other cars aren't going to kill us (though we do worry about it).

It's kind of amazing.