California Highway

Someone must have praying for me. Good praying, I mean, not the sanctimonious prayer of some, where the person tells God what the prayee NEEDS (in their opinion). No, this one was coming from someone who knew me enough to want me to have God present to me during my pilgrimage-on-the-California-highways instead of my pilgrimage in Ireland, where I wasn't because I have no discipline and cannot save money. I didn't even have the money to be doing this camping trip which was really a pilgrimage of the .... you get the picture.

Doogie and I (Doogie is my Westie and soul mate) set out one early morning in May for San Diego, and planned to camp there two nights before heading up the coast to Oceano Dunes, stay there for two nights, and then get up to San Francisco. Then over to Tahoe or Utah, and down to the north rim of the Grand Canyon or through Flagstaff. I was going to be flexible and open, because I don't get to do that in my work as a parish priest enough (you know how those people can be; they are more interested in schedules and actually following the schedules than they are about being spontaneous in the spirit!).

Except that someone whispered doubt into my ear just before I left... and so I abandoned the trip midway, and it could have been a complete failure.

But somebody must have been praying for me.

After two good nights and a full day of dog beaches and dog friendly shops and cooking over a gas stove in San Diego in between, we hit the road for Oceano Dunes. I was prepared to ditch this portion and find a plan B. Oceano Dunes -- I had read and they didn't exaggerate -- was one huge camping and ATV beach. I envisioned 20 -some people on quads zipping all over the beach, up and down the dunes, and the possibility that there wouldn't much privacy. I was going to listen to my gut (Ms Holy Spirit herself) to see if it felt safe there. I shot up I-5 from the campsite because it was close by, and decided I would just bear down and get through Los Angeles as quickly as possible using sheer stupidity. As with every big city, there were many detractors telling me how many hours it would take me to get through the traffic.

It wasn't that bad, really. Except that bearing down and ramming through is one of the best ways to miss the scenery, which I KNOW wouldn't have happened if I had gone on the Ireland pilgrimage with Gil Stafford and his group. One of the stated principles of his group "Peregrini," which, from what I vaguely remember from seminary, has something to do with traveling, is that you should NOT miss the scenery.

Fortunately, I came to myself like the son in the story of the generous father (also known as the prodigal son), and got off I-5 a little after lunchtime to take the 101 toward the ocean. The 101, I found out later, has a worse repurtation than LA for its notorious traffic snarl-ups. Or "parking lots" more accurately.

I finally got off at a sign that said "Beach Traffic" or something similar, and parked it in a shopping center with interesting shops. After letting Doogie pee and smell a couple of unhealthy-looking trees in the parking lot, I took him to Starbucks and parked him with a scruffy looking guy that looked like he would throw down his life if someone tried to take Doogie from him so I could pee and smell the coffee in my own parking island of caffeine. (okay, that's over the top...)

Doogie and I sat grateful not to be moving and grateful not to be in the sweltering Arizona heat, and we people watched. Within sight of the shopping center was a middle class neighborhood; hell, I might have even been able to afford a house there if it wasn't California or Arizona. I got out my Atlas and tried to figure out where we were. We had been driving five hours by then, and I realized how silly I had been originally to think I might be able to get to San Francisco in one day. I was even beginning to wonder if we would get to Oceano before it got dark, but had re-discovered daylight saving time there in California. We don't do DST in Arizona; there is no need to inflict MORE daylight when the hottest temperatures soar even higher on our time off when our employers are not paying the AC bill.

I had missed the signs saying where we were. I have full-blown ADHD, but that usually doesn'y apply to traveling. I'm more like