See you on the Flip Flop: San Fran to L.A.

The drive down to L.A. got started after a trip to the consulate and to visit Dan C. and give him our farewell Pabst T-shirt and get taqueria cancun with Melissa, and a CD from Gustavo of music files, so we'd have something to do music-composition-wise in Mexico (of course there's those electro-cumbia ambitions of Akire to be fullfilled)

Through Gilroy (capital of the garlic world) to the Highway Five was smooth sailing. Big Bertha, the Mexi-Submarine Vanagon, was solid but hot with no aircon. We rested in Coalinga for ice cream and Lama had a break with some other dog types who were traveling with their people. It was a pretty sunset, but we knew at that point we wouldn't make it to Greg Camphire's until midnight. Midnight in East L.A., Highland Park area, with a spectacular view of the barrio. Tim Norton was there to greet us and we hung out on the balcony, where we could all feel like God up there with the sort of peaceful, grand view of a police helicopter chasing down a frenzied car below, and then swarming around to attack the human that jumped out of the vehicle and into the Los Angeles jungle with precision spotlight beams cutting through the backyards of the neighbors on the flats. The moon was almost full, sparkling Hollywood just a few breaths as the crow flied away into the night.

Greg wants to ex-pat to Japan for a year. We talked that over in the context of music and beers, as the police chase continued to be a good show. Too bad our time was short in L.A...
The next morn', on the advice of our friend Ravi who lives with Greg, we got up quickly and rode down the hill to Herbies Auto Shop. We could have been at the mexican hacienda of car resorts. Bertha the Mexi Submarine had a coolant problem, so as that was being attended to, we hung out under some trees behind bright yellow bars, with a beautiful blue sky, and spectacular Rumba music (sung by La India) was playing through the neighborhood. In less than an hour we were ready to drive to pick up ice to cool off the van, and drive through the Palm Springs desert to Tucson.