California or Bust!

Well, there is a lot to catch up on, and we are still trying to figure out the best way to fuse our writing together, so if some of these posts seem a little redundant, we apologize. Anyway, the last post found us in Scottsdale, AZ. Real quick note about the desert. Fuck the desert. I'm sorry to anyone that lives there and loves it, it just isn't for me. Arizona was full of amazing people with terrible sad stories, Arian nation assholes, and lots of dry sun. After Nora dropped us off on I-10, we caught one more ride up to the other side of town, then landed one hell of a hitch. No more than 30 seconds after we walked up to a new on ramp, two beautiful girls in a silver cougar pulled up and waved us over. We hopped in and met Saving Grace and Sarah Lee, two of the coolest people in Phoenix. They were only heading a little ways up the road, but decided after a few exits that what they really needed to be doing with their day was driving to California to get us to Venice beach, a drive of some 350 miles. After driving around Phoenix for about an hour collecting supplies for the trip, we hit the road headed for the coast with "Red Hot Love" blasting out of the radio (that shot is going to be the opening scene for the movie, by the way...). The only snag along the way was the L.A. memorial day traffic that all four of us had forgotten about completely. I thought Denver had it bad sometimes, but i have never seen traffic backed up 100 miles outside of town. Crazy. Anyway, thanks again to our two lovely chauffeurs, and a note to Saving Grace: your light will shine so much brighter if you let it shine on the world than it will locked up in a black hole. So that brings us to Venice Beach. A totally cool place, except for rabid police officers and hordes of crazy wingnuts living on the beach. We showed up, to Venice Beach specifically, because we had been told that these were beaches that we could sleep on, however when we arrived, we found that this was not the case. After receiving several mixed messages from locals, we decided to ask a local police officer so that we could truly find out the score. He told us that if we were caught sleeping on his beach, not only would he cite us with a ticket, he would also tie us to the nearest palm tree and beat us senselessly with billy sticks while his partner tazed us for good measure, then take us to the nearest county jail and lock us in the pen with the "sodomizers". Needless to say, Los Angeles is not a city I feel i need ever visit again. After a few sleepless nights on a construction site rooftop we had found, we got the hell out of L.A. by way of the Pacific Coast Highway. While walking along the road in Malibu, Chase made an interesting observation: "Wow, this is really a beautiful place, too bad rich people have made it so that only they can live here." We eventually made it to Ventura, CA, where we were picked up by the next group of the coolest people ever. Special thanks to the totally awesome Jasmine, Shelly, Lana, and Crystal for taking us to some locals secret hot springs located in the beautiful Matilija Valley. We spent a whole day, evening, and next morning soaking in the beautiful, naturally landscaped sulfur pools, meeting all sorts of cool people, then set out this morning. We had only made it about 1/2 mile down the road when we stopped to ask one of the residents of the valley if we could use their hose to fill up our water. This request turned into an offer of an afternoons landscaping work at 12 bucks an hour in exchange for lunch and a soak in their own private soaking tub. Thank you again so much Jeff and Karen for your hospitality and the work. You have an amazing home and we both feel incredibly fortunate for having been able to witness it. I think that is about it for now, we are currently in Ojha, CA, heading slowly north. California is awesome, and thanks to all of you for taking this journey with us. See you soon.