Hello from sunny and currently 87-degree California! I have found the heat I have desired and now I must complain about it while in air conditioning.

I’ll start with the drive here, which from Phoenix at night began well and then quickly devolved into a huge slowdown as a tractor trailer literally caught fire on the highway —

I overnighted in Quartzsite which is an odd little place. There’s a ton of desert and scrublands on the drive from Arizona to California and not much else of note until you’re actually in CA. Then, the landscape presents a wild scene: palm trees and desert beneath some snow-capped mountains. I found it to be quite pleasant and comfily arid.

Upon the horizon, a mirage and a joyous shopping binge of foods to prepare for the homies once I arrived.

I tried to make the most of the long day of driving by checking out a spot marked in my map — El Mirage Dry Lakebed. Of course, like everything else I do, it was closed. Recent rain had made the lakebed undriveable for the cars and motorbikes that like to scoot about its surface. But I was able to walk down and see what’s what. Then, it was only a short drive up to my beloved Bena Rd and 58, where the rolling hills look like an old Windows XP desktop background.

Fruit! Glorious fruit. I bought some giant fucking mandarins at a farmer’s stand — the kind where you peel off the rind and the orange is literally sitting inside the skin, unattached. Fucking phenomenal. I also snatched a huge bag of avocados off the side of the road for $5. And I have been plucking lemons off my friend’s tree multiple times a day to have some makeshift lemonade. She was just gonna let them rot on the tree! Some people don’t even know what they have.

There’s so many plants here. After a long and gloomy winter spent indoors, I have really been enjoying it.

Every year in Fresno I deeply enjoy making a shitload of food for everyone. I want to earn my keep in a way and say thanks for putting me up. I made a bunch of roast veggies and threw in some lentils, olives, and feta and have been eating it all week. Went out to eat a few times. Had some steaks and farmer’s market broccolis.

Here’s some goofy shit I’ve seen around so far —

On my weekend, some friends and I went down to Cayucos and Cambria, California. It’s on the coast, and my friend has been raving about rockhounding agates and eating at the Hidden Kitchen restaurant. Well, I went, and it was a blast. I got an awesome banana – almond – coffee smoothie and a savory blue corn waffle. I might have gone back two more times. I had to get some of the waffle mix to bring home.

The beaches were great. We had fantastic luck at Moonstone Beach finding all sorts of oddities. There were blue jellyfish all over, but luckily they weren’t the stingy type.

I love searching for agates. Here, they’re lacy and so white and kind of opalescent that they can appear to be almost blue. Last year, I went to Agate beach, and suffered trying to even understand what the fuck an agate was. This year, I am proud to say, we found so many! But it’s hard — like nature’s Where’s Waldo. I swear I could spend hours looking at the ground. And I did.

As an example — here’s a photo of the ground. Can you find the agate?

No?

It’s hard!

It’s made a bit easier when the rocks are wet because they reflect light differently. But, it’s still hard to find.

I marked one on the photo.

Here’s the haul from that day —

We also made a stop at Elephant Seal Vista Point. God, if you could smell a picture. Imagine the scent of fish-and-shit backwash. That’s the vibe here. Fucking vile. But these bags of meat look great.

Believe it or not, those are all pups, just a few hundred pounds. When they come back in mating season in October, the older males can weigh 5,000lbs.

We made a stop at the monolithic Morro rock, and i snapped some pics.

After this exhausting day of getting beaten by the wind and partially frozen, we visited the San Luis Obispo farmer’s market and got a few odds and ends.

My friend was excited to show me around her hometown of SLO. So first we went to the Avila Valley Barn which had major high school and awkward-years memories for her and I fed every beast I could see. Also got an Olallieberry turnover (whatever the fuck that is?) it was great — like a marionberry or sweeter, fruitier blackberry.

We next did a hike out by Pirate’s cove to the cave landing. It was a pleasant time. I wanted to go to the nude beach right there but it was quite chilly and we had stuff to do. So I’m saving it for next time and fairer weather. I bought some plants at Trader Joe’s and then hit up the hardware store before getting some Thai for lunch.

My friend was being cagey about plans and it turned out she had booked us a breadmaking workshop at the House of Bread to make focaccia. They give you a wine and cheese situation and then have you make the breads, bake them, and eat them. This was directly after injecting that shitload of Thai food directly into my gut so I was dying but we polished off that board and ate so much fucking bread I could cry. I swear I have eaten this bread for the past five days now. Send help.

I had heard things about the Montaña de Oro State Park so we hit it up and it didn’t disappoint. There’s a ton of hikes there and a bunch of tide pools we were hitting at a lowering tide. There wasn’t a ton there just yet save for a bunch of barnacles and hermit crabs.

A cool feature of this place for whatever reason is the presence of hagstones, these rocks that have holes drilled right through them. So I had more fun staring at the ground.

There’s also these eucalyptus groves driving in and out of the park. If only you could smell them. Like a sweet, almost citrusy and earthy eucalyptus scent. I kept going over and smelling the leaves. A+++

Next, we stopped at the Hidden Kitchen in Cambria and got the exact same food I had the days prior. Listen, I’m a monogamist. Plus, I really take pleasure in showing something I like to someone I like. I’m not complaining.

Then, more rocks.

This is what an afternoon here looks like, basically —

If you like this or hate this you’ll know within the first twenty minutes or so. My friend ended up taking a nap and getting covered in stones while I searched and searched.

We capped off the night with a visit to the Madonna Inn, which is the thing to do in SLO. It’s a gaudy, over-the-top place, and I was forced to go in the men’s restroom as their urinal is a horrifying waterfall. We were so starved from only having eaten bread at this point that we got a steak and loaded potato, non-negotiable.

And then, we visited the other SLO mainstays, the Monarch Butterfly Grove. I literally saw two butterflies in the entire time we were there, which was a worrying sign.

Now that it’s my workweek, I’m just spending my time hunkering down, enjoying company, and cooking and eating a ton.

It’s been a good trip so far. I am having a great time and enjoying everyone’s company and trying to take it easy not driving 10hrs every off day from work. I am pretty fucking exhausted working East Coast hours in Pacific time, but feel so excited that what’s awaiting me is a more favorable time change, a stopover in some solid quality spots, and my welcoming home at the end of this.