Full Circle

Can you go home again?

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© 1995-2007 Carla King | All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Encinitas, Oceanside, and San Clemente give way to Orange County, Los Angeles, and Hollywood, all running together to form a dark spot on the map of California, leaking inland like an ink spill. This area is choked with cars, and despite its proximity to the coast, the smog is inexorable, unyielding even to the ocean breezes that clear the wide sand beaches of Santa Monica.

Highway 1 winds along the cliffs and beaches of the west coast of North America. It crosses the border from Baja California, Mexico, into the United States, and crosses another border into Canada. Here in Malibu, traffic was slow. Parked cars and pedestrians. A sea-soaked, bikini-clad brunette stuck at the double yellow lines, dogs running after sea gulls, sun-bleached surfers dodging traffic, longboards under their arms. All the while I watched the highway patrol car in my rearview mirror. He'd been tailing me for miles, speaking into his radio. The sun glinted off his mirrored aviator glasses, and then he flipped the switch that turned on the flashing red and blue lights.

CRIPES. I HAD BEGUN THE TRIP sans license plate, thanks to striking Oregon state employees. In June I had a six-week temporary permit in-hand. Then another. Then in Ohio, on the cusp of approval, I'd switched the part of the engine that had the serial number on it. After that I needed a confirmation of ownership and coordination of serial numbers from Ural in order to be approved by the DMV. But between the post-strike disorganization at the Oregon DMV, my transience, and Ural America's move to a larger facility, it hadn't been done.

"Good afternoon, ma'am," he said, without smiling. "I noticed when I was following you that your right rear tail light is out. That's important for a motorcycle, to have all your lights running correctly blah blah blah blah..." He finished with, "So what kind of motorcycle is this, anyway?" Just what I'd been hoping for. Curiosity, not a ticket. Please don't ask for the papers, I silently prayed.

My heart was racing throughout our conversation. He could have talked motorcycles forever. I'd like to get home tonight, if I can, I finally said.

All right, he said. But you fix that tail light before dark, ma'am. And he walked away without even looking at my driver's license.

I'd pushed the pause button on my life to do this trip -- something that seemed much more attractive until sometime last month.

I wondered about Renata, who would have made her way through Russia and China by now. At this moment she might have rendezvoused with her boyfriend. They were to meet in Europe, and then her trip might last another four months.

Funny to be traveling in America for the first time. I thought that perhaps I would find a place I'd rather live during this trip. After all, America is my home -- or so I thought in the beginning. But America is not my home. The San Francisco Bay Area is my home. Though I've lived other places, I always return.

Since the days of Daniel Boone, America's immigrants have adventured west in anticipation of freedom or wealth, or simply to adventure. It is the same today. Non-traditional behavior is taken more for granted in the Bay Area, where the counter-culture is less counter than culture. It is the edge of the world here, and what does one do at such a precipice but stop and look over the vast empty sea, assessing life and opportunities? Most borders are like this -- natural barriers and decision points where people are forced to settle because the emotional or monetary cost of continuing is too great.

Cultures have taken their turns at the California coast, from Portuguese whalers to Chinese fishermen, from Spanish missionaries to Italian sailors. Each has had a turn, and now the coast is one long melange, a patchwork of peoples who protect their language, their art, and their cuisine. It makes living there a rich experience.

I RODE ALONG THE WINDING COASTLINE through Santa Barbara, past the bare brown mountains in the empty spaces between there and Big Sur. I passed by San Simeon and newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst's Mediterranean castle. Zebras graze among the cows and horses on seaside pastures, the only evidence of Hearst's private zoo -- only one of the excesses of his home.

Inured to most traffic noises, the animals looked up at the sound of the Ural and watched us pass. Even now I double take at them, these creatures marked for existence on a different continent. The Ural is also meant for a different continent. A creature frozen in time, the Queen Beast has survived the experiment of traversing a territory she was never meant for. This is the last year Urals will be made as they have been since 1942. Designed to traverse war-torn Europe and Siberian snowfields, now they are being improved to fit a more comfort-than-need-based market, to keep up with a faster paced world, the world of freeways and unleaded gas and the demands of consumers who have a wide variety of buying options.

The motor of the Queen Beast has attracted more than her share of attention in our travels. She's been a good companion, cranky sometimes, especially in the beginning when we were getting to know each other. But strangely, those are the times I now remember with the most fondness. She gave me the opportunity to connect with people and places in the north by causing delays, whereas I whizzed through the South without incident.

Cyberfriend Vera, with Natalia soon to come

On-the-road friend Renata

IT HAS BEEN AN INCREDIBLE JOURNEY, and I am adjusting to its end. Now I am writing from my newly rented apartment in San Francisco instead of from a picnic table by my tent. I have a phone number, a mailing address, a desktop computer, and am collecting freelance jobs writing for the computer and Internet industry. When I email something I no longer have to ask to borrow a phone jack from a mechanic, parts shop, or farmer.

Strange. There has hardly been time to reflect on what this trip has meant, what the outcome has been. At least I'm convinced that women are allowed to ride motorcycles alone around the country, that traveling America is as safe as walking to the grocery store, and people, in general, are incredibly kind when given half a chance.

It's more than that, though, I thought as I rode through Big Sur. I felt a twinge of possession as I passed the dirt pullout where I parked my car whenever I went hiking there. And another one seeing Carmel and Monterey, where I'd learned to scuba dive just six months before.

The waterfront in Monterey

By the time I reached Santa Cruz, I was a mess. I wanted to stop at all the houses of all my friends and have them hug me to be sure I was home. But I was running out of light, and I also wanted to see my family. So half an hour later I had crossed the mountain to Morgan Hill and was riding up the gravel driveway, breaking through the red, white, and blue banners my mother had strung across it. The clutch cable dragged on the ground, having broken again just a mile from the house, but I didn't care. I'd made it. Full Circle.

So now I'm home from my exploration of borders and blue highways, but it seems that it's not quite the end of my trip. Next week the Ural and I land at the Digital Be-In, giving sidecar rides live on the Internet in the Digital Frontier. Then there will be a continuation of this story on the Verbum site -- in whatever form it might take. I'll see you there.

Editor's note: Carla King went on to visit China on the invitation of an American expat living in Beijing who lent her his Chang Jiang sidecar motorcycle. She spent three months exploring Northern China, illegally, because it turns out foreigners aren't allowed to pilot their own vehicles between provinces. The China Road dispatches live at http://www.chinaroad.org. In 2000 she journeyed in India on a Royal Enfield Bullet, and in 2001 a Moto Guzzi California EV in Italy, including Sardenia and Sicily. All her dispatches can be found at http://www.carlaking.com.

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