Derrick and the Cat loading up
If I hadn’t bought the bike, I may not have got out of Costa Rica, Henrietta though was waiting for me in Monterey. I’d rung Bill just to make sure she wasn’t stuck in some corner and been forgotten about, all good, she was waiting for me and they hadn’t had to do too much. I flew into LA got the shuttle to Union Station, the train to Salinas and bus to the Hi Monterey, from San Jose to Monterey took 36 hours and I was ready for bed. I went to Bills the next day and I was mobile, Colin in Olympia still had my Insurance, I’d messaged him to send it to the hostel 2 weeks prior and that was all I was waiting for before finally heading east. I’d been doing a lot of north and south but very little east, now was the time. Colin reckoned he hadn’t got the message and said he would be sending my mail on Monday, when it hadn’t arrived by Friday I got sick of waiting and hit the road, I’d planned to go via Yosemite but after so long in Monterey I was going straight to Vegas.
Dave was the manager at the Hi Monterey, I’d meet him when I was here before and we got on well, we had a few drinks together and I liked him. I felt confident he would do better than Colin getting my mail to me. He told me many stories about Monterey and Salinas where he was from. Monterey was Eden and Salinas was east, in Steinbeck’s East of Eden. There are two Mexican gangs in Salinas originating from one of the three prisons in the area, the American Mexicans had to form a gang to survive after the Mexicans from the south didn’t like the fact that they didn’t speak Spanish, he told of when he was a boy one of the older kids took him around town writing gangster stuff on walls and before he knew it he was right in amongst it. He said Salinas had the biggest murder rate per capita than all of the US, I went into Salinas, a very quiet town with few people on the streets and it didn’t seem possible. Unless you knew the place you could never imagine the undertones that must be prevalent here. A couple of young lads from Montreal turned up for a few days on Harleys, they had ridden across Canada, had a good run around BC, had ridden down the west coast, were on their way to LA and would ride across America back to Ontario. Derrick and the Cat (not their real names) “they were too difficult to pronounce”, so Derrick and Felix it was. The cat’s bike was falling apart at the seams but he had managed to get this far, a trip to Bills for some work, was necessary though, before he went much further, I would love to run into these guys down the road a bit to see if that bike was still going.
It was 4pm on Friday 20th July when I finally got away, no mail today the mailman’s gone away. I’d emailed Colin before leaving to confirm he’d sent it and he mailed back saying it left on Tuesday, when it did arrive on the Monday, David said it had been sent on the Wednesday, it is now Thursday 26th I am In Flagstaff Arizona, on Route 66 and David will send it to Denver Colorado, where hopefully I will pick it up in about a week, hope I don’t get stopped on the way. So east on 68 to Salinas, 101 south to Paso Robles, onto 46 east, or Jimmy Deans Highway, where James met his end. Just before getting onto the I 5 south, I stopped in a little place called Lost Hills, which was just a crossroads with motels and service stations and nothing much else….Going down to the crossroads…the following day I got on I 5 south, 58 east and onto I 15 into Vegas.
I am….THE LONESOME TRAVELLER….travelling east….BE HAPPY!