West Coast Travel Log, by Gregory Pratt

[Gregory Pratt]

I wrote this one on the evening of the second, and I am going to be writing a recap of my first and third days on the road when we are driving from San Francisco to Eureka or a closer city to celebrate the Fourth of July.

 

Near-death on the West Coast

 

I almost died today. Well, yesterday, but that’s just a detail. The greater point is that I am alive. Who knows what would have happened if there didn’t happen to be lifeguards at the beach in Encinitas just outside of San Diego?

 

This is definitely not what I expected to write about in the first entry of this travel-log. I expected to make remarks about the fun we are having with our Honda Civic hybrid rental car, or detail our trip to the Getty Museum and Santa Monica yesterday after a delightful plane ride, or describe the joy we had driving down the highway to meet a former Major League Baseball starting pitcher for an interview in San Diego but instead I find myself writing about a near-death experience. That’s life.

 

The story I have to tell can be summarized in one sentence, really. It is not a sentence I expected to hear at the beach, nor is it one I could have imagined through pure imagination. As I prepare to type it, I am reminded of an argument made in this article about the nature of non-fictional narratives: “Nonfiction has to be true, of course, but it doesn’t have to be believable, which may help explain why so many recent best-sellers are of the Ripley’s variety. Coincidences that no novelist could get away with happen all the time in ‘real life.’ And while characters in fiction have to be consistent, people rarely are.”

 

Once we had arrived at the shore, and I had stood on my own two feet for the first time in several minutes, the lifeguard looked me over and said: “Good God, man. Are you wearing pants?” I was. Slacks. And a golf shirt, with socks. Grey socks. It had to have been the strangest rescue he had ever had to make. I did not intend to go deep into the ocean at all when we pulled up to the beach, partly because I was not wearing shorts and partly because I am not an exceptional swimmer and it has been awhile since I went for a good swim in deep or deepish water, but I was floating backward in relaxed pose when I realized that I was rather far from the shore. I attempted to swim back but could not for the life of me move from where I was and in fact seemed to have been swimming backward. I looked across the water and saw a young man about thirty, forty feet away and I asked him if he would get me help, please. “You need help?” I do, I told him. “I do not think I can get out of here alone.” I was starting to tire from swimming in place, and I did not believe that I could return to shore of my own strength. (I am generally aware of my limitations and my strengths. Fighting strong currents is not a strength. And I was probably right, but I will never know as the lifeguard arrived half a minute afterward to tether me to him and bring me back to land.)

 

“That’s a nasty, nasty rip there, man,” he told me as he tied me. “I need you to kick for me, okay?” He set off, carrying me behind him as if I were a corpse, motionless but for the thoughts racing around inside my head about the situation I had just found myself in as I simply could not generate the strength for a good kick but thoughts are not “heavy.” I apologized for my inability to help him help me, and he took it all in as his duty. Then he noticed that I was wearing normal clothes, and told me that I should be in as near a state of total undress as legally allowed when I go swimming, if I wish to swim efficiently. I will certainly keep that in mind, and I will always remember the look on his face when his voice rose to heights it likely hasn’t reached since before he hit puberty and said “Good God, man. Are you wearing pants?”

 

Believe it or not, I did not know what a riptide was, but I do now. I will avoid them, and I won’t wear pants into the ocean.

 

I would write about my interview but I will be working on an article about it for a different publication and so I will not go into details at this time. I will write about the other things we have done since we arrived on the west coast tomorrow, in all likelihood. Right now I am rather tired and somewhat busy, so I will return to the first day tomorrow. Today’s near-death experience, coupled with a more pleasant start and finish to the day, has left me exhausted. I do recommend you look here for images from the trip. I am not a good photographer nor do I have a great camera nor am I the sort of man who likes to just snap picture after picture (I would rather be sharing word after word) but I have taken some, and I’ll share them even if they are nothing special. Tomorrow I will write you, with the blessings of a lifeguard.

Edited July 4, 2008 by Gregory Pratt

[RockRaines]

HAHAHAHHA. Are you an Ocean Virgin GP?

 

Encinitas is great. You should also make your way to Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach, known to locals as OB and PB. Each town has a very different culture, but both have positives. Hippie vs Rich yout of college kids, its really a fun socio-economic split between basically two neighboring towns, but also the nightlife is awesome.

 

I've spent a ton of time on the left coast, and I cant wait to hear about more experiences you have with some of the cool stuff you can do out there. Ill be out in two weeks even.

[shipps]

I still dont understand why you went into the water fully clothed.I dont know maybe I read too fast.

[Gregory Pratt]

We were making a shortish stop, and I didn't want to waste time. And I wrote this to maximize the humour of the situation, which is much funnier now than it was when it happened although Dan tells me that I came out with a sheepish grin.

 

Probably hysterics.

[Chisoxfn]

The second I saw you say near death experience in the water, I immediately thought riptide. Those things can be nasty and in the future if you get stuck in one, you swim parralel to the shore (as to not go out deeper) until you get into better waters.

[LosMediasBlancas]

Wow, glad you're ok man.

[Gregory Pratt]

Thanks.

 

...

 

I am in Eugene Portland. Going out now. More later.

[Gregory Pratt]

Flirting with Disaster

 

We were in a car accident last night. There were no serious injuries, but there could have been. A lane was blocked off on our way into Seattle and a trucker boxed us into the soon-to-be-gone lane, so we couldn't get behind him and merge. Our passenger-side mirror was knocked off by a barrel, and we shook a little bit but managed to get into the safe lane. We were silent for a moment when Dan asked if I was okay. I said, "I've actually just been holding in a joke. 'Good thing we've got insurance!'"

 

Once it became clear that we were safe and would be safe, there was no point holding the humor.

 

The centerpiece of our trip to Eugene, Oregon was supposed to be a side-trip to Toketee Falls, but when we arrived there in the early-afternoon on the fifth we saw that it was closed as a result of snowstorms destroying the route back in January. Now, we had come a long way to see the Falls, and it was difficult to accept that we'd just wasted a couple of hours driving away from our ultimate direction to get there, so when we parked to assess the situation we decided to keep going. Or Dan did. "I didn't come out here to turn around with nothing," he said, and we drew up a timetable for his return, with the agreement that I would stay behind and call the proper authorities if he did not return in reasonable time and then maybe we'd do it all over again.

 

Fortunately, it did not have a disastrous outcome for either of us. He returned about forty minutes after he left me and said, "I would not recommend what I just did to anyone. But it was beautiful. You know all those things we saw in the pictures? I was right there, and it was beautiful." This piqued my interest, and so I asked him for more detail. He said that all of the staircases have been destroyed, and there's a bridge out that you must now cross over a tree, in addition to numerous other impediments along the path. Then when you arrive at the falls, the observation deck is fragile and has sustained some serious damage that makes it dangerous to stand on, to say the least. It is about a hundred feet high over a cliff.

 

They need to fix that path soon because it is absolutely gorgeous and it's been blocked since January, which is more than half-a-year ago and so it is unacceptable for them to take so long in fixing it. But that wasn't the only excitement we had on the fifth. We had woken up that morning in a harbor in Crescent City, California, where we had arrived at in the middle of the night looking for a place to stay as Eureka had not had any. We'd been in Eureka the night before because that is the town that Dan was born in but has no recollection of, so he wanted to go there to get to know his roots. Like a salmon. Well, we were there to watch fireworks but there was a ridiculous amount of fog and it was almost impossible to see the actual fireworks. The clouds did change colors in a beautiful fashion, at least, and it was pleasant to walk around the town. There was a carnival... besides us, that is. Sleeping in the harbor was probably the worst thing to happen to us so far this trip, even if nothing happened to us aside from getting a lousy amount of sleep inside of a car. It's just frustrating to not have a bed and to have it happen because you didn't think to reserve a place somewhere on the Fourth of July. We're much smarter than that, but I guess we were having too much fun.

 

Last night Dan and I were walking and talking in downtown Seattle and I said to him, "I guess that everyone traveling across such a large area as we are would have a near-death experience or two on the way, right?" He laughed and said that he didn't think so. "I guess you're right... how many other people would walk into the ocean fully-clothed or stand atop a compromised balcony?" It's called "style."

 

I apologize for the delay in writing. It's been delightful on this trip, and I've been very, very busy. I'll write again soon, and try to include earlier days and more recent days, too. I do want to say that the fast lane is for people "who want to go fast." It's not very complicated, but a couple of days ago we were going under the speed limit in the freeway on the way up to Portland because everyone else was going slow. Don't think that all we're doing is nearly-dying, as we are having a great deal of fun and are generally being quite safe about everything. The car "accident" was mostly a fluke, and everything else is alright.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

Geezus man, almost drowning and then a car accident two days later? This trip's really doing a number on you!

[Chisoxfn]

1st you almost drown, than a car wreck. Is your next article going to be a will, LOL.

[DrunkBomber]

I know a guy on the left coast and he let me in a secret. A "soon to be gone lane" is actually a "merge lane." It does however become gone so I can see the confusion of it not being in the name. Basically, it disappears and they expect you to "merge" with the other cars. Those sons of b****es.

[Gregory Pratt]

Har, har, har.

 

I wasn't driving. And we got boxed in when we tried to merge. It happens. No need for your sarcasm.

[The Critic]

A preview of Pratt's review of the Soxtalk/WSI rematch:

 

My Charlie Brown Moment

 

I took a liner off the face today.....

 

[DBAHO]

I got caught in a rip myself surfing about 6 months back. You think it's hard to swim, let alone trying to paddle on a big board against something like that. The key is to move on an angle or go parallel to shore as Jason said, and not battle right against the rip. Somehow I caught a wave, and proceeded to lay flat on my back on the beach from pure exhaustion for a good 5-10 mins.