NZ super 8

milking barn

I spent a few days pressure washing this old milking barn clean. The sun came down through the holes in the ceiling.

junk

I found a bunch of old stuff in a barn in Petaluma.

cocktaillaboration

cocktail napkin doodle with scott

'luma

Dan, makin' like a freight train, Petaluma

new york, new york

Mt. Difficulty

Orchard in the Fog, New Zealand, May 2011

beer o'clock, New Zealand, May 2011

RAG -> WEL

I'd overslept. Quickly I packed my things and threw them into the car and drove along the coast and into the tall bush and over the rolling hills and into the farm towns and through the suburbs to the city of Hamilton. Initially I'd hired the car for a week's time. The plan was to drive it south along the west coast back to Wellington. This would take several days and cost a few hundred dollars. Here I was two days later, dropping it off only an hour's drive from where I'd first picked it up in Auckland.

The guy at the rental car place gave me a ride to the train station where I hopped the train all the way back to Wellington.

The train ride was much the same as before, but I did not have the nice woman beside me, nor did the mist coat the mountains. I read and slept and ate. And for a while I hated on myself so hard.

If one were to look at a map and see the path I'd taken, where I'd gone and what I'd done, they'd be baffled. I was moving from one town to the next, covering so much land and passing by so much in between, and stopping only long enough for a beer or two. I felt like I was making a mess of this journey of mine, that I was throwing away money, that I wasn't trying hard enough, that I was fucking failing.

But at the end of the train ride all those feelings went away. I arrived in Wellington and collected my things. With my big duffel bag on my back and a smaller backpack on my chest, instead of getting a cab I hoofed it into town. The wind was really whipping, and my back was aching, but the evening sky was beautiful. I didn't know where I was, or what I was doing, or where I was going, and I didn't give a shit.

I was doing it the right way, I told myself. I was doing it my way. I had no ties and I was embracing that. I was taking in the atmosphere and appreciating the landscape and enjoying the food & drink and avoiding the tourists.

That night at a bar alone, in my little black book I wrote:

"This evening in Wellington I get drunk and extremely positive. God Bless this World."

RAG PT. 2

I woke up scratching at my legs. This was the day I learned of New Zealand's sand flies. You can't see them, but boy can you feel them. I'd been bitten the day before as I sat on the beach, and I'd scratch at those bites for the next few weeks, an itch that meets pain.

I grabbed a few things and I set out for the surf shop. Thirty minutes later I was suiting up at the beach. I jumped into the surf afloat on a nine foot board.

The surf wasn't very impressive compared to the day before. And I'm not much of a surfer in the first place. The waves were few and far between and I was fighting for one in a group of twenty. Really, I was just trying to keep from killing anyone. A nine foot board easily gets swept up in the white wash, and from time to time I found myself tumbling underwater attached to a big bludgeoning device, hoping to God that it wasn't beating the shit out of anyone. Eventually I'd pop up and check my surroundings for injured surfers. Everyone was O.K. A few looked frightened.

In two hours I'd snagged a few waves, three maybe, and while they weren't much, one of them got me high. It was breaking to the left. I popped up to my feet, tucked and held onto the rail of my board with my right hand. As I glided along the wave's face I smiled and hollered in joy, and a guy paddling out saw my stoke and it got him stoked out too.

When I climbed out of the sea my upper body had really had it. My arms and chest were drained of energy, and a cracked ribbed from the past sticks out at an angle, and it had really been working at the skin between it and my board. But I was so happy, just happy to be coated in a thin layer of sand and salt, my lips tasty, my hair malleable.

I spent the rest of my day roaming. I ate. I had coffee. I had beer. I went to the waterfront and crossed a bridge to the peninsula where I examined the skatepark. It looked like fun. On my way back over the bridge I encouraged a small, red-haired boy to jump from it into the water below. It took some convincing but eventually he made the leap.

Raglan is a beautiful place, but going it alone has it's challenges. Relaxing alone has a lot in common with being bored alone. So when I returned to Solscape I told the woman at the front desk that I'd only be staying one more night, that I'd like to be refunded for my third night, that it was just too quiet out at the tipis. She offered to move me to a bed in a boxcar, but I politely declined. While I didn't want to be bored alone, I guess I also didn't want to relax with others.

That evening I found myself, once again, sitting on a hillside pounding beers. After a couple I gave myself a stern talking-to and I walked to the boxcar camp where I did my best at mingling. In a letter to friends I described the crowd as "a bunch of gnar surfer jocks." They weren't really that though. They were just young and uninhibited and killing it, and while I too am young I'm not as young as them, and I find that with age I've lost some of my ability to flow so easily and seamlessly into a group of total strangers. I felt like I was sitting on the edge and peering in.

I made some conversation though. I talked with a guy from Oregon, and a guy from San Diego, and a googly-eyed German girl, and it was alright. But in the end I raced to finish the sixth beer.

I'd made the evening walk to the boxcars without a flashlight, and then I had to make the night walk back to the tipis in the dark. I thought it would be easy, but it was not. Carefully I placed one foot in front of the next as I descended into the ravine, and the ferns brushed me in the face whenever I got off course. And I heard the trickling of the spring and felt the squish of the swamp and I moved so slow I hardly moved at all. I found myself wondering:

Where am I?

What am I doing?

Where am I going?

RAG PT.1

A lady at a bar in San Francisco had told me that if I was going to New Zealand and was wanting to do some surfing that I had to check out Raglan. Indeed, it did turn out to be an idyllic little surf town. When I arrived I parked and took a stroll down to the waterfront where a river fed into the sea and out on a peninsula I could make out a skatepark. But my skateboard was long gone by now (I imagine that the security woman who took it from me at the Sydney airport took it home to her son. I could only hope that he'd make use of it). I stopped in at the grocery store and bought peanut butter, jelly, bread, and beer and then drove along the coast to Solscape.
I'd read about Solscape in my travel book. It sounded like the hippie/surfer place to stay, and that's the sort of experience I was looking for. For the time being I'd had enough of crowded backpacker hostels. I wanted to spread out and kick back. At Solscape they've taken old train boxcars and cut them in half and turned them into bunkhouses. That sounded pretty cool to me. But they also offer accommodation in tipis. I opted for a tipi, and I'd even reserved it ahead of time, booking it online for a three night stay.
I arrived to Solscape and checked in. The lady at the front desk explained that the tipi retreat was about a five minute walk from the parking. I grabbed a few things from the car and walked through the boxcar camp where there were a bunch of tan people chatting and lounging in hammocks. And then I saw the sign for the tipis and the trail took me down a hill and into a ravine of dense bush consisting mostly of ferns. There was a spring and a bit of a swamp at the bottom, and then the trail went up and out of the ravine, and the bush opened wide to a big, magnificent clearing, and around the perimeter of the clearing on the hillside there were six or seven tipis, each of which stood about twenty feet tall.
It sure was quiet out there. I couldn't tell for certain, but it seemed that I was the only person staying out there. But it was still early, and it was possible that others would arrive later on. Either way, I told myself, it was going to be awesome.
I went to check out the surf. As I drove along the winding coastal road my stoke ran high. It was a beautiful day out, and just a couple minutes down the road I arrived to a superb point break. The waves really were immaculate. I wondered if I should go and rent a board immediately, but I hadn't surfed in a year and didn't want to get in over my head. I decided I'd get on the surfing tip the following day. After watching the waves break for a while I drove back to town. I had a few beers and scrawled words and doodles in my little black book. Eventually I made my way back to Solscape.
Back at the tipi retreat it was all crickets and cicadas. I sat on the hillside with my six pack and read. I told myself, You are so lucky to get all of this to yourself and for only twenty dollars a night! But I'd be lying if I didn't admit to feeling a touch of the old loneliness. I knew that upfront amidst the boxcars everyone was being sociable, meeting new and interesting people, exchanging stories, maybe making friends. And on the quiet hillside I was drinking quickly, pissing every thirty minutes, waiting for the sun to set so that going to sleep was acceptable. I knew that I had it in my power to get up and walk the five minutes and say hello, but instead I raced to finish the sixth beer.