seeking fall where fall doesn't live

first day we sought for it in Mount Baldy. there was nothing there, almost nothing. a few yellow leaves that put together couldn't dress up a tree. it felt like running for chimeras, even tho the scenery was breathtaking. one aspect noted: the amazing thing about Los Angeles is that without a transition between the flats and the heights, in a heartbeat you're up in stratosphere. similarly, the temperature, blazing hot at the mountain base into the 3 digits, drops 20 degrees just 15 min later. so it was very pleasurable in Baldy, and the silence sublime. and there were trees. green. The Fall - that specific fall that I've been missing since moving to Los Angeles some 11 years ago - I found not much of it and disappointment grew when I realized that there might not even be one(fall). how come I didn't realize this all these years? well, all these years I was able to do back East where Fall lives. this year I didn't go. Driving up meaning to higher altitude, the road ends and from there there's a 10 min walk, on a paved alley, to a tiny waterfall that you might miss if not looking closely.
a day later I did the same but on my own. I chose to go toward Big Bear. I found a little more of what looked like leftovers of fall. it felt very good, it felt I could stop and listen to the surrounding - I would be calm enough to do that. took a new route, CA18, to reach Crestline and the Lake Gregory. this little town is charming by how it built its relationship with the lake - it's all a park around it, peaceful and safe, still open to everyone, money didn't interfere yet. Blue Jay and Lake Arrowhead, a little richer and fuller in shopping, with no opening to the lake itself - because it's taken - confirmed that money interfered dramatically here. but I still liked it, even strangely declared that I could live there. higher up was Big Bear Lake. I arrived there in the same time with the night. I wasn't upset because I had seen Big Bear before, and because it is a lot higher, foliage doesn't appear but briefly, a lot earlier than this time, when you don't feel the need for fall yet. Big Bear Lake feels remote, highest, at some end which is true as there's nothing beyond that except the ski resort and bear territory. there's is also a sense of serenity around, a peace that you cannot find at lower altitudes which are denser in population, traffic. one common thing all-around is the wooden bear statues. I eve found a dedicated yard full with statues of standing bears ready for sale. the village is charming - how could not that be - without Starbucks or other corporate businesses and pretty original in its self. during the week is a much better time to stop by if you're not so fond of crowds; you can literally listen to the nature which doesn't speak in some way and that is what makes it so lovable.

the lifeless body

daddy's. isn't it crazy how now you're live and now you're dead? and the roles cannot be reversed? once dead, it's forever? maybe I'm crazy, stupid to not understand life, stupid to not accept the cycle - we come and go, man, we're nothing, NOTHING, we live as a whole, we, the human race are all the same, one single body, you have to look at it this way to understand. understand what? that I'm nothing? we are nothing? and that we are something only as a whole? what is that going to do for me? and if I think this way it's called selfish? daddy left, his lifeless body - or I should say his lifeless self if the body is all that it is because it kind of sounds that only the body is lifeless and he, daddy, has just gone somewhere else, which I think it'd be awesome if…- was so different than with just a couple of days prior when he put on a show on the riverbank of Danube, barefoot, standing on shallow water having one of his favorite speeches about how much he loved the river, the city, his life as a carpenter and so on. I had heard it before a thousand times but how could I be bothered? believe me each time I heard the speech it made me happy, in fact I hoped he would have the speech again and again, it never sounded as a repetition, it was just daddy's cuteness talking to me, to a lucky son. this year I went again across the river Danube from my hometown to approximately the same spot where last year I stood listening and he stood the showman. Needless to say how sad this re-enactment was. I'm no showman, in his company I mostly listened, and now I did the same. The wind was low and didn't bring any outside sound. The water was calm and no wave was arriving. I thought about being barefoot but had never been so quick to act like daddy, so I dropped that mind. Barefoot are the showmen, standing on the calm, shallow water talking to a listener. That wasn't me. So I just sat there and remembered the whole thing, his cuteness overwhelming me. It was beautiful but painful also, he would never come back, he will never come back, I'd be without him until my death, I will be without daddy until my death.

first half of '17

my coffee, her coffee, and cereals. together we began again and it's wonderful, I seem to not realize it at times, but it's a miracle when I look at it later. I managed to combine my self with her self. I managed to unite two bodies. I managed. Then it rained in LA, a rare thing so rare the plants don't know what to do, thus they spring everywhere and look wild in the city, I meant in an organized place. The snail couldn't believe his eyes, he finally had purpose for the huge roof he carries allover. He can finally stay under the "cover" but why, why not checking out the wet. At The Imperial Dunes I built a distance between me and her to see how her beauty overpowers the sand dunes, and then we reunited again celebrating 3 years of the successful chemistry of combining two bodies and minds into ONE. That Pink Door is from the future as the entire Palm Springs looks to me a city from the Future - I was telling her that, one night heading for a stroll in triple digits temperature, in the city of Future. And then it was Dan who said GoodBye when nobody wanted to hear it from him, but Dan was set for another adventure, and we could only get together to miss him.

winter actuality

about the actuality, one must write. I can only recall daddy's winter stories about the snow and frigidness and how greatly they influenced people and nature. The zeal he used to tell them put me in his boots, made me step against the fierce wind, kept me for hours above the ice-hole I had dug in to catch some fish, spurred me to feed the animals… this is the actuality of missing a winter, or missing winter all together

Canyon Reign

at Bryce I descended all the way to the bottom of the canyon, this being a different type than Zion where you are already on the bottom. in Bryce you're on the top, like at Grand Canyon. for a moment it was just me, all others either didn't have the go to reach the bottom or had done it before me. once there, at the foundation of the tall walls and columns, the silence was indeed heavy, the fear hard to avoid... I feared an animal, mountain lion, could jump on me from above, right at my neck, and that was the end. maybe you could fight it face to face but if it grabs your neck you're his meal. then I even feared a powerful hawk could descend right on my head and with two quick beak strikes would have access to my multicultural brain. certain is, there were many places to hide, difficult to keep an eye, I sweated also, had to watch my steps first then the above and behind. this tells you I didn't quite enjoy it, but back up where all the tourists were, I posed into a winner and told my wife how brave I felt down there, being alone, how I enjoyed it and felt I could go on and on thru the canyon if it wasn't for her and the coming darkness.

back to Romania 08/23/16 - 09/09/16

I must say about this, I must. It turned out, 2 days after I returned to Los Angeles, that this had been the last trip with daddy. With daddy. It will never be another one. With daddy in all forms of possibilities: laughing, goofing around, holding me in his arms, storytelling new things about his childhood or just repeating the same ones (which case the enjoyment was the same), asking me about America, and last but not least asking me when I was going to come back so we can go fishing together and be around each other as he was turning older and older, with the answer alway being: I'll do my best, dad. I did my bullshit instead. forgive me forgive me, please forgive me...

July 11 and 12 along the west coast

a little outing to San Fran. with the return on the Coast, side by side. to relax, particularly, regardless of the long hours of driving. but that's relaxing to me, I meditate somehow caved in my seat. little arguments made it thru on the Coast, put out with a nice dinner right after the Coast in Paso Robles.

WESTLANDIA - a drive into the old, ghost, desert West

Randsburg, CA. Perhaps the most unknown little gem in CA
Death Valley



America is great. And the road-trip belongs to her. So we entered Nevada after Death Valley, and first was a ghost town, Rhyolite, so short lived that one can't say he grew up in it. Only about 15 years at max of agitated history, 1905 to 1920, time during which the city grew fast and furious, its development soon to include all the amenities required by civilization: school, hospital, newspaper, opera house, stock exchange. At peak not more than 5000 folks enjoyed (or not) living there. Fascinating times whichever way you look at it.
Goldfield, NV, once the largest town in Nevada with daily stage coach service to Tonopah, later daily train connection to the same Tonopah.

Tonopah, NV
Highway 6, NV, on the way to Area 51 (for the ufo lovers) just past Tonopah. 20 miles into the drive and thank god we see the sign warning of the 163 miles up to the next gas station. Made a u-turn, back to Tonopah, in the end barely making it to Rachel before AleInn closed up for the day.

Pioche, NV. True gem just like the theater itself. On some end of the city there is the Boothill Cemetery

Ely, NV. On the Loneliest Road of America, Highway 50, which turned out to be not lonely at all, that title went to Highway 6. Ely has the Hotel Nevada with casinos and hunting trophies, empty streets, wind and tumbleweeds making up the traffic on the city's streets, and a flair of early, unchanged America.
Sand Mountain, Fallon, NV. A huge dune out of the blue. The same Highway 50 leading to the Lake Tahoe and Reno metro area.
Virginia City, NV. Well taken care of, full of historic facts and evidence of 19th century mining prosperity, a bit touristy too.



CA highway 395, Mono Lake. This entire route parallel to the Sierras is a one of a kind drive.