After three consecutive nights on the road, it felt pretty good wrapping up this moving part of the trip. Our first night on the road, rolling through Ohio in his VW. Our second night, high in the Colorado Rockies; just short of cliffing it, and this our third night: on a rest stop lawn (just sneaking inside California.
Kenny swung that purple Bug west and we headed towards LA.
We were in traffic now with Black license plates, with the yellow numbers and letters. We were stoked to be getting closer to the ocean, and Los Angeles signs kept showing up with less and less miles on them.
Ken thought he had a buddy in San Diego, and he gave us his phone number to check in with. We were thinking he could drop us in LA or south of LA, me for the beaches, and Bob wanted Disneyland.
I had a subscription to Surfer magazine since 1968, and I had a pretty good idea where all the surfable beaches were. As we got closer to the coast, traffic started to get more crowded, and we were suddenly deep in Southern California suburbia. Kenny got us into Orange County around 10am. We stopped, got our stuff out, shook hands, hugged, and he was gone. We would try to hook up in a week or two.
I could almost smell the ocean from where we were. I begged Bob. "Please, just let me see the ocean, I have to just stick my foot in it, please!" He was very agreeable. But we were stuck in Costa Mesa, a town up and east of the beaches near Newport. We had one more hitch to get us there.
We stuck our thumbs out on an west bound street, and Bam! A guy picked us up in another VW, this time, it was a Karmen Ghia. And this guy was off the charts. He had a Mohawk, his sides of his head were shaved, and he had on a blue jumpsuit. The most amazing thing though, he had a pair of Shazammm shoes on, they were silver, and the tips curled up and back towards his ankles. I saw this all, because I was in the front with him.
We told him where we were headed and where we came from. I was so polite telling him how this was the last ride in our coast to coast trip. The best ride is the last one. He laughed.
This was what I wanted to do since I was 9 or 10, see this other ocean. Every year in grammar school, I had been ridiculed about Balboa discovering the Pacific Ocean. I could not think straight. "Well, its there, right in front of you, go get it" He apparantly had just gotten back from Viet Nam, and was trying to get his attitude back. We wished him well. He dropped us off at the Newport Pier; appropriately named "Balboa Pier".
This was it, this is what we saw, I threw my backback on the sand, and ran up and kicked off my workboots, socks and stuck my feet in the Pacific. It was unreal, it was Cosmic!! (whatever that means) The water was cold, the sand was brownish-white, not the NJ snow white powdery sand I grew up with. This was it. I grabbed hands of it, it was granular, and I heaved it out into the surf.
Now what? We needed a place to stay, and the beach here would be pretty pricey. Hotels were almost $45 or $60 dollars a night, and we only had about $120 each.
I suggested we head back off the beach, baak towards Costa Mesa where Kenny had dropped us off. We didn't hitch, we hoofed it back on Costa Mesa Boulevard, and on the walk back, we ran into an "all you can eat" place, a sign clearly said: "House of Pies"...."all you can eat---7 nights a week"
We made a note of that, and headed east toward the strip malls and cheap two story motels of Costa Mesa.
In about an hour, we came across a two story stucco motel that was being renovated. We went around cement mixers and laborers. We found the office, and rang the little bell, and a middle aged bald man came out and greeted us. "Hi, we are a couple of guys from the east coast, we came out to check out some colleges out here, and we don't have a lot of money. Is there anything available in your establishment that we could afford for, say a week? We would be happy to help you with any odd jobs or chores to help pay the fee."
"How much can you afford to pay?" he asked
"Maybe, (I looked at Bob and shrugged) maybe about $40 dollars for a week?" we suggested
"Let me see" he said.
He went into the back office and we presumed he had a conference with his wife. These people definitely had a big heart for us, and he came back and said: "Forty dollars it is" and then "We can give you a room up on the second floor. He checked us in, we paid $20 dollars each, and he gave us a receipt!. I will never forget this couple. They were Bob and Shirley Cook.
We got our room key. We showered and took a nap, fully extended, and on a bed with sheets. Bob woke first and said "I am really, really hungry". "Yep, me too." We walked back to the "House of Pies" about two miles back to Newport, and grabbed a vinyl covered booth, and confirmed with a young waitress that it really was an "All you can eat" opportunity. After three days of Snickers and Hersheys bars, we did some serious damage to their "Spagetti Night-All You can Eat"
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