My long excursion

Look closely on the bottom left of the picture. There are two shiny blue areas. See it??? HEY CANADA! I AM 4X4ING IN CALIFORNIA.

I searched for 4 months, I called 10's of 10's of people, i researched county's, states, countrys...I even took the falling US economy into the equation. My well deserved weekend started at 5:30am when my phone sung an annoying tune from across the room. As i slowly opened my eyes I pondered, what in god's name do i need to make a 5 hour bus ride to buy a vehicle for? This is ridiculous! Out i go with my bag in hand. Within the bag was a magazine, a bag of chips, a big box of gobstoppers, a pillow, headphones, and a knife. First stop, Oakland California...home of MC hammer, Del the Funky Homosepian, Too Short, and last but not least Tupac Shukar.

2Pac - California Love
Out on bail fresh outta jail, California dreamin
Soon as I stepped on the scene, I'm hearin hoochies screamin
Fiendin for money and alcohol
the life of a west side playa where cowards die and its all ball
Only in Cali where we riot not rally to live and die
In L.A. we wearin Chucks not Ballies (that's right)
Dressed in Locs and khaki suits and ride is what we do
Flossin but have caution we collide with other crews
Famous cause we program worldwide
Let'em recognize from Long Beach to Rosecrans
Bumpin and grindin like a slow jam, it's west side
So you know the row won't bow down to no man
Say what you say
But give me that bomb beat from Dre
Let me serenade the streets of L.A.
From Oakland to Sacktown
The Bay Area and back down
Cali is where they put they mack down
Give me love!

Oakland was clean, quiet, and peaceful. It may have been that I was there at 8am. All the druggies were drugged out with no more drugs goin around. All the drunkies were passed out with no more liquor stores open. If any of you have scene Vanilla Sky where there is no movement anywhere and it seems really surreal, that was where I was. Pictures of Oakland are posted in Picasa. It was too early to notice anything anyway, I was still in a dream state from sleeping on the bus. For the moments I did manage to wake myself up and realize what was around me it was an amazing city and area. The hills around the area were steep and grassy. Unlike BC, there are no rocks pertruding from the hillsides. Oakland had a mix of old and new buildings. The difference in age made things even more unllikely. One building would be victorian style, the next would be a row of new condos then a giant sky scraper. On the other side of the skyscraper would be an ancient church, city hall or whatever it's purpose was. It looked like someone first thought of putting those old clocks on top of the buildings back in the day, then everyone had to have one. I had an hour plus to spare, so i made it pretty far into the downtown district for some coffee, then slowly swaggled my way back to the greyhound station. to be continued...

I haven't been writing much in here lately, i found my earlier posts to be boring and lacking in entertainment value. I, me, life, this...should be more interesting now. I get a new boss this week, a new project, new meetups with different people and an old friend from my schooling in Calgary is moving down here. I can't say my life is as good as it used to be. There will always be ups and downs. I honestly haven't come to realize what it is that i'm learning down here, but now that my life is down a bit from where it was, it's time to sit back and think about the path I need to take to get back up to the top. Imagine sitting on a log looking across the valley at a giant mountain. There are several different ways to get to the top. Taking a draw would be slow and steady, there might dead falls, thick bush and a nearly impossible incline to climb near the end. Or, take one of the ridges, a steady incline, a clear view to the top, but you can only see down on both sides, if you slip, you fall.