[AGL] Trip

[Fontaine Maverick]

Thank you for that fine tale of your travels, Gerry. I went to Mendocino exactly one time back in '70? with Tary, stayed maybe a couple days - thought I was in heaven. 
Harry posted your story to my list, and also Nicolas Wilson's website with some glorious pictures - I will attach the one with Charlie in it, but I recommend visiting it (the website) http://www.nwilsonphoto.com/
If you look at the other pictures, you can spot Jim Benson, and Terry Dyke.

The Cressida is a good lookin' car, btw.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Gerry 
  To: ghetto 
  Sent: Monday, January 01, 2007 1:34 PM
  Subject: [AGL] Trip


  I just returned from a trip to Northern Cal. Visited Berkeley, SF, San Rafael (Terra Linda), Bolinas, and Mendocino.

  The good news is that Nick Wilson, rumored to have committed suicide a few years back, is alive and well. I didn't see him but I did have a chance to thumb through a book of photographs he has recently published. It is historical by theme and has lots of shots of young hippies of the '70's in Mendocino. I saw Charlie Pritchard in one. Published under the name of Nicolas Wilson and titled something like Historical Mendocino??? Who is Nick? He and wife Barbara were part of the extended Conqueroo family in the days of the Summer of Love. It was at his house that I first heard Hank Williams while stoned on acid. He was also a fine mechanic who rebuilt a Porsche 356 while a student at UT and made a living tuning VW's Berkeley--'68 and '69. He broke up with Barbara and took up with Liz Jacobson and they went to Mendocino and never came back. I was relieved to find that he is still with us and making fine photography.

  Mendocino is still incredible. There was a major storm the night before I arrived and the power was out all along the coast. Huge waves were being blown up by the 50mph winds (during the storm they blew at 100). Naturalist friends and I hiked in the redwood forest looking for blown down giants and gathering mushrooms. There were quite a few of both. Then we bucked the big winds and hiked to the coast where they knew of a nook protected from the blow. From there we observed the big waves, sometimes catching the spray. Ah yes, the sea.

  Hung out with Jack and Nina McClellan in Bolinas. They live and think a lot like I do. Their Ford truck is powered by kitchen fat. Not into big gardens these days like they once did but the grounds are quite flowery and well kept. Yes, there are still places where it rains every day for months. Jack and I go all the way back to high school in Waco. He had just met Nina in 1971 when we lived together in Fairfax. It turned out to be a fine match, a woman from the beaches of Brooklyn, and a lawyer from Texas. They spend several months each year in southern Mexico, planning to return there soon. Sounds like a good idea to me.

  In Berkeley I met Evelyn Glaubman, an art teacher and painter who is 92. She is my friend Rod's aunt and lives in a 3 story cliff house in the Berkeley Hills where I stayed. She is a real pistol, wears hobnail boots, jeans, her hair in a long gray ponytail, in charge at all social occasions. Went with them to a party featuring old lady artists in the Berkeley area, potluck. With all the talk here recently about Frida I was excited to see so many of her contemporaries. What a gang!

  The Cressida handled the 2,700 mile jaunt with ease. Sometimes in the California traffic it was necessary to drive over 100 for short spells. The new XM radio was a lively companion. The car was rock solid in the winds and rains and NASCAR level traffic. The traffic was the worst aspect of the trip--not just in LA where you expect it to be very fast and wild, but all over the state and in Arizona too. SUV's and Ford pickups and Hummers and who knows what all else, all wanting to cruise at 85-100 MPH and damn anyone in their way! In Boron, CA on the way home I witnessed a colossal 30 mile traffic jam. According to the locals it happens every "long weekend" with Californians headed to Vegas piling up at the one stretch of highway that is 2 lanes. After spending an hour in it I turned around and went back to Boron for the night, and found a good Mexican restaurant, and a tiny motel room with gas heat.

  When I got back to Arizona I left the freeway world and cruised the alternate routes, better but still plagued by fast SUV's. I came to despise Lexus R330's, the favorite of the hot shoes, 244 horsepower in a light, tall car. Ugly, as are the SUV's as a group, some beastly ugly. The big blizzards currently plaguing the West missed Gila. It is cold and cloudy but dry, snow-capped mountains, quite nice actually--not as dramatic as the sea at Mendocino or the views from the Berkeley hills but hardly an SUV in the county (where the speed limit is 60 and most folks observe it).
  G

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