Farting Around

I tell you, we are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different.
-- Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country (2005)

After a late start to Santa Barbara to avoid commute traffic, I pulled off Highway 101 at Laurel Drive (Exit 330) in Salinas for lunch. Turning right and continuing straight ahead for half a mile on Calle del Adobe, I drove unexpectedly into a park containing the Boronda Adobe, an adobe building built between 1844 and 1848 and maintained by the Monterey County Historical Society. I had never heard of the Boronda Adobe. I had simply pulled off the highway and was taking a quick look around for any city park where I could eat my lunch and perhaps strike up a conversation with a local. I was delighted to discover quite by accident a piece of California history I hadn't known about. This is for me one of the great joys of being able to fart around, stopping as inclination, rather than plan, dictates. For most of my life I have had to fart around within the context of a job. This is much better. It's so much fun for me to drift from one thing to another while traveling in the Class B. This is not to suggest that I don't plan for my trips; I do, but that I can change direction within the plan on a whim.

Also located at the park were recently dedicated memorials to the 105 men of Company C 194th Tank Battalion from the Salinas and Pajaro Valleys. Of the 105 men, six were lost in combat and 52 died during the infamous Bataan Death March, in the holds of ships while being transported to Japan and China, and in prison and labor camps. Only 47 of the original 105 men returned to the United States. I liked reading about these events on the Internet as a result of my visit to Boronda Adobe History Center and thinking about the changes that have taken place in the Salinas and and Pajaro Valleys over the nearly 100 years between the building of the Boronda Adobe and the Bataan Death March. I also note that I was alive during World War II (having been born just six days after the men of Company C 194th Tank Battalion "On the morning of February 18, 1941...marched four abrest down Main Street...toward the train station" and that my sense of history changes as my life span seems to include more of it.

Best laid plans...

My original plan was to post to The Class B & Me while on the road. This plan hasn’t worked out very well for a couple of reasons. First, while traveling in the Class B for the last couple of weeks, except for the library in Borrego Springs, I’ve had no WiFi access to the Internet. Second, there were usually more interesting things to do than type a blog entry. (I suspect the reader will often have more interesting things to do than to read blog entries.) Among the pleasures of being on the road are seeing and photographing new sights, hiking, seeing cultural and natural history exhibits and geography, visiting with family and friends (fortunately, in all cases, family are also friends), and making new acquaintances along the way. This leaves little time for blogging. So, at least for now, The Class B & Me will be a look back rather than a contemporary report. I would prefer that entries were more current and will think about ways of moving in that direction.

Rick, Brad and Byron, from the looks of Rick's clean T-shirt, at the beginning of one of our backpacking trips into Los Padres National Forest in May 1971.

As planned, the trip began on Monday, November 26 with a drive down Highway 101 to Santa Barbara to hook up for dinner with a couple of my grad school buddies from UC Santa Barbara, Rick and Byron.

It would seem that most unintended consequences of a chosen course of action are adverse. You do your best to anticipate the principal consequences of a decision and too often there are unanticipated costs you wish you had thought of prior to taking the action. Other times you realize there is just no way you could have anticipated the consequences of an action, yours or someone else’s. The trip down Highway 101 to Santa Barbara revealed an unintended consequence that was positive. The handling characteristics of the Class B had improved dramatically since the last trip to Chaco Canyon. This is likely the result of a repair to a loose metal shield next to the propane tank (there to take the hit rather than the propane tank). Previously I had determined (incorrectly) that a rattle was being caused by the front bumper rubbing against the van body. I had it fixed at a local body shop, but the rattle persisted. While eating lunch somewhere along Highway 395 during the Chaco Canyon trip, I heard the wind cause the rattle and was able to determine that it was the loose propane tank shield that was making the noise. My guess is that the shield, moving back and forth with the wind, was acted like a rudder. Changes in its position were requiring corresponding adjustments in the steering wheel. The steering of the Class B is now much, much easier than it was before. And, the annoying rattle is also gone.

More about the Anza-Borrego trip in the next entry.