i think this is the end of the road, kids.

school starts on tuesday, and i'm still in sacramento. i've been holding on to the idea that i can still make it back. while that may be a possibility, it's looking less and less likely.

yesterday i finally got the last of the parts i was waiting for. i spent the evening putting everything back together.

i even macgyvered the wrist pin from my old piston to work in the new one...

and then i broke a piston ring.

saturday night, labor day weekend. i need to be in utah on tuesday and i broke a part that i won't be able to replace until tuesday at the earliest.

i think i must have used up my lifetime allotment of luck.

so what do you do? i mean, things have sucked before, but this is the first time that i don't have an answer.

i think i'll have to head back to utah. leave stella in sacramento to fend for herself.

i don't like to quit, but i don't think i have much choice.

someone on stellaspeed suggested that i limp home with just one piston ring. there are two, after all... my only worry is the run through nevada. 100 miles between towns. desert in the middle of the summer. that wouldn't be a good ride even with a healthy scooter. i don't know if i want to risk it.

but now i've been presented with an alternative. this is one of those life defining choices. 'what flavor of ice cream' pales in comparison.

if you admit that you've bitten off more than you can chew, buy a plane ticket and head back to utah, turn to page 42. if you stubbornly finish up the repair and risk riding it home, turn to page 60.

not because the end result would be any different. both pages in the choose your own adventure that is my life end with me and stella safely back in utah. eventually.

the reason this choice is important is that it defines my moral fiber.

do i throw in the towel? do i admit defeat? i mean, 5500 miles is an admirable run. but is it enough? i'm only 700 miles from the end. and a lousy piston ring is keeping me from it.

the high school gym coach answer would be 'never accept defeat'.

but is it more rational to accept that sometimes things are simply beyond my control? i know that they are.

i just never like admitting that any given situation is one of those times.

this blog's a bit more technical than most... so you don't have to read it if you don't want to.

all the dirty details after the jump.

for those who haven't yet heard, i hate stella.

well, not really. but i am a bit irritated with her at the moment.

i was cruising from hollywood to san francisco the other night when she exploded.

i guess 'exploded' isn't quite the right word. it looks like she overheated and sprayed molten bits of aluminum all over her insides. the piston doesn't move anymore. it's seized pretty good. the kick start doesn't move. there are little beads of aluminum in the spark plug.

she is a sad, sad stella.

and she's stuck at a gas station in pismo beach.

this has not been my week. or month. or whatever.

ever since my ipod died... and now my external hard drive makes evil noises and doesn't read. and stella. whatever am i going to do with you?

more on this later, once i figure out how to get her to sacramento and get her taken apart. do a biopsy, see what the damage is.

the best part is that i can't really afford any of this right now.

poop.

the ocean is about the closest thing to infinity we mortals get to experience...

sitting on the suislaw jetty.

listening to the soothing crash of waves against the rocks, staring off to where the water touches the sky, i can't help but think how small and insignificant everything is. in the big picture.

i like the smell, too. fresh, salty, a hint of something... living? it's beautiful, in its own way.

at the end of the jetty is a giant new years eve noisemaker. it's white. i'm inexplicably drawn to it... i have to go check this out.

it's a giant air horn, goes off at some preset interval. sending out a secret message:

"hey. don't sail your boat here. there's a big effing pile of rocks"

i want to get to the other side, so i wait for it to honk, then run past.

even further out is a lighthouse. if you can call it that. more like a lightpost. almost half a mile into the ocean. it's not doing too much right now, but it prob'ly blinks or something at night. it's even solar powered, so they don't have to worry about it. self-sustaining warning system.

plus, tampering with it is a felony. add that to the list of dumb things to have on your permanent record: putting something other than mail into a mailbox (felony). asking visitors to reload a website (felony charges). internet gambling (felony in washington state). messing with the wrong lightpost (felony).

at the very end there's an odd little fork in the jetty. like the tip of a snake's tongue.

curious.

there's another jetty at newport. i've never seen it during the day.

it's beautiful at night.

i went there with a friend. we sat on a rock and talked. we watched boats lit up like they were going somewhere important, passing silently in the dark. we stood on the sand where the waves could almost reach our feet... except for that one freak wave. one piece of it broke away from the rest and went way farther than it should have. just far enough to get me all wet when i wasn't paying attention. but it was a nice night. not too cool. and the water felt great.

a week later, i went back there again, this time by myself. maybe so i could miss her.

at pismo beach there's a place at the base of a bluff where the rocks run out into the water.

at high tide the tops are less than a foot above the surf. it's dark, overcast. not a star in the sky. as i stand on the rocks and look into the ocean, i see nothing. as far as i can tell, the world ends fifty feet from my feet, where i can just make out the first of the waves to break.

they leave a fine white foam behind.

rolling, surging, growing, until they crash into the rocks where i stand, filling the cracks between with turbulent water, which rushes out again almost as fast as it rushed in.

it's calm. peaceful. soothingly violent.

i feel like jumping in, swimming until i fall off the edge of the earth.

as i glance once upon the foam
40 feet beneath my feet
the coldest calm falls
through the molten veins
cooling all the blood to slush
that congeals around the brain

oh, La la la la La la la la La la la la La la la la la...

BUMS HAVE TENTS!!!

wow.

when i saw the first one, it thought "sweet. some bum scored a tent."

then i saw another. then another. then a whole block full of bum-tents. like an epidemic. who would have thought?

i was like a ton of guys just decided to have a campout on fourth tonight. kinda surreal. i mean, it still smelled kinda like stale urine, and there were definitely people milling around that haven't been on the business end of a showerhead in a while, but there were all these tents.

maybe walmart had a sale. or maybe they robbed REI.

i'll bet that was it.

they prob'ly just bum-rushed the store.

i love my scooter. random people stop to talk to me, tell me about the scooter they used to have... tell me about vacations to italy... it's great.

as i was parking tonight at the newport pier, a guy comes over to me. apparently he heard my scooter and had to come talk to me...

"hey. what year is your P?"

(for non-scooterists... that's short for Vespa P150/P200 series scooters)

"it's not a P. it's a 2005 stella"

"wow. i heard it and had to come over... i was sure it was a P200"

Anthony. he used to own a scooter shop in the LA area called Slightly Modified. he knows his scooters. and he heard my scoot and thought i was riding a P series Vespa. he was so excited he came all the way across the parking lot to talk to me about it. take that, mr 'so-you-ride-a-vespa-knockoff'...

i saw a seal.

saturday afternoon, beautiful day. i stopped for gas in buellton california.

the only gas station in buellton. when i pulled up, there was an RV and another car... they weren't filling up though.

it turns out that on the pump it said "Please See Attendant". so did the rest of the pumps. the only problem was that the door was locked. no attendant in sight. on a saturday afternoon.

i chuckled to myself... the other people were getting frustrated. i was mostly amused. maybe it was because i wasn't in as much of a hurry. maybe because i think that's a lame reason to get worked up.

so i went over to the classic car lot next door. chatted with the two older chaps sitting in the shade. watching the frustration of everyone that drove up, looked at the pumps, looked around in confusion, then left.

i guess the person that was supposed to open that saturday never showed up. so people came and went, using their credit cards until one by one the pumps stopped working. by the time i got there, the whole station was shut down.

about an hour later, the owner showed up. obviously he wasn't too happy. got everything working, unlocked the bathroom (i was pretty stoked about that).

but i'd had a great break, and a great chat. i'm glad i stopped for gas at a station that was closed. i got to meet a couple of great guys... that wouldn't have happened if i'd just filled up then been on my way.

a flock of giant cranes:

perched along the piers in san francisco.

still, silent, waiting for what?

imperial walkers:

ready for deployment. active at a moment's notice. but, for now, they stand still.

silhouettes in the sunset, breaking up the line where the ocean meets the sky. dark and stoic amidst the swirls of fire that fill the heavens.

an interesting contrast:

the straight lines, the geometric patterns of the cargo cranes against the beauty of the sunset. the man-made starkness against the ripples of reflection off the seawater...

you should go see them sometime.