my home away from home

after a ridiculously long day yesterday, i finally arrived safe at the san francisco airport. my flights were fine, considering the madness they could have been. but, put a flight to california, that connected through charlotte making a grand total of 9 hours flying/waiting to fly, with a stressful morning of tax preparation and last minute packing, and then throw in the hour and half drive to salinas, and the 3 extra hours i got from west coast time, i'm a tired little boy!

the house i'm staying at is in monterey county, in the small small town of spreckels, ca. you can actually see the house i'm in if you click street view on this google map page and click south-easterly a few times. its like the only house on the street, right next to the firestation. i'm staying with our family friend cynthia. she's the sister of hans, who owns elevation burger (just trying to bring it full circle!)

the location is really peaceful. we're about 20 minutes east of downtown monterey, and maybe 25 minutes east of the coast. only a 5 minute drive from downtown salinas. the town my house is in is spreckels, ca. i think it's kind of like ballston in the sense that its more an area than a town. cynthia's house is right next door to the fire station, church, and post office (which is convenient considering i still need to get stamps for all the support letters that i have sitting in my bag!). abrupt, low-lying mountains roll along the not so distant horizon and in the valley surrounding us on all sides are vast fields of pretty much every type of lettuce you could imagine. salinas (i think i heard this right) is the biggest lettuce exporter. if you go to asia, for example, and look at their lettuce, it will probably have Salinas, CA on the label. i suppose if you've got to be next to a field of produce, it may as well be lettuce. better that than brussel sprouts or poison.

it's weird... you know "Foxy" lettuce? it's a brand. well it had its own store here. its just funny because, to me, that's like driving down the street and seeing "The Gala Store" or something. cynthia was cool enough to let me drop her off at work this morning so i could drive her black solstice convertible around today. its a really fun car to drive and great area with open roads to soak it up!

well, the way this week is going to work is something like: hang out today, work in cynthia's home office with her personal assistant a few hours a day for the remainder of the week (remember, part of how i convinced myself to come for so long was to actually try to make some money while i was here!), visit big sur, carmel by the sea, monterey, eat good food, i hope wine taste, and possibly go to laguna seca (world renowned race track, its in gran turismo!). then, this weekend, she begins to host a handful of south african peeps who come to monterey to build the track up for a mountain bike race on wednesday the 16th. i'll be sharing my room with someone named drix starting tomorrow. monday, tues, and i guess wednesday of next week i'm babysitting to 2 kids of one of the couples that is coming to help build this course. talk about an eclectic array of events.

pictures to come soon. right now, i am actually going to go running down this road that apparently is used for filming car commercials from time to time. if i see any in progress i'll be sure to attempt to foil their lies! car commercials always seem to capture the best of what you can never, ever do in a car.

-m-