Cruising California Bizarro

I’m writ­ing from the din­ing room of one of Cal­i­for­ni­a’s great curiosi­ties, des­tined to amaze and befud­dle even the most jad­ed of observers. Today I’m lunch­ing at the worlds most beau­ti­ful Taco Bell.

Yes, that may sound like damn­ing with faint praise, as though I’d said the world’s most hon­est politi­cian or tallest midget, but indeed this is exact­ly such a curiosity.

Here in Paci­fi­ca, right off of Route 1, there is a sleepy lit­tle wood­en shack over­look­ing Rock­away Beach. By the look of the build­ing, it should be a surf shop or a beach­side bar. The deck has a beau­ti­ful view of the beach, and today the waves are incred­i­ble. Six or sev­en dozen surfers crowd this lit­tle stretch of sand and water, and the sun shines on the din­ers out on the deck. Inside, it’s a plain sub­ur­ban fast-food shop, with moth­ers tow­ing tod­dlers around and lit­tle-league par­ents on their way to or from a game.

The food is no dif­fer­ent from any oth­er Taco Bell. I’ve been past here a dozen times and always won­dered why some­one has­n’t bought up the prop­er­ty and turned it into a fan­cy restau­rant or some­thing. Today is the first time I’ve dared stop in, per­haps most­ly because today I’m rid­ing by myself, and in the past get­ting this far from home has usu­al­ly meant rid­ing with some­one else.

Get­ting this far has been fun. It’s a nice day for a ride, a lit­tle bit hazy, but still bright and fun. Today rid­ing up over Twin Peaks though, I had my first expe­ri­ence of being on the bike and wish­ing I was­n’t. As I passed run­ners and cyclists, I became point­ed­ly aware of the sun hit­ting their bod­ies and the armor cov­er­ing me. How­ev­er, hav­ing been sick for the past few days, I’m real­ly not ready to be run­ning or bicy­cling yet, so a minia­ture road trip is a nice sec­ond-prize for a Sat­ur­day morning.