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I won't bore you with the bureaucratic details, but the bike that I intended to ride back to Ojai the next morning seemed to be lacking a license plate. This complicated matters rather a lot and I had to wake up the next morning and get the paperwork squared away at the Folsom DMV. Not a lot of fun. Worse then that, I had to rent a U-Haul and take the bike down to the DMV so they could check the VIN numbers and the serial number, etc. This meant that I got to run around the outskirts of Sacramento and Folsom for most of the day on Friday.

I don't know how many of you have been to Sacramento lately, but like most suburban areas in California it's sprawling out everywhere. There is nothing but chain stores and cars everywhere. No pedestrian traffic anywhere. Big-box stores, fast food joints, Starbucks, and all manner of smaller chain retail places everywhere. All residing in tilt-up, concrete construction, strip malls and retail courts tailor made for cars cars cars. The never ending, four-cornered intersections with two gas stations, a Starbucks and a pick your national brand fast food joint. Often one or more of the gas stations also had a fast food place within, next to the 10W 40 and small paper funnels. Behind these, across great expanses of black asphalt sometimes doted with islands of national sit-down restaurants like Islands or TGI Friday's, sat the giant cubic big-boxes. WalMart, Rite-Aid, Lowe's, Sam's Club, Costco, OSH, and on and on ad infinitum.

I spent my high school years in a suburban setting not unlike this 30 miles East of Los Angeles, so I knew my way around. A few years ago, my wife and I took a road trip through 14 Western and Mid-Western states. That's when we first really noticed it. The great corporate American mono-culture. The only thing that changes is the topography. Even the radio is the same, thanks to giants like Clear Channel. If you squint your eyes and tilt your head just right you can pretend you're in Eugene or Tacoma or Spokane or Boise or Missoula (a 2 WalMart town believe it or not), or Casper or Rapid City or Des Moines or Topeka or Tulsa or Dallas or Houston (where there is actually an intersection with a Starbucks on each corner) or Albuquerque or Phoenix or Barstow or even Santa Clarita (more on Santa Clarita later).

I finally got the bike registered and was handed a new plate at 3:30 p.m. My original intention was to leave in the early morning and ride over the Sierra through Yosemite and down to Mammoth Lakes where some friends were staying. Instead I left at 4:00 p.m. and rode straight up Hwy 50 past Lake Tahoe, over the mountains in the gathering dusk and down into the Nevada side where I hooked up with the 395 South. I nearly ran out of gas some 100 miles North of Mammoth, but was lucky enough to find a station still open. 270 miles on the bike on Friday over the great Sierra Nevada. It was really beautiful, though it got a little cold on the other side of the mountains as night fell. In fact, I was hypothermic by the time I arrived at the condo at 10:30 p.m. Nothing the jacuzzi couldn't cure though.

Saturday, my friends went out fishing and I hoped back on the bike despite the growing pain from the saddle. I drove through Mammoth Lakes and found a bakery. Mammoth still has a lot of independently owned businesses, but it also has a lot of chain businesses so it took me a minute to find a place for breakfast. I started out at 10:30 a.m. and pretty much flew down the 395. The bike and I finally settled on a comfortable 85 mph. Illegal enough to keep me on my toes looking for highway patrol, but slow enough to be able to hold on. If you haven't been on the 395, it's a pretty straight, alternating between two and four lane highway that goes parallel to the majestic Sierra Nevada. From Mammoth Lakes you are normally at about 7000 feet, but then you drop down to about 5000 through the Owens Valley while Mt. Whitney rises to 14,505 feet to the West. Then you drop down into the high desert and the wasteland that is Lancaster and Palmdale on the 14 freeway. Again, nothing but chains and cars.

I remember Valencia when I was a kid going to Magic Mountain. From the atop of the Colossus roller coster you could see forever, and there was nothing but brown, rolling hills. Today it's called Santa Clarita, a mega-burb that's eaten up Valencia, Canyon Country, Newhall, Saugus and much of Castaic. It's now built up beyond belief. Being a "planned" community, the ONLY economy in Santa Clarita is the corporate mono culture. All chains all the time. Money magazine calls Santa Clarita one of the top 100 places to live in the United States. They actually appear to mean it too.

I rode my new bike through Santa Clarita on Saturday afternoon at about 4:45 p.m. I took the long way through the "town" from the 14 rather than going to the 5 interchange and back up North to the 126. I actually got a little lost in all the sameness and my sense of direction was the only thing that got me out. I got back on the 5, then the 126 and on through Fillmore past the new housing development on the flood plane of the Santa Clara River at the East end of town. Until shortly after the beginning of the 20th century, the Santa Clara River was navigable by ocean going vessels as far inland as today's Santa Clarita. The many wells and dams built to support the agricultural boom of the early 1900's lowered the water table, and the river has been shrinking ever since. Now I doubt you could kayak much beyond Oxnard without walking. Maybe in the winter if it rains a lot.

I got back into Ojai at about 5:30 p.m. and peeled myself off the bike. 600 miles in two day is a long way on a motorcycle. After dinner at 8:00 p.m., I went with my wife and my 1.5 year old son to the Ojai Coffee Roasting Company and listened to Jonathan McEuen play. He was amazing as always. He's a natural born performer. I was sitting there listening and I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if a Starbucks or a Pete's Coffee or a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf came to Ojai. Would we lose the OCRC like we lost Stir Crazy in Mira Monte? Do those corporate mono culture coffee places even have live music? At 9:00 p.m. I walked over to Libbey Bowl and listened to perhaps my favorite poet, Gary Snyder read at the Ojai Poetry Festival . It was awesome! I was very glad to be at home in the only town in 1000 miles that had not yet completely succumbed to the chains. I really hope we can keep it this way.

I'll leave you with Gary Snyder's poem In the Santa Clarita Valley which he calls nature poetry for the future:

In the Santa Clarita Valley

Like skinny wildweed flowers sticking up
hexagonal "Denny's" sign
starry "Carl's"
loopy "McDonald's"
eight-petaled yellow "Shell"
blue-and-white "Mobil" with a big red "O"

growing
in the asphalt riparian zone
by the soft roar of the flow
of Interstate 5.

You can hear him read it here, but you'll need the realone player to play it.