Monday, July 16, 2007

Encinal Canyon Road

At about 4:00 Saturday, as I crossed a road, I had a "No, you go first" moment with a driver turning onto that road. After I crossed, he called me over to his Mercedes and said if I was looking for a safe place to camp out, hop on in. I declined at first, saying there is still a lot of walking time left in the day. But he persisted, so I got in the car. He drove a few miles up the canyon road until we were close to 1,000 ft above the ocean, where there is only one other house in sight. This place was incredible. The 73-year-old Louis Winter had built a house in the side of the mountain. He and his wife are nearly self-sufficient, with solar/wind power, a high-tech outhouse, and all kinds of things you've never seen before. I got a shower and a meal, then from out of nowhere "Father Winter" says, "I think I'll take you back down to the beach; it'll be too hot to sleep up here." Clearly
he didn't like something about me and he was trying to get rid of me. He's a dick for being dishonest.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

wow, he sounds like an awful nice man to let a complete stranger in the house and give him food and a shower. I think it is one thing to offer a stranger food and a bath but completely different to allow a stranger to sleep in your house. He sounds like a very compassionate man. I hope you take away from this experience his kindness. I hope the man, if he sees your post, realizes he has done a good deed and isn't stung by the criticism.

I have been reading your blog for a long while and I guess the reason why I haven't passed this on to too many people is that the tone of your blog is so negative at times. Complete strangers take you in do nice things, but in the end you complain about something. Like the man in Florida who gave you a job to help paint his house. You felt he didn't pay you enough.

You are truly not aimless if you have preconceived expectations and people fail to meet those expectations.

Maybe you should consider reading the Tao of Pooh. You could pick it up pretty cheap at a used book store.

Until then I leave you with a quote from Steven Hawking

“When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have”