Day 16 – Cambria to Carmel, CA (San Simeon and the road)
Thursday morning – it’s now past midnight Thursday night, so it’s actually Friday already – I was woken up by a 7 am phone call from a telemarketer on East Coast time. (I thought of Henry II’s cry that led to Beckett's death in Canterbury Cathedral: “Will no one rid me of this man?” as I wished murder on him.) Unable to fall asleep again, I uploaded a couple of more photos to earlier postings. (I know the photos require scrolling, vertical and horizontal, to see fully. I can’t find a “sized to fit screen” feature….sorry!)
The morning was still gray, cool, and cloudy when I checked out at 10:30 am. to tour Hearst Castle, which, being high on a hill overlooking San Simeon, was enshrouded in wispy fog that obscured the towers of the main building. I signed up for tour #1 encompassing the major public rooms of the “Casa Grande”, the two pools – one indoors, one outdoors – and one of the guest-houses on the grounds. Our group was large, filling one big bus, and shepherded by two guides, one acting as a rear-guard and security monitor (to prevent light fingers).
Hearst Castle, at 115 rooms, is the second largest private house in the country. (Biltmore, in Ashville, NC, the largest at 255 rooms, was my second stop of this trip. Given that the two houses are at almost opposite ends of the country, they aren't competing attractions, like having to choose between The Metropolitan or MOMA when in New York City.) Of the two, Hearst Castle is, far and away, the more interestingly furnished property: William Randolph Hearst was much more eclectic in his tastes and acquired boat-loads of antiques ranging from Dynastic Egypt sculptures from Luxor to 17th century Flemish tapestries. Vanderbilt, on the contrary, focused more on French Period-furniture (the ornate and gilded “Louis numeral” variety). Interestingly, while both were at their height of wealth when Impressionist art was cheap and available, neither seemed to have had a real eye (or prescience) for it. (Biltmore does have a few paintings by Cassatt and Sargent, if memory serves, but very few.) Contrast them with Dr. Barnes, who was not in the same league in wealth as either Hearst or Vanderbilt, yet amassed the collection of world-class Impressionist work that became the Barnes Foundation.
Sexism advisory: women and others likely to roll their eyes when cars are called "she" can skip forward because it's going to get worse before it returns to normal. Men will appreciate and understand. So, vive la diference!)
The drive from Hearst Castle to Carmel was Baby's opportunity to strut her stuff. While parts of the drive through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona showed her speed, I had looked forward to the Pacific Coast Highway as the test of her other qualities, chiefly her handling and responsiveness to a challenging course.
The ninety-four miles to Carmel from San Simeon had the same elements and similar terrain as parts of the drive from LA to Cambria/San Simeon, but the difference was in the quantity (and quality) of the hair-pin turns and descents and ascents as it followed the rugged coastline. If the LA-Cambria stretch was a Hershey bar, the section to Carmel was the hand-made, 90% cocoa content, dark chocolate from Mary’s Chocolatier in Brussels. Both are “chocolate”, but where one is serviceable, the other is sublime, the sine qua non of the genre, with Baby the chocaholic. Her engine purred or growled, as appropriate and on demand, and she slalomed curves with the precision and speed of an Olympic skier. I had only to think a motion, a lean, a gear, and she had responded already. When she passed other cars – she was not passed once – it was with ease and assurance: more often, slower brethren, sensing her need to express, pulled to the side to let her through. It was an exhilarating hundred minutes and, contrary to how it might sound by my description, the safest I have ever felt driving under those conditions. In summary, I didn’t push her as a car: she pushed me as a driver. I can’t wait for the Northern California section to the redwoods! (Ok, I’m back to normal now, the exorcism worked. But, again, too late – it’s 2:30 am – to continue the Henry story. Tomorrow. Promise.)
Friday, May 28, 2004
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Day 15- Wed.: LA to Cambria, CA (San Simeon) and filling in the gaps
I woke this morning in LA to the persistent barking of a dog, but will be going to sleep shortly to the sound of the Pacific Ocean, less than a hundred yards away from tonight’s lodgings in Cambria, about 250 miles north of LA on the Pacific Coast Highway. I am also just two miles south of San Simeon, site of the Hearst Castle, my destination in the morning.
Today (Wed) was the first day since leaving Philadelphia two weeks ago that the top went down on the car. It was too wet in the Southeast, and both too hot and too dusty through the Southwest. (Besides, having listened to that dermatologist on NPR speak about skin damage from too much sun AND having a parent who died from melanoma, I'm leery of prolonged exposure despite liberal application of sun-block.) The California weather and the road were a commercial for convertibles: mid-60s temperature with a light wind, blue skies, and a road that varied from coast-hugging with dramatic ocean views to undulating through rolling hills and irrigated fields. All that was missing was Grace Kelly in the passenger seat....though I'd have settled for her driving and me being Cary Grant. She could've shelled the garlic-roasted Pistachios for me: it's tough to do with one hand and drive. (What? You thought I wanted her there for her looks??)
I am looking forward to the next four nights because they will ALL be in one place, ie. no packing and unpacking every day! Several months ago, when I knew that I'd be going to my friend Janet's wedding in Monterey this Saturday, I was high-bidder on a 4-night stay at The Carriage House B+B in Carmel-by-the-Sea through a website that specializes in offering packages at interesting resorts around the world. (I highly recommend it: see link in the link-list.) I can't wait to "nest", if only for a few days: it's a basic instinct even when the fulfillment is temporary.
I alluded, in a posting of the last couple of days, about meeting a young man, Henry Gray, a Navajo, while hiking in Canyon de Chelly National Monument last Saturday. I was leaving the viewing area of the White House ruins when I notice what I thought were an older teenager and a younger boy who had arrived after me and were also starting back. The older "boy" turned out to be Henry, a twenty-six year old father of four, three boys and a girl, including the seven year-old with him (whose name I didn't write down and also had difficulty pronouncing). I had mistaken Henry's age because of his appearance: about 5'9" and strongly built, he was wearing a bandanna head-cover, over-sized black T-shirt and shorts, and black sneakers. I took him to be, at most, twenty years old or so.
In the semi-strenuous forty minutes of steadily ascending the switch-back trail back to the mesa top several hundred feet above the place where we met, our conversation went from the general and ordinary to the personal and meaningful. There seemed to be an inverse relationship between the heaviness of the physical steps (especially mine as the path seemed never-ending) and the increasing lightness/ease with which we spoke, particularly him, about ourselves. (While we talked, his son's silent scampering short-cuts up the rock faces was typical of youth's envious energy: I felt my age each time I saw the routes he was taking.)
In the early going, we covered China's future in the world, the presence and impact of Native American gangs in the area of Chinle, and the connection between Asians and Native Americans at the genetic level, since the Americas were populated by Asians coming over the Bering Straits land-bridge during the last? next-to-last? Ice Age. As we climbed, we also moved on to our respective backgrounds and families. I learned that Henry was twenty-four, a shift manager at the local Church's Chicken fast-food store, had four children (the youngest being a two-month old daughter), a ninth-grade formal education, aspirations as a rapper/musician, and a wife who worked at a retail gift-store. He had lost thirty pounds in the last year -- and wanted to lose more "...so I'll look good on stage..", to which I pointed out that some rap artists are quite large and we both named Notorious Big as one. (Going down and up the White Horse ruins trail a couple of times a week was part of his exercise routine.) He also intimated at troubled younger years of "...doin' wild stupid stuff and runnin 'round on my woman" and to the young boy, who would turning eight next month and was his oldest, having had a drinking (!) problem that caused a situation at school. I told him about how I came to be in the USA, this trip and its reasons, and my daughter.
I am a good interviewer. I'm good because the other person can see/feel that my interest in them is genuine, even if, in a professional situation, I may have to judge them on the answers. In this case, my questioning of Henry was based both on liking him personally and on the opportunity, through his experience, of learning more about how typical (or atypical) it was from other Native Americans of his age group and the factors that made for those similarities or differences. (Writing it down, here, makes it seem more clinical than it was.) What he volunteered next and how it has already affected me (and might even more), will have to continue tomorrow. (It's 1:30 a.m. and I have to be up early if I am to "do" Hearst Castle as intended.) Photos of Henry and his son are in one of the postings of June 7, when I got a high-speed connection to upload a bunch of them.
I woke this morning in LA to the persistent barking of a dog, but will be going to sleep shortly to the sound of the Pacific Ocean, less than a hundred yards away from tonight’s lodgings in Cambria, about 250 miles north of LA on the Pacific Coast Highway. I am also just two miles south of San Simeon, site of the Hearst Castle, my destination in the morning.
Today (Wed) was the first day since leaving Philadelphia two weeks ago that the top went down on the car. It was too wet in the Southeast, and both too hot and too dusty through the Southwest. (Besides, having listened to that dermatologist on NPR speak about skin damage from too much sun AND having a parent who died from melanoma, I'm leery of prolonged exposure despite liberal application of sun-block.) The California weather and the road were a commercial for convertibles: mid-60s temperature with a light wind, blue skies, and a road that varied from coast-hugging with dramatic ocean views to undulating through rolling hills and irrigated fields. All that was missing was Grace Kelly in the passenger seat....though I'd have settled for her driving and me being Cary Grant. She could've shelled the garlic-roasted Pistachios for me: it's tough to do with one hand and drive. (What? You thought I wanted her there for her looks??)
I am looking forward to the next four nights because they will ALL be in one place, ie. no packing and unpacking every day! Several months ago, when I knew that I'd be going to my friend Janet's wedding in Monterey this Saturday, I was high-bidder on a 4-night stay at The Carriage House B+B in Carmel-by-the-Sea through a website that specializes in offering packages at interesting resorts around the world. (I highly recommend it: see link in the link-list.) I can't wait to "nest", if only for a few days: it's a basic instinct even when the fulfillment is temporary.
I alluded, in a posting of the last couple of days, about meeting a young man, Henry Gray, a Navajo, while hiking in Canyon de Chelly National Monument last Saturday. I was leaving the viewing area of the White House ruins when I notice what I thought were an older teenager and a younger boy who had arrived after me and were also starting back. The older "boy" turned out to be Henry, a twenty-six year old father of four, three boys and a girl, including the seven year-old with him (whose name I didn't write down and also had difficulty pronouncing). I had mistaken Henry's age because of his appearance: about 5'9" and strongly built, he was wearing a bandanna head-cover, over-sized black T-shirt and shorts, and black sneakers. I took him to be, at most, twenty years old or so.
In the semi-strenuous forty minutes of steadily ascending the switch-back trail back to the mesa top several hundred feet above the place where we met, our conversation went from the general and ordinary to the personal and meaningful. There seemed to be an inverse relationship between the heaviness of the physical steps (especially mine as the path seemed never-ending) and the increasing lightness/ease with which we spoke, particularly him, about ourselves. (While we talked, his son's silent scampering short-cuts up the rock faces was typical of youth's envious energy: I felt my age each time I saw the routes he was taking.)
In the early going, we covered China's future in the world, the presence and impact of Native American gangs in the area of Chinle, and the connection between Asians and Native Americans at the genetic level, since the Americas were populated by Asians coming over the Bering Straits land-bridge during the last? next-to-last? Ice Age. As we climbed, we also moved on to our respective backgrounds and families. I learned that Henry was twenty-four, a shift manager at the local Church's Chicken fast-food store, had four children (the youngest being a two-month old daughter), a ninth-grade formal education, aspirations as a rapper/musician, and a wife who worked at a retail gift-store. He had lost thirty pounds in the last year -- and wanted to lose more "...so I'll look good on stage..", to which I pointed out that some rap artists are quite large and we both named Notorious Big as one. (Going down and up the White Horse ruins trail a couple of times a week was part of his exercise routine.) He also intimated at troubled younger years of "...doin' wild stupid stuff and runnin 'round on my woman" and to the young boy, who would turning eight next month and was his oldest, having had a drinking (!) problem that caused a situation at school. I told him about how I came to be in the USA, this trip and its reasons, and my daughter.
I am a good interviewer. I'm good because the other person can see/feel that my interest in them is genuine, even if, in a professional situation, I may have to judge them on the answers. In this case, my questioning of Henry was based both on liking him personally and on the opportunity, through his experience, of learning more about how typical (or atypical) it was from other Native Americans of his age group and the factors that made for those similarities or differences. (Writing it down, here, makes it seem more clinical than it was.) What he volunteered next and how it has already affected me (and might even more), will have to continue tomorrow. (It's 1:30 a.m. and I have to be up early if I am to "do" Hearst Castle as intended.) Photos of Henry and his son are in one of the postings of June 7, when I got a high-speed connection to upload a bunch of them.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Still about Saturday, Day 11 - I'm behind..., but the good news is that a photo uploaded! The photo at the end of this one is the subject of the second part of this entry.)
No two days have been as different from each other as this past Saturday and Sunday. The former’s focus was the natural world of the Southwest: hiking at Canyon de Chelly near Chinle, AZ, the site of continuous inhabitation for 800+ years and home to spectacular Ancestral Puebloan ruins, and a drive around Sedona, AZ, known for its rock formations and energy “vortexes”. The latter, after a several hours drive, centered on man’s work: Hoover Dam and Las Vegas. (I use “man” because the dam was built in the 1930s, when the workforce was overwhelmingly male, and because I don’t think any woman would want to take credit for either conceiving and “delivering” Vegas.) Saturday was also a day of unexpected and significant conversations with potential long-term implications.
Chinle, the small town closest to Canyon de Chelly (pronounced “Shay”), is in the middle of Arizona’s Navajo Nation Reservation. I stayed at a Holiday Inn just two miles from the Visitor’s Center of this National Monument in order to hike in the morning, before the sun got too strong. While the nights have gone into the high-50s and the daytime temperatures remain comfortable in the shade, the mercury climbs into the 80s under the clear skies. (The wind helps keeping it cooler, sometimes a little too much: I drove through a dust storm of several miles approaching Chinle on Friday night, which left a thin layer of red clay/sand on Baby. Several sections of the highways between Cortez, CO and Chinle had warnings about dust storms. Given the sunny and windy climate of the region, I was surprised to see little wind or solar power usage. Don’t get me started about investments in renewable energy.)
One of the largest employers in Chinle is a Native youth correctional facility, whose motto is: “Restoring Youth To A Path of Harmony”. Henry Gray, the local Navajo I met later (more on that below), alluded to a non-trivial gang and drug problem brought back by tribe members exposed to those in the big cities. It’s one thing to read about that chapter of duplicity, venality, and, yes, racism, in our government’s dealings with Native Americans, it’s another to see the continuing consequences a hundred and fifty years later. It’s here, it’s now, and it’s appalling that it exists at the outer age of our consciousness. We talk – or at least the Republicans talk – about what a great nation we are, yet, as Martin Luther King said (I think it was him), no nation can be great when a segment of its people can’t/don’t share in the opportunities to achieve the collective dream. And it becomes particularly ironic and shaming when that segment is comprised of the REAL “Americans”.
If the Native American “problem” was in my mind at all while planning this portion of my trip, it was in the far periphery. This past week has been an unexpected and eye-opening experience. I know that I have always felt embarrassed seeing the Native American craftsmen selling their work off side-walk blankets set up under the shade of the old Governor’s Palace portico in Santa Fe Plaza. I think the embarrassment came from two sources, one of them shared: knowing that they weren’t showing/selling artifacts of their culture from a position of socio-economic and political strength and completeness, and, secondly, knowing that these were proud people with a strong cultural history and identity. There was a dual element of “doing them a favor” and “getting a bargain” (exacerbated by the haggling over prices) in the transactions that disrespected the culture and, thus, the people. Contrast, for example, our regard or French or Italian-products and how/where they are purchased. We wouldn’t dream of negotiating the price of an Armani suit, a Givenchy dress, or a Vuitton bag sold in their flagship stores. And we certainly don’t feel like we are doing them a favor, almost an act of charity by our purchase: in fact, quite the opposite. Subliminally, we know those are strong cultures and countries and we gain some of their cachet and “power” by having them, much like why cannibal cultures eat the flesh of strong enemies to get their strength. But we admire (and buy) Native American jewelry, for the most part, as much for the beauty as for the bargain. (I’m happy to argue this premise with anyone who is actually reading thig blog.)
(Sorry for the diatribe: back to the travelogue…)
While touring of the Canyon de Chelly is only allowed with Ranger-led groups or licensed guides, there is one trail, to the White House Ruins, which is self-guided. Due to time constraints, this is the one I had planned on doing. The trail begins at the overlook on the canyon rim, about a ten minute ride from the Park entrance, and ends at the ruins, a couple of hundred yards after reaching the bottom of the canyon. It’s a vertical descent of about 750 feet over the course of a mile to a mile and a quarter. (It doesn’t seem like much of a distance….if the ground was flat. Because of the hike UP, back to the mesa top, the estimated time is around 2 hours for a round trip.) The trail surface is uneven in places (and warned as slippery when wet) but wide and gives a great aerobic and lower-body work-out on the return trip.
Like my visit to Carlsbad Caverns, being there early – I started down around 8:40 am – had the added advantage of having the hike down and the site mainly to myself. (I met even “earlier birds” already sweating their way up and only one person, a small, older Asian woman in a blue jacket, at the foot of the fenced-off ruins at ground level, behind which were the structures built into a horizontal gouge on the rosy-pink cliff-face some sixty or seventy feet above ground.) (The cliff face is slightly concave, curving upward for several hundred feet to the top of the canyon.).
Unlike the Cliff Palace or Balcony House at Mesa Verde National Park, where one can walk and climb (a little) around the cliff dwellings, the White House ruins, so named because the remains of the middle structure have a white-wash still visible, seem surreal because of the viewing distance and their coloring. It also feels lost and insignificant, dominated and framed by the canyon wall, which continues out of sight to the right and left.. I thought how like a grain of sand to an oyster this intrusion of mud-bricks and mortar must feel to the cliff, yet how, ultimately, each makes the whole greater than the parts alone: the oyster with a pearl, the canyon face with these physical remnants of laughter and life that it once enjoyed. The current silence contributed to that sensation of mystery and beauty, the only sounds being the soft swishing of the sand under my footsteps and the occasional bird-cry.
(I’ll have to continue in the next entry with my meeting of Henry Gray, the young Navajo, and his son as I was leaving the canyon floor for the hike up. And the eighteen hours in Las Vegas that felt like a year. Right now, it’s Tuesday morning in Los Angeles, and I’m heading to The Getty Center as soon as my laundry is dry. I’m behind in writing, but trying to catch up. I’ll have more time in Carmel on Thursday through Monday.)
No two days have been as different from each other as this past Saturday and Sunday. The former’s focus was the natural world of the Southwest: hiking at Canyon de Chelly near Chinle, AZ, the site of continuous inhabitation for 800+ years and home to spectacular Ancestral Puebloan ruins, and a drive around Sedona, AZ, known for its rock formations and energy “vortexes”. The latter, after a several hours drive, centered on man’s work: Hoover Dam and Las Vegas. (I use “man” because the dam was built in the 1930s, when the workforce was overwhelmingly male, and because I don’t think any woman would want to take credit for either conceiving and “delivering” Vegas.) Saturday was also a day of unexpected and significant conversations with potential long-term implications.
Chinle, the small town closest to Canyon de Chelly (pronounced “Shay”), is in the middle of Arizona’s Navajo Nation Reservation. I stayed at a Holiday Inn just two miles from the Visitor’s Center of this National Monument in order to hike in the morning, before the sun got too strong. While the nights have gone into the high-50s and the daytime temperatures remain comfortable in the shade, the mercury climbs into the 80s under the clear skies. (The wind helps keeping it cooler, sometimes a little too much: I drove through a dust storm of several miles approaching Chinle on Friday night, which left a thin layer of red clay/sand on Baby. Several sections of the highways between Cortez, CO and Chinle had warnings about dust storms. Given the sunny and windy climate of the region, I was surprised to see little wind or solar power usage. Don’t get me started about investments in renewable energy.)
One of the largest employers in Chinle is a Native youth correctional facility, whose motto is: “Restoring Youth To A Path of Harmony”. Henry Gray, the local Navajo I met later (more on that below), alluded to a non-trivial gang and drug problem brought back by tribe members exposed to those in the big cities. It’s one thing to read about that chapter of duplicity, venality, and, yes, racism, in our government’s dealings with Native Americans, it’s another to see the continuing consequences a hundred and fifty years later. It’s here, it’s now, and it’s appalling that it exists at the outer age of our consciousness. We talk – or at least the Republicans talk – about what a great nation we are, yet, as Martin Luther King said (I think it was him), no nation can be great when a segment of its people can’t/don’t share in the opportunities to achieve the collective dream. And it becomes particularly ironic and shaming when that segment is comprised of the REAL “Americans”.
If the Native American “problem” was in my mind at all while planning this portion of my trip, it was in the far periphery. This past week has been an unexpected and eye-opening experience. I know that I have always felt embarrassed seeing the Native American craftsmen selling their work off side-walk blankets set up under the shade of the old Governor’s Palace portico in Santa Fe Plaza. I think the embarrassment came from two sources, one of them shared: knowing that they weren’t showing/selling artifacts of their culture from a position of socio-economic and political strength and completeness, and, secondly, knowing that these were proud people with a strong cultural history and identity. There was a dual element of “doing them a favor” and “getting a bargain” (exacerbated by the haggling over prices) in the transactions that disrespected the culture and, thus, the people. Contrast, for example, our regard or French or Italian-products and how/where they are purchased. We wouldn’t dream of negotiating the price of an Armani suit, a Givenchy dress, or a Vuitton bag sold in their flagship stores. And we certainly don’t feel like we are doing them a favor, almost an act of charity by our purchase: in fact, quite the opposite. Subliminally, we know those are strong cultures and countries and we gain some of their cachet and “power” by having them, much like why cannibal cultures eat the flesh of strong enemies to get their strength. But we admire (and buy) Native American jewelry, for the most part, as much for the beauty as for the bargain. (I’m happy to argue this premise with anyone who is actually reading thig blog.)
(Sorry for the diatribe: back to the travelogue…)
While touring of the Canyon de Chelly is only allowed with Ranger-led groups or licensed guides, there is one trail, to the White House Ruins, which is self-guided. Due to time constraints, this is the one I had planned on doing. The trail begins at the overlook on the canyon rim, about a ten minute ride from the Park entrance, and ends at the ruins, a couple of hundred yards after reaching the bottom of the canyon. It’s a vertical descent of about 750 feet over the course of a mile to a mile and a quarter. (It doesn’t seem like much of a distance….if the ground was flat. Because of the hike UP, back to the mesa top, the estimated time is around 2 hours for a round trip.) The trail surface is uneven in places (and warned as slippery when wet) but wide and gives a great aerobic and lower-body work-out on the return trip.
Like my visit to Carlsbad Caverns, being there early – I started down around 8:40 am – had the added advantage of having the hike down and the site mainly to myself. (I met even “earlier birds” already sweating their way up and only one person, a small, older Asian woman in a blue jacket, at the foot of the fenced-off ruins at ground level, behind which were the structures built into a horizontal gouge on the rosy-pink cliff-face some sixty or seventy feet above ground.) (The cliff face is slightly concave, curving upward for several hundred feet to the top of the canyon.).
Unlike the Cliff Palace or Balcony House at Mesa Verde National Park, where one can walk and climb (a little) around the cliff dwellings, the White House ruins, so named because the remains of the middle structure have a white-wash still visible, seem surreal because of the viewing distance and their coloring. It also feels lost and insignificant, dominated and framed by the canyon wall, which continues out of sight to the right and left.. I thought how like a grain of sand to an oyster this intrusion of mud-bricks and mortar must feel to the cliff, yet how, ultimately, each makes the whole greater than the parts alone: the oyster with a pearl, the canyon face with these physical remnants of laughter and life that it once enjoyed. The current silence contributed to that sensation of mystery and beauty, the only sounds being the soft swishing of the sand under my footsteps and the occasional bird-cry.
(I’ll have to continue in the next entry with my meeting of Henry Gray, the young Navajo, and his son as I was leaving the canyon floor for the hike up. And the eighteen hours in Las Vegas that felt like a year. Right now, it’s Tuesday morning in Los Angeles, and I’m heading to The Getty Center as soon as my laundry is dry. I’m behind in writing, but trying to catch up. I’ll have more time in Carmel on Thursday through Monday.)
Days 11, 12 - Saturday and Sunday: Canyon de Chelly, Sedona, and Las Vegas.
This is from a couple of days ago at Four Corners Monument, which is a spot where, like in Twister, one could have each hand and each foot on a different state: Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Since it's an artificially created attraction, there is NOTHING there to see. The site, however, has something in common with The Great Wall of China: long sheds of souvenier stands selling T-shirts and knick-knacks.
I asked another visitor to take the photo and, while I shouldn't complain, the composition is terrible: "Baby" is, after all, my partner on this trip and her nose is cut-off! (Uh oh..... I'm referring to a car as a "partner". I need human company besides either Christian preachers on the radio or country-western songs!)
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