I’ve had California sized stars in my eyes for a very long time. Many do, but I wanted that SoCal life like, real bad. That’s what being trapped in northern Wisconsin for twelve years will do to a girl. The agony. Stop looking at me like I’m being melodramatic…

South Lake Tahoe is the perfect midpoint between Nevada and the Redwoods, so I drive into town and enter the Cali-forn-i-a golden state of mind. I post-up right by the lake at a park near the west end of town. I slather Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ on a honey ham sandwich and break out the roasted red pepper pasta salad and an orange soda. I take my small feast down to the lake and sit on a large, wide stone stair leading down to the water’s edge.

It’s just so beautiful. The sun is directly overhead in the early hours of the afternoon, projecting rays as if a galaxy of shimmering glass shards were constantly shifting and then exploding over the rippling surface of the lake. Define tranquility and you’d find a picture of me sitting just so, time never moving, nor seasons changing; frozen in this very moment for eternity. Yet time shall not be conquered by mortal whims.

Heavy sigh, finish up snacking and back to the van to grab my deck. Haven’t long boarded since Milwaukee, a lifetime ago that world seems from here. Time to do the townie thing, so I skate the length of the main drag and check it out.

It feels like an upscale model of the Northwoods in Wisconsin. Except everyone is wearing like, a bazillion dollars’ worth of Patagonia and North Face and looks ready to hike Mount Everest at any instant. Ah how the other half lives.

Sarcasm aside this part of town really is quite lovely. Past the higher rising buildings in downtown South Lake Tahoe, this tree lined stretch of road housed trendy little shops and diners of every make and sort. I skate up one side and down the other, smiling at locals and breathing the crisp fall air in deep lungfuls. The touristy vibes were very akin to Eagle River, Wisconsin. Yet the town folk were friendly and even the McDonald’s was wrapped in log-like trim to keep within the Tahoe-chic dress code matching the rest of the buildings.

Have my bit of fun in town, now off to find free camping in the hills.

Several wrong turns, no GPS signal and a one lane switchback that carried on until I thought for sure I would drive off the mountain and voila – tumble into Luther Pass and I feel as if I’ve found a living, growing gemstone in the mountain – as opposed to the beautiful, yet dead, cold and hardened diamonds and emeralds of land and beauty I’d come across thus far on my journey. Every day of my life is more blessed and beautiful than the last though, I can hardly believe it to be so each time. Mind blown time and time again.

There are seven or so large campsites, several set against the little flowing creek near the bottom of the sloping expanse of ground and earth. A bed of long orange pine needles coated the otherwise dusty ground, making the soles of my feet bounce softly off the earth with each step. That is until I step on this pointy, light brown thorn-like thing that sticks deep in the pad of my foot and leaves a hole where blood slowly wells up as I pull it out. Shoes back on.

Get set up in twenty minutes. Damn I’m getting good at this. Head up the hill to lock up Delilah. I hear the low rumble and vroom vroom of a black motorcycle before I see its rider breech the hilltop pavement. Jet black helmet and black lace-up travel boots completed the Batman style ensemble. But like the cool, original Batman suit in the 1989 flick before they added nipples to his plate armor. There is literally, no point, to putting nipples on plate armor. End rant.

Under the helmet is not in fact the Batman, but the Benjamin. He’d been on the road for four years. From east coast to west coast and round’ again on two willing wheels. We chat, explore, learn a little history – a brief glimpse into each others’ lives. What makes us wayward wanderers tick and tock and move and expand ever outward with feet, feelers and fleeting desires.

No fires here on out. California dry spell and Smokey the Bear on high alert and only you can prevent forest fires. Cold sandwiches and snack, and then risk a little night hike over the stream into the woods as the light begins to fail. Feels like something in the air tonight.

Find a wide, flat surface of rock, greyscales indiscernible as nightfall settles in. We lie out and watch the stars hold their golden court in an infinite sky. Just a handful of the billions upon billions, blazing bright and burning out before their brilliance ever even reaches our eyes.

I should be afraid or at least wary of the bumps in the night, but for once just be still and breathe it all in. Memories per moment embedding in my subconscious – long term storage cells made and molded in the fibers of my being.

And then we’re stepping, crunching over a thick bed of pine and dead brush, making more noise than any curious predator in these parts. Pushing the boundaries set by nature and treading a bit heavier than we should. Just this once, to bathe in the luminescence of asteroids burning light-years away.

And then I am to sleep once more and soon wake to set fresh eyes upon a new day – yet another chance to seek greatness and discover the many facets of myself.

Venture into town today to catch up on mortal things. Coffee and blog and I hate to say it, but check out the debate highlights from Trump and Hillary’s latest tango on the tele last night. I mustn’t forget that in this great journey I am learning the tools to survive and exist in both worlds – nature’s arms and society’s expectations (not that I adhere to them, but to know them lends wisdom) a seesaw and me with my pen balancing the weighted sides for the masses to better discern what our world needs of us…and then checking my Facebook.

Back to camp for some more good company and a bit of musik. Our neighbors Jess, and his son of seven or eight, Ethan, wander down towards the thrumming sounds drifting up from my guitar and they come bearing gifts. Two cold Budweisers and a bowl of pine nuts earnestly foraged from the earth’s floor by little hands. Ethan picked them one by one from their confines in the whirly helicopter things (that’s definitely their real scientific name) and into a smooth wooden bowl.

Our little band of unlikely misfits talk and trade stories in good fun, until Ethan takes an “accidental” dunk in the creek. Heavy sighs from dad, but a laugh and “better getcha dried off before the sun goes down.” He says.

Everywhere I go I have come across such earnest, “real” people (as opposed to robots? Lol.) I love the diversity of the world, every single individual story that makes us us, and I feel so much joy when strangers are willing to share their part within it with me.

Another secret treasure found to put on the books if I ever roll through these parts again: Luther Pass. Camp one last night here, fond goodbyes in the a.m. and I follow Benjamin out of camp behind the rumble of his bike. He has a few more days planned here, but I must be headed on. Kindreds we are, ever chasing the pavement. Just before my tires turn onto the highway, Rocket Man drifts over the radio waves amidst a light crackle.

“I think it’s gonna be a long, long time.

Til’ touchdown brings me round’ again to find.

I’m not the man they think I am at home, oh no.

I’m a rocket man, burnin’ out his fuse up here alone.”

Elton John traveled this same solo road as I, and knew it to be sometimes a lonely one. I think I’d rather walk the curves of the earth and know the brilliance of the moon alone, than walk hand in hand nowhere or anywhere.

I’m a Rocket Girl. Burnin’ out my fuse up here alone.