On the Blog Again

Road Trip 6: Modesto and Mariposa

September 12th, 2006

TOUCH DOWN MODESTO: HOME OF THE NUTS.

So, it’s another road trip to the Central Valley in the middle of summer.
They swore to me last year this wouldn’t happen again and yet, here we are.
(Note to self: maybe I shouldn’t drink that last Diet Coke in the office frig. It apparently belonged to someone of great power.)

Quickly, we share a package of Claritin to head off the headaches before we touch down.
Poor Heather. She already has a nasty cold. We keep our fingers crossed that the air conditioning in the RV doesn’t let us down and this trip doesn’t do her in.

Modesto is another one of those California towns that really began its growth after the gold rush.
The sign that welcomed everyone to town, with its ‘Water, Wealth, Contentment, Health,’ was added in 1912.
We’re hoping, for the sake of the crew, that all are still possible.

And, it’s also the home of the Modesto Nuts…the AAA team of the Denver Rockies. We were hoping to catch a game but Autumn, fearing it was bat night, thought we might all use one on her for scheduling a Central Valley shoot during the current wave of heat and wildfires.

Our main reason for being in Modesto is a lead story on the town’s most dubious honor: The car theft capital of the nation.

It seems hard to believe but, per capita, Modesto has more cars stolen every day than any other city in the U.S.: one every 75 minutes!
And it’s not just a Modesto problem. Up and down Highway 99, from Stockton, to Visalia, car thieves are hitting fast and leaving residents furious.
Our San Francisco based correspondent, Craig Miller, came up here to look into why.

It turns out it’s a ‘need for speed.’ Not racing, but methamphetamine.
Craig also produced and wrote the piece and it’s really well done.
The cost of a stolen car may be high, but the hidden camera video he used of the thieves as they were stealing …
Priceless!

Also while we’re here, we’ll shoot an intro into a pair of pieces being produced and reported by the graduate students of the Annenberg School of Journalism at USC.
They’ll take a look at two communities in Southern California that have two very distinct reactions to the problem of illegal immigration.

To service that end, our first location is a strawberry field outside of town.

Ryan joins us again from San Francisco, and, of course there’s Heather and Autumn. I don’t leave the county without them.

But, Bill Sheehy and Joe are still shooting a series job that conflicted with our dates and can’t be with us this trip.
We can’t be mad. Bill’s daughter got into NYU for the fall. You can imagine how he’s keeping his schedule booked to head off the nightmares about that out-of-state tuition.

But we’re still in able hands with our newest “newbies.”

You might not know photographer Sam Sewell or sound man Bill Bass by name yet…
But if you’ve ever watched NBC Nightly News, Dateline, the Today Show or Good Morning America, you know their excellent work.
And, since they agreed to go where our itinerary is taking us this trip, you also know they’re brave men indeed.

After wrapping at the farm stand, we do what we always do when folks are nice enough to let us borrow they’re backdrop and try to buy as much as the RV frig will hold to say ‘thanks.’

The peaches, blackberries and nectarines were amazing but the real catch was inside a few little Ball jars. Homemade jams to die for. I bought four.

As we get into the RV, we’re thinking that this isn’t so bad.
It’s only 95 degrees so far and we’ve made a great find for tomorrow’s toast.
But, as we’re putting the jars in the frig we see the darker side.
The blackberry jam has escaped from the jar.
I look like I’ve been shot.

Autumn calls Randa, our head of research, back at the office.
‘Google it!’ She yells.

Within seconds someone in the office puts the search engine to shame… saying the cure for dark berry stains is a mixture of vinegar and cold water that you let sit for 10 minutes before rubbing with a stain stick.

I was about to be amazed by their encyclopedic knowledge and then heard the real reason for the ‘Beat the Clock’ answer:
It had been on the ‘Today’ show that morning.

We’ve got nothing, but everything to lose.
We’ve already done a half-day of shooting and have no extra wardrobe.
So we find a Rite-aid, buy vinegar and pray.

As we always seem to do in stressful situations, we have lunch.

This is actually the second visit to the Harvest Moon Cafe for a couple of us. We were here with Bill and Joe and the gang last year (again in the summer!) and still talk about the jambalaya.

Sam and Bill were doubtful at first….

But the empty plate says it all.

Lunch done, we headed back to the big blue blob we left on the big blue bus. It’s gone.
Not the RV, though given the hot wiring skill in this hot valley town it did cross our minds, the stain. It was gone.
I can’t wait to write to ‘Heloise’ with proof of her ‘hint.’

The only problem now is that we have to keep working and our next location is the side of the freeway in 100-degree heat.

There’s not much more to say about this day except that we’ve proven how enticing it must be for motorists getting on or off the 99 to honk and yell when they see a camera.
After 12 takes of a script that should have taken 2, we’re done, in more ways than one.
I’ve nothing to add about hotels because, well, if you can’t say something nice…

WEDNESDAY MORNING.

We have just a couple of things to do here before we head for the hills.
(Literally. Our afternoon location is Mariposa, outside of Yosemite.)
So we charge out earlier than usual so we can hit the road before the heat smacks us down.

We’ve been asked to do a favor for another producer that shows the growth in the area and pull up to a new housing development to shoot the shingles as they’re going on the new homes.

While Sam and Bill grab some shots, we wait.

And, not for any particular reason except, well, he’s Jeff…
Jeff drops to the curb and gives us 20.

Autumn, not to be out done, gives it her best to prove she’s boss.

But, after 2 and a half instead of 20…
She thinks better of it.
And decides to sculpt those upper arms, instead.

Thrilled that she’s gotten in a workout and thrilled Sam and Bill finished the shots, she was overcome and had to do a cartwheel.

Jeff, well, because he’s Jeff, did one, too.

I watch Bill and Sam for they’re reactions.
I’m guessing Brokaw and Shriver may have better form.

11:00 AM

When was the last time you had a real root-beer float?
Well, we can tell you, it’s been too long.

The A&W drive-in in Modesto is a little slice of heaven.

The owner, Johnny Matthews, really went out of his way to rally some of the regulars who pull up every Friday night to celebrate hot rods, corn dogs, cheese fries, burgers and floats to join us for a ‘Greetings from CC’ video postcard.

There is real history in this little gathering of hot rods.

I’m guessing a little history with the Elvis’s, too, but more recent.

Apparently, when George Lucas was growing up in Modesto, he was part of that hot rod cruising culture that is still alive and well here today.

Though most of the street scenes were filmed in Petaluma, his memories of growing up here in Modesto were the basis of ‘American Graffiti.’
(Quick note: he’s not the only famous star born in Modesto. The Olympian Mark Spitz grew up here. And, if you’re too young for that, the actor who played ‘Spike’ on ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ is from here, too.)

The A&W has been here since the beginning. And, still today, on Friday nights, this lot is packed with families and proud car owners, musicians and, of course, the flying Elvis’s. I’m guessing all should get a cholesterol check.

As we shot a quick ‘Greetings’ segment, our incredibly skilled car-hop, Katrina Crisel, did her part to help us out.

And our reward after an hour or two of shooting was the best lunch you could shake a heart surgeon at….

The only dilemma?
Which one is one the South Beach Diet again?
The fries or the rings????

Again, I look over to newbies Sam and Bill and wonder what they’re thinking.

It can only be: Brokaw’s Elvis jumpsuit isn’t as nice as his!

1:00 PM

On the road again.

Heading toward Yosemite, surveying the ranches, the fields, and the cows, there’s only one thing that comes to mind.
The Ponderosa.

Heather and I both kick ourselves that we didn’t download the ‘Dum, de-di-dum, di-di-dum, dum’ onto our iPods before we left.

Mariposa, Mariposa. A name so nice you have to say it twice.
Our executive producer, Bret, kept chanting that with a grin as we left for the trip.
New Yorkers. You’d think a group who routinely says Sagaponick, Montauk, and Teeterboro with a straight face would think harder before teasing another state about its names.

Mariposa actually means ‘butterfly’ in Spanish.

But it’s real reason for being is the gold rush.

In the center of town the 5 stamp gold press still stands. It has nothing to do with the postal service.

The stamps are the giant cylinders that freed the gold from the hunks of quartz pulled from the mountains.

Most of the gold was found in quartz because, during the molten stage of the mountain’sbirth, gold and quartz had a similar melting temperature and tended to become entwined.

A chat with the locals proved the old prospecting spirit, and the old prospectors’ beards, are still alive and well.

As for Mariposa itself….

Only a mile and a half long, the town still has a good stretch of original old buildings and sidewalks.

And if that doesn’t make you feel like you’ve found a portal to the 1880’s, maybe this will convince you you’ve found one to the 1980’s.

Road Trip 5: Back to the Bay…

July 17th, 2006

MONDAY

As we plan our stories each season, we really try to find a way to balance our coverage of the different regions of state. If all goes perfectly, we’ll shoot a couple of shows in one road trip up north and then, on the next trip, head south. We’ll travel to small farming communities or mountains inland, and then cover the big cities on the coast. Sometimes it works like a charm, sometimes, because of availability of our subjects, our producers, our reporters, it doesn’t.

Our last road trip was to the Bay Area but, because of some unavoidable conflicts, we had to head back up this trip.
Now, to be honest, no one on the crew was complaining.
Last time, we were mostly in the city, which is always a pleasure.
And, this time, we were going to be in Sausalito, the Marin Headlands, Sonoma County and Half Moon Bay.
Not a bad spot in the bunch.

We all land in Oakland and Jeff has the RV at the curb to pick us up.
Bill and Joe, as usual, have to pick up the rental chase van, but first grab snacks, also as usual, just in case they get hungry between the terminal and the rental car office.

As we’re circling the airport to get to the rental car place, it happens.
Groundhog Day.
This time it’s not the windshield falling out, (like road trip 3) but we’re pretty sure a wheel is about to fall off.

Luckily (?), we’re still in the Oakland Airport industrial park and have almost nothing but truck repair places around us.
If you’ve ever wondered where rental car shuttle buses go when they’re sick, we found it.

While waiting for the diagnosis, which is to take an hour or two, we have no choice but to find lunch.

It’s not that Francesco’s is a bad place…
(The calamari was pretty good, so was the eggplant parmesan, but if you want your salad with dressing on the side you might want to say it twice.)
It’s just that, of any of the places you’d like to be when you have a sunny afternoon in the Bay Area….
a restaurant nestled in the industrial parks of Oakland isn’t one of them.

Unless, of course, you’re looking for the perfect dining room chandelier.

We call the repair shop about the big diva, not me, the blue one, and find out it is out of commission for at least 24 hours. But, by this time, our schedule for the day is blown.

Since there’s no way to make it to the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito before it closes this afternoon, we’ve got no choice but to pick up another SUV to carry us all to our hotel in Sonoma… the site of our shoot tomorrow.

As you can see, Joe is very excited about the extra cargo.

MONDAY EVENING

Good news.

Even if you’re a city person, and feel a little sad to see the Golden Gate in the rearview mirror, the drive to Sonoma from the bay is such deep breath.

Cities and sailboats fall behind as you come upon bedroom communities and commuter traffic but, just as you start to get annoyed, it all opens up.

In the summer, the hills heading north and east are light brown suede with big clumps of scrubby trees, oaks and pines. The fields, due to the year’s late rains, are scattered with dots of lacy yellow mustard and other wildflowers.

Before long, the vineyards appear; symmetrical rows on flat fields that swell up into the low hills. Fog gives way to bright blue sky and big leafy oak tunnels that let you know you’re not the first to venture deeper.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the town of Glen Ellen…there’s a winery of the same name, and several others in the outskirts of the village.

And, if you’re a lover of California history, literary history, or both, you probably know Jack London lived in Sonoma at the end of his life.

What I didn’t know, until we got to our hotel, was that London spent those years in Sonoma right here in Glen Ellen.

The Jack London Lodge reservation should have tipped me off, but I don’t always read the itinerary before we land.

It’s a little lodge, less of London’s era and more of the 50’s in its construction, with 2 stories of rooms that all open out to a parking area and pool.

The local woman who owns the lodge also owns the Saloon and restaurant next to it, which are all built alongside a nice little woodsy creek.

In addition to having a fine deer head, (not always a prerequisite but certainly a perk,) the whole compound has free wi-fi, which is a big help, and the food is actually great.

There are salads and grilled fish and crostini, and other things you’ll find at any other place in Sonoma, but there’s also a delicious fried chicken and, if you eat red meat, the Wolf House Burger with it’s half-pound of beef, Point Reyes Blue, sautéed bacon and mushrooms, can’t be beat.

Even Moonbeam couldn’t complain about her veggie options.

And, if you really love to explore towns and don’t want room service or hotel wine lists, there is the remarkable Glen Ellen Village Market in town right across the street.

Outside, piles of peaches and other produce pull you in. Inside, it’s a full grocery, but with a diverse wine and cheese selection and a prepared take-out area that would make the “Barefoot Contessa” run her bare feet back to the Hamptons.

We picked up a couple wines to try as we had our dinner on the deck overlooking the creek…

And the staff at Wolf house was more than happy to uncork our finds.

Oh, and one more advantage to the place..

there’s a pool table which, with a side of rings and a glass of wine, makes rural living all it should be.

If in Sonoma, and spending less than 300 a night for lodging, we all gave a big thumbs up to the Jack London Lodge.

TUESDAY MORNING

We knew the lodge had a continental breakfast served on the Wolf House deck next to the pool beginning at 8.

But… you know Joe by now… he (okay, all of us,) can’t really wait that long for the morning coffee.

The brilliant market scores more points.

In addition to great latte and cappuccino, there are frittatas and local sausages and cheese, not to mention great doughnuts and bear claws.

Fully caffeinated, we climbed behind the inn and found a spot on the river to shoot the intro and tags to our poaching piece.

This is a piece I wanted to do last year after doing the caviar-poaching piece in Sacramento.
While doing that story, I learned illegal wildlife poaching is, even by low estimations, more than 100 million dollar a year business in California.

One of our interviews for that story was with an undercover agent for the Department of Fish and Game who wasn’t about to let us show her face on camera.

When I pressed her she made her case clear, saying,
“I’m in the backwoods of nowhere, with no back-up, no cell or radio reception trying to arrest people who all have guns and knives and have no problem skinning anything alive.

Oh. Yeah. Undercover. I get it.

Since that story aired there have been busts of black bear poachers in Bakersfield, leopard shark thieves in Monterrey Bay and God knows how many reptile and abalone poachers have been pinched.

Producer Joe Angier (also of caviar fame) and Stephanie O’Neill-Noh have done the story. We hope you’ll see it.

After we shot the intros at the river, we were planning to rush off to our next stop when we saw the sign that pointed to the ruins of Jack London’s beloved mansion and ranch, which is now a state park.

We hadn’t pre-planned it but thought some kind ranger would make a call and give us access….we were wrong.

The State Parks service is so starved for funds there was no one around to give us permission to shoot. But we did have a look around. If in Glen Ellen, grab some great take-out from the Wolf Creek Saloon or the Glen Ellen Village Market and make a picnic. It’s lovely.

11:30 am

Just leaving Petaluma.

We chose it because we needed a location in Northern California to shoot an intro to Judy Muller’s Central Casting piece.

When George Lucas made American Graffiti, based on his recollections of growing up in Modesto, he chose Petaluma to film many of those scenes of the iconic main street with Harrison Ford cruising coolly while McKenzie Phillips served up pre-teen angst and Suzanne Somers provided the specter of unattainable beauty.

The downtown street is still there. The buildings up and down Petaluma Boulevard are beautiful and there are some nice little shops with friendly shopkeepers.

But, for some reason, city planners haven’t figured out an alternate truck route and it seemed every truck in town came through spewing exhaust on what would otherwise be a charming stretch of sidewalk.

We do our business, between waves of traffic, grab a Starbucks (yeah, it wasn’t in the movie either) and head to the coast.

We do have to remember though, when Joe retires, there is a business with his name on it…

2pm

Ah, water again.
Our next destination is the Marine Mammal Center at the Marin Headlands so we stopped in the nearby town of Sausalito for a quick lunch at Café Trieste.

After the heat and bright sky of the valley, the fog is as delicious as our lunch.
It must have been 30 degrees cooler than where we came from and I had to pull out a fisherman’s sweater from my bag to get comfortable.

There are several Café Triestes in the Bay Area. But this one is always a favorite for us because at breakfast there are great eggs and pastries and, at lunch, brick oven pizza’s, salads and to die for sandwiches.
Heather, again, found a veggie dream.

And, anytime of day, the coffee is outstanding.
They’re also very cool. Since we were without the RV and the electronics we’re used to relying on, they let us receive a couple of faxes of scripts from the office that we have to shoot later. Very nice.
If in Sausalito, try Café Trieste.
Park in the back, it’s free and overlooks the marina.

2:45 PM

Lunch done, we head to where we think we’re going.

We ask Autumn whose answer is, as always, “that-a-way.”

Where we’re actually hoping to go is The Marin Headlands…. on the ocean side of the spit of land that holds Sausalito on the bay side.

We follow our trusty map (since we’d left the GPS charger in the grumpy RV) and head up a hill.

Deeper and deeper into fog we went as we climbed a cliff drive I’m sure would have given us heart attacks had we been able to see past our front wheels.

At the top of the cliff, at a narrow turn out, we gasp as we see what could only been described as a hallucination… had we all not seen it.

3 men, Sikhs, in full head wraps and robes, turned to look at us as we took the next turn…

I know you don’t see them now but, I swear, they were just there.

We didn’t need another warning. That was as good as a sign from God gets. We turned around at the next opportunity and headed back down the hill.

The turn off we’d missed the first time then took us where we needed to go.

Unless you’re an experienced Bay Area explorer, or a spy from the Cold War, you’ve probably not seen it, but really should.

Part of the Marin Headlands State Park Area, this particular hidden stretch of the world was once the site of “Fort Cronkhite.” (No, not mis-spelled, think of Walter, then add an ‘h.’)

To get there, you have to pass through a tunnel and, just before that, a traffic light.
Now, this is not just any traffic light.
It’s the longest traffic light you’ve ever experienced but you don’t want to cheat it. The tunnel it leads you into is one-lane.

But the wait is worth it. On the other side is one of the most beautiful stretches of lost coast we’ve ever seen.
Even in the fog of that day, I’m sure you can appreciate it.

There’s a lagoon you cross over, and some steep and some rolling hills where the old barracks, beige stucco with red roofs, make you wonder what life was like for those soldiers, their wives and children who once made this their home.

Though the military considered it as a prime location as early as 1906, it wasn’t until the U.S. entered World War 2 that it was funded and built. There are batteries hidden up in the hills where watchmen used to keep an eye out for enemy ships and subs and gunners practiced their aim on targets in the sea.
But with the end of World War 2, came the Korean and Cold Wars and Ft. Cronkhite’s purpose changed again.
Starting in 1954, Nike anti-aircraft missiles designed to shoot down planes traveling 2 or 3 times the speed of sound were planted in a dozen sites around the Bay Area including the Marin Headlands.
Hello, Dr. Strangelove.
Looking at it now, in all its breathtaking serenity, it is hard to imagine what lied beneath.

It’s also hard to believe that, just beyond the hilltops, is the city and the Golden Gate.

We were working, but also having fun in this remarkable setting….
And, we know, we’ve found yet another reason to take “a road less traveled on.”
It, as Frost said, “made all the difference.”

But it wasn’t all pictures and poetry.
Since it was the coast, we all had to feel Autumn’s hair.

Just up the hill from the beach, we found our main reason for being here this day:
The Marine Mammal Center.

Established as the Fort was de-commissioned and handed over to the Park Service, its staff and volunteers have doctored more sick sea creatures than any other facility of its type in the nation.

Among its patients are sea lion babies who’ve been abandoned by their mothers and elephant seals who’ve been cut up by fishing nets. Our guide, Jim Oswald, explained the staff’s goal is to get them back to health, not let them imprint on humans and set them free again into the ocean.

There is construction at the center right now as they try to expand, but don’t be deterred…
If there, on holiday or as a resident, call ahead… they take volunteers on Tuesdays and could always use a donation of time or cash.

4pm

After shooting on the beach we head to our next location:
The Berkeley Farmer’s Market

Heather, seeing “her people,” squeals with glee, “Yeah! Hippies!”
(You can take the girl out of the designer lettuce farm in Maui, but you can’t…. you know.)

We’re here to shoot an intro into our piece on organics. Now that Wal-Mart has announced it’s going to do a major expansion of its organic products, we wondered if the bar might be lowered on standards because of the huge quantities involved. And, if that happens, could that substantially change the nature of farming in California? Could the big commercial outfits, as they go organic, kill the small farmers who’ve pursued that mission since the 1960’s?.

While navigating through the stalls of sea-weed slaw, tonic kraut, and vegan tacos, we found a lot of people with a lot to say.

Once wrapped, we picked up the olive bread from The Phoenix Pastificio stall (510-883-0783) and some great local cheese from the Spring Hill Jersey Cheese booth, (springhillcheese.com). We have to tell you, the bread was the best we’ve ever had. Not the dried out olive bread you find in the market, this actually is stuffed with giant, soft, delicious olives.

Snacks and staff loaded in the car, we head off on our hour drive to Pacifica.

8:30 pm

Yes, we’ve landed.

A San Francisco suburb, Pacifica is on the ocean south of the city and is a mix of low and high income homes. Autumn, who spent part of her childhood in Alaska and moved here as a teen, hates the regular fog.
But she did find hotel on the stretch of Rockaway Beach that, if heading to San Francisco and looking for a place on the beach before you get to the higher priced hotels closer to the city, is a great bargain.

The Best Western Lighthouse Inn is on the water of a cove with a small but pretty stretch of sand.
It’s sort of California meets Montauk in its style.
A Junior Suite with a non-ocean view runs about 149 a night during the week, 189 on the weekend.
There are cheaper rooms, but for a few dollars more, go for the space and little balcony. It’s worth it.

The restaurant choices are slim, and I’m so tired. The room service soup and salad and the Louis Black comedy special does it for me.

Weds AM

I had a morning radio show in Shasta that was calling at 8:30 to talk about our “water wars” story that was airing that week so I had not much to do but grab a latte around the corner and take a quick walk on the beach.
Even a small beach is a beach and, with only 2 other people and a couple of dogs on it at that hour, it was a great way to start the day.

Radio chat done, we loaded up and headed to Starbucks. That’s when we I heard what some of the others did last night…
Heather, who apparently knows someone on every beach on the Pacific, called a college friend, Lisa, who is from Pacifica to find out what they could do there after 10 pm.
There was only one answer.

Bowling.

Of course, it’s called the “Sea Bowl.”
And, Heather, Ryan and Jeff were the last to leave.
They all swear that was a first…. but from the look of how they wear those shoes, I’m guessing this isn’t the first time they’ve closed down a bowling alley.

Weds 9:30 am

The morning sun in Pacifica had given way to a fog and drizzle as we headed down the coast.
It’s a problem for us since we were to shoot the intro to Judy Muller’s piece on the big news in the surfing industry, “Beach Blank Bingo,” and needed to see surfers in the background.

But timing is everything, and by the time we found the gorgeous Montara State Beach, the fog was lifting and one intrepid surfer, a middle-aged guy who seemed unmoved by the conditions, was unloading his board and pulling on his wet-suit. We waiting for just a minute and watched as he joined the only other surfer in the water who was just revealed as the fog began to lift.

The drizzle stopped, the sun broke through and before we knew it we were shooting Judy’s intro about Californians catching a wave as the surfers behind us did just that.

By the time we finished, a few carloads of high school boys and a couple of more old guys (or, as I liked to call them, “my people”) showed up and suited up.

It was about then I saw the thing in the water.
A couple of hundred feet or so from the surfers, it was big and dark and shiny.

At first I thought it was a rock. But it moved with the surf.
Maybe it was kelp, we thought, but then Bill looked through his lens. Nope. Not a plant. A dead sea-lion.

I asked the older Asian guy what he thought. “Hmm, dead sea-lion? Bad for surfers… you know, sharks.”

I immediately started warning the teenager who was pulling on his booties.
His fear was overwhelming. “Bummer,” he said, before turning to his friend, shrugging and mumbling, “Dead something.”
They grabbed their boards and headed for the water, giving me that look kids give clueless adults as they climbed down out of site.

Since Bill has a teenage son who surfs I ran to him, hoping he could talk the kids out of going in the water just yet. “What about the sharks?!” I whined.
Bill was about as worried as the kids. “Lisa, they’ll know if there’s sharks.”
“Yeah,” Heather pipes up, “It’ll bob up and down.”
I forgot, Miss Maui surfer chick is, of course, a shark expert.
“And then, it’ll get smaller, and then, after a few splashes, it’ll go away.”
That still wasn’t doing it for me. “But what if they’re still hungry?”
That’s when they both laughed, gave me the same look the teenagers did, and finished breaking down the equipment.
Fine, laugh if you will, but I wasn’t taking my eyes off that carcass.

As we were loading up, and I was the only one worried about the sharks, I realized, that as a mother of a southern California born boy who is someday going to want to surf, I not only will give new meaning to the term “nervous Nellie,” I have the potential to embarrass him beyond belief.

11am

Our next stop is one I wish I could tell you to go to, but you can’t:
It’s called “Devil’s Slide.”

Just up the hill on Hwy. 1 from Montara Beach, this is that stretch of the highway that keeps getting washed into the sea every time a Pacific storm hammers the coast.

For 30 years, it’s been tied up in court fights as the state tried to move the highway inland, and environmentalists blocked construction. In the end, after billions of dollars spent building and re-building, the move inland is happening, though it won’t be complete until 2011.
So, for now, they’re rebuilding this patch yet again and are hoping it will be done sometime in September.

I have to say a big thank you to our Caltrans pal, John Cunliffe, who made it all happen for us…
To be able to walk on a stretch of magnificent coastal cliffs without cars rolling over you is quite something. This is the most beautiful state in the nation.

And the added bonus is that Bill and Joe got to wear their safety vests….
Which always makes them happy.

12 pages of scripts done, we had a little time before we had to catch our flight at San Jose, so we headed back down to Half Moon Bay to find lunch.
(As we passed Montara Beach, I looked for the sea-lion. It was gone and the surfers were fine. )

Along the marina we found a little local joint among a strip of little local joints…
On the flip of a coin we chose Ketch Joanne.

Autumn had the ribs, seafood sandwiches were a hit and, for the second time this trip, world class rings.

Poor Jeff. Autumn almost lost it when he ordered chocolate milk.
He needed it. Relieved of driving duty with the RV down, he’d napped in the back seat the entire trip.
He was gonna need that choco-milk to help him get back to sleep.

As trips go, it was a pain in the neck, but at the same time, given the company and the scenery, a real opportunity to remind ourselves why we all live here.

California.

You can’t do any better than this.

Until next time…

lmc

Road Trip 4: San Francisco

June 28th, 2006

Tuesday Mid-Morning

Just landed in Oakland and we couldn’t be happier.

I know, most aren’t jumping up and down about Oakland but, in spite of the crazy murder rate, it’s not a bad city. (I don’t think J. Brown is going to make a bumper sticker out of that one, but I really do mean it as a compliment.)

Still, the reason we’re all high 5-ing each other as we get picked up at the airport by the big blue RV is that IT’S NOT THE DESERT! (see trip from hell, road trip 3)

We were also were pretty happy with ourselves once we found the right big blue bus. Jeff, our driver, kept saying he was at the terminal (even though he wasn’t) and all the city shuttles and buses that pulled up and toyed with us are the same shade of blue.

It was, “Here it is! No, it’s not,” for a half hour or so.

After a while, Joe decided to board whatever blue thing came his way…

But he pulled himself off when he realized there was no trail mix on board.

We’ll have to keep a special eye on Joe this trip. Bill had a conflict this week and so Joe’s a little out of sorts.

With Bill out, we do have Kenny, our mountain man with the nice ponytail.

Kenny’s always fun to travel with and is a great shooter (also from “Curb”) so we know we’re in good hands.

Nat’s also out of play, something about making lots of money to do another job.

We have to cut him some slack since he’s getting married. He’s not getting any younger you know.

But I suspect there may be another reason he’s absent. From the looks of how our last trip (to the desert) affected him, he may just be hiding.

Instead, we brought along Ryan Agostino. (Yes, like the grocery chain in NYC but without the D.)

Ryan’s a Boston College grad who’s originally from New York but moved a few months ago to San Francisco.

Heather hears he’s single and starts e-mailing her Bay Area girlfriends.

Though I’ve worked with him on a story before, this is his first CC road trip.

I hope we don’t scare him off.

Anyway, we’re in the Bay Area and, if you have to be working anywhere, it’s a great place to be.

We have 2 shows to shoot.

One, for June 30, includes the intros and tags for the “Water Wars” story about Nestle trying to buy up the watershed of the town of McCloud, near Mt. Shasta, and John Ridley’s “Sideways” take on bottled v.s. tap water.

There’s also a 3rd piece in that program, another heartbreaker from the rainmaker, Angela Shelley.

This one on people living in their cars and how one community is trying to make their lives easier.

The other show, is actually a Special Report to air Friday, June 23rd. It’s called “War Stories from Ward 7-D.”

We’ll take you inside of a treatment facility that takes care of those wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan: the Palo Alto VA Hospital’s Polytrauma Unit. It’s one of 4 in the country and is a remarkable place with truly heroic people…patients and staff, alike. I hope you’ll see it.

But first, AT&T ballpark, the fairly new home to the S.F. Giants.

Whether you’re a baseball fan or not, this is a place to watch a ballgame!

Built 6 years ago, by a group of private investors, (because voters wouldn’t pass a bond initiative,) this is the most attractive and user-friendly park any of us has ever seen.

From the outside, it has a red brick façade that blends in beautifully with surrounding architecture. Inside, the seats and field all face the water. There’s a great use of space behind the stands for food and concessions that is all open to the great view.

But, as a mother of little children, I have to tell you about my favorite part.

Just above 2rd base, is a children’s playground and mini T-ball court that overlooks the field and the water.

There’s a giant Coke bottle that has a crazy slide running through it and gigantic model of a 1920’s four finger mitt that is a great piece of art.

As part of the deal with the neighbors, the park is open to local kids year round and from the looks of it today, it’s working for everyone.

Shana Daum, our handler, is also a mother and told us if you are coming for a game with the kids, make sure you get here an hour early so they can really wear themselves out in the park before you get them dinner and in their seats.

Even if the little ones don’t last a fully game, they’ll feel like they’ve had a great day at the ballpark.

Brilliant.

After wrapping at the ballpark, we stopped for a quick lunch at MoMo’s.

It’s just across the street and has better than the average ballpark fare. (Though I’m told AT&T Park has some of the best food available at any sports event. No big surprise. It is San Francisco and those people do know their food.)

Still, if you’re looking for something close, with great salads and without plastic utensils, give it a try.

Our next stop is the Presidio. Even regular visitors to the Bay Area may have overlooked its beauty and history.

Until 1994, when it was handed over to the parks service, the Presidio was the oldest continually operating military base on the west coast. In a state where pre-depression era homes are considered antique, this is a real treasure.

First built by the Spanish (with assistance from the native Indians) in 1796, the loosely grouped buildings and barracks were added and expanded for the next 200 years. It served as a base for the Mexican Republic from 1822 until 1846, before the first U.S. forces moved in around 1846.

When the Golden Gate was built (come on, sing it, “they said it couldn’t be done,”) in the 1930’s, it was already a landmark.

Today, it is a major destination for San Francisco’s fittest, and it’s not so fit… but trying.

Bike and running paths hug the rocky bayshore and climb into the pine tree covered hills.

Regular viewer David Buckelheide found us on that path and paused to say hello. (We’re not saying he cut out of work early…. but it is still pretty light outside, isn’t it?)

George Lucas moved a couple of thousand of his most creative minds here when the park service figured out that Lucas’ 5.6 million dollar annual rent could provide almost 20 percent of the Presidio’s budget.

As if the free Star Wars action figures weren’t enough…a lunchroom that overlooks the Presidio is just another reason to consider a career at LucasFilm.

But we’re not here to do a travelogue. We’re here, for the next few hours, to shoot the intros, connecting bridges and the close to a special report that will air Friday, June 23rd: War Stories from Ward 7-D.

From the minute Bret bought my pitch a few months ago, I knew I wanted Jon Dann to produce it for a couple of reasons.

One, Jon had produced a Viet Nam vets PTSD documentary years ago and has a real understanding of the military.

And, two, Jon and I have done some great work together before and know how to fight it out in order to get it right and still like each other enough to go out to dinner.

For 2 months we tried to get the access we wanted at the Naval Hospital in San Diego but it just wasn’t coming together.

Here’s where Jon saved the day.

His contacts at the Palo Alto VA Hospital developed years before, led us to their Polytrauma unit, one of only 4 VA polytrauma units in the country.

Poly, of course, means multiple and the people here are suffering multiple system damage.

Jon found 4 soldiers, 3 men and one woman, of different ages, races and family situations that would allow us to look at a range of injuries, treatments and emotional needs. He also found an amazing doctor there, Dr. Harriet Zeiner, a clinical neuropsychologist, who can explain even the most complex medical situations in a truly understandable way.

She’s so good. Saying she makes Dr. Phil look like a hack may be too strong, but if I were a booker for a national show, I’d put her at the top of my “medical experts” list.

Anyway, in our time on the ward, and the many hours we all spent in the editing room over the next 10 days, we were so moved by all of those we met on Ward 7-D. I hope you will be, too.

After a long day, and dropping Ryan off at his apartment in North Beach, we finally made it to the hotel, the Ramada Inn on Market Street, by 9 pm.

Now, I’m not usually snarky about hotels. And I have to say, the building itself is lovely: a historic landmark with gorgeous original details that have been carefully restored. Even the rooms are fine. Old, but redone in not an opulent, but appropriate way…sort of like an older hotel in London, maybe the Grosvenor House, would be.

But, man, what they say about location, location, location is true, even for hotels.

Just a little too far below Union Square, the businesses are none you’d want to go into and, even if you did, you wouldn’t unless you had a Humvee and an armed patrolman with you.

Dicey, dicey, dicey.

But the biggest problem was that they didn’t have a place for the RV, which is why we booked it in the first place. Apparently, the woman who made the arrangements for us hadn’t told anyone else and it was an hour of hassle before Heather and Jeff finally were able to relax. They did give us a room upgrade for our trouble and it was large and pleasant but I’d have to say, if we could figure out parking for the big blue thing some other way we’d all prefer the old Sam Wong (now the SW Hotel) at the top of the hill on Grant Street at Columbus where Chinatown meets North Beach.

It’s much more sparse and monochromatic and the rooms are smaller, but if you want to walk to amazing Italian restaurants, or roll down the hill a block to great Dim Sum, it’s a better choice.

Too late for anything but room service tonight anyway so we plan for a great meal tomorrow.

Wednesday

The crew got an extra hour this morning while Autumn and I headed over to ABC radio this morning for an appearance on Ronn Owen’s morning talk show.

He’s the number #1 rated talk guy in the Bay Area and a great supporter of the show. He had us on last year and we had a ball and were happy to get back on.

Like Steve Kelly in the desert, Ronn has a close relationship with his audience, which seem pretty engaged and knowledgeable.

A couple of the folks who called in while we were talking about the Iraqi Vets/Brain Injury special actually helped us out….providing websites and organizations that we’ll be able to link viewers to on our website when the piece airs.

All in all, a great time except for my death rattle.

The illness I picked up on the last road trip has defied the 5 day course of anti-biotics and by this morning I was in pretty bad shape.

In the last commercial break I asked Ronn if he had an Ear/Nose and Throat person and before the break ended he’d gotten me into a doctor I think I may plan all my future sinus infections around.

Dr. Roger Smith is Marcus Welby. No kidding. Down to the white coat and the that shiny reflector thing he wears on his head.

He even has his own “Consuelo, (I’m really dating myself here, but she was Dr. Welby’s all-knowing and kind TV nurse) Mary Ellen.

A half hour later, after he told me the 5 day course of Erythromycin had only made the infection mad, I had a prescription for a boatload of Cipro and a couple of other things that changed my world by the afternoon.

But, since the pharmacy needed time to get it all together, we decided to find lunch nearby and get that out of the way.

Here is where our karma got right again.

After finding a place for the big blue bus, near the corner of Sutter and Van Ness, we were considering this Persian Restaurant, or that pizza joint or a little noodle shop when a woman on the street, seeing our confusion, stepped in and saved the day.

The noodle shop was just a side business of the little Japanese place, Kyoto Sushi, at the end of the block and she promised it was fabulous and had enough room for us all.

I know you can see from the pictures that it looks amazing. And it was.

Huge selection of great dishes and fast service and, because we are PBS, it was insanely inexpensive which meant we could all just eat more!

Heather actually sent a phone photo to Carlos back in the office to make him drool.

He’s still whining about it.

Lunch done, drugs in me (a handful of Cipro on top of tempura is a good thing) we headed to our next location.

Someplace you’d not normally find but, if you like to hike and are near S.F., I highly recommend searching out this place.

The Crystal Springs Reservoir is one of 3 watersheds providing water to some 2 and half million thirsty San Franciscans.

It encompasses 23-thousand acres and is as guarded as any military installation.

No swimming, no boating, don’t even think about dunking your dirty little toes in it. But they do have miles of trails around it where you can see the water and enjoy truly untouched beauty and a robust native eco-system by foot or by bike.

If in San Mateo County, bring great walking shoes and look it up.

Our handler from the Water Company, Michelle Liapes, found us a great vantage point to shoot the intro to the “Water Wars” piece that airs June 30.

It’s about a town far north of here, McCloud, near Mt. Shasta, which is struggling with a decision about whether they’ll sell their water to Nestle and gain jobs, but perhaps hurt a great river and contribute to the pollution created (plastic bottles, truck fumes) by our obsession with drinking water from a bottle.

We also do an intro for a “Sideways” piece of John Ridley’s, (of “Three Kings” fame) which questions the real “purity” of “pure” mountain spring, bottle dispensed, water.

It’s been a beautiful place to shoot but the best part of the day happens when we start to leave.

While trying to turn the RV around on this windy, hilly road, some guy who saw Heather on the road with her walkie-talkie and her clip-board pulled over and said, “Hey, I know this sounds weird and all, but can I take you out sometime?”

She’s a little creeped out and thinking she probably shouldn’t do that MySpace thing after all.

It proves once again to the rest of us that a woman with a walkie-talkie and a clipboard can do anything.

Back in S.F. …

Most of us are dropped in North Beach to head to the restaurant we’ve decided on while Heather, Ryan, (who’d left his car at the hotel that morning) and Jeff dump the RV in scary land before meeting us.

If feeling in the mood for good Italian in a relaxed setting, try Bocce.

Heather’s pals from college (you know by now she went to UCSB, right?) all live here now and recommended it.

It’s right in the heart of North Beach, (had we stayed at the SW we would have walked, but whatever) surrounded by all sorts of great shops.

While we were waiting for the others I poked out onto the block and bought a pair of shoes and a great hand-knit sweater.

I saw something for Heather, an antique map of Maui (I still don’t believe she’s from there) but, at $1750, I decided to pass.

I was still back in my chair, and wearing my new Guatemalan shoes, in time for appetizers.

As far as main courses go, you can’t miss with the gnocci, and I left nothing of my lasagna behind.

After dinner, we took a little walk…

Heather saw the Maui map and got a little emotional that I didn’t buy it for her.

The old people (me, Joe, Kenny and Autumn) headed back to the hotel ready for sleep by 10.

Those crazy kids, however…?

I don’t know.

They showed up for work the next day so I didn’t ask.

Thursday morning

We have just a couple of things to do today so we think we might actually catch an earlier flight and be home in LA before dark.

We’re on our way to “The Haight.”

In the 60’s it was the epicenter of the “summer of love.” Now the area has been gentrified but, at the park at the top of the hill, you’ll see more homeless people than flower children today.

We’re going to shoot an intro to Angela Shelley’s piece on the newly homeless, who now live out of their cars.

Though that piece was shot in Santa Barbara because of a unique program there (see Road Trip 2 to hear about Angela’s people who found us) it is a problem in many cities across the state.

Since Gavin Newsom has made some bold moves regarding the homeless, it makes sense to say the big thoughts here.

As we’re driving up to the Haight, admiring all the newly gentrified Victorians and wondering if Jimi Hendrix might have slept here, or there,

Heather and I compete with our i-Pods to find the perfect San Francisco soundtrack.

Again, age makes a difference. I have all the standards from Eric Burden and the Animals, to The 5th Dimension and Tony Bennett.

Heather, though, beats me for the title with 2 simple tracks: “San Francisco” by Bobby Solo and “I’m Always Drunk in San Francisco” by Kitty Margolis. (We can’t file share, but here’s the list so you can download yourself.)

The Playlist

Another sunny day- Belle & Sebastian
Hello San Francisco- Buddy Guy
San Francisco- Bobby Solo
I’m always drunk in San Francisco- Kitty Margolis
We Built this City- Starship
Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games- Of Montreal
Don’t Stop Believin’ - Journey
Sugar Baby Love- The Rubettes
Back in a NY Groove- Kiss
Weather Report- Simon & Garfunkel
Our House- Madness
93 till Infinity- Tarje and the mighty souls of Mischief
Just Help yourself - Tom Jones
Baila Morena- Zucchero
I left my Heart in San Francisco- Dean Martin
I left my Heart in San Francisco - Frank Sinatra
Volare-Dean Martin
San Franciscan Nights- Eric Burdon & The Animals
San Francisco Bay Blues- Eric Clapton
San Francisco Bay Blues- Richie Havens
Cumpari Franciscu -
Avanti E Indre -

2 hours later…

Okay, it was just too wrong to shoot homeless people behind us.

It just was.

So we turned around and went to City Hall. This is where Gavin Newsom made his homeless rules anyway.

The tour busses made way for us, though Heather and Autumn had to pose with a group from Tokyo Tours.

We wrap and head to Pier 39 to pick up some B roll for the Iraqi Vet’s piece. (One of our patients had a field trip there with his family and didn’t end up having the pictures we needed.)

Though we don’t mind stopping at the wharf, we are a little bummed at the time.

There’s no way we’re making an earlier flight.

Thursday 3 pm.

We’ve just dropped Ryan and head to the airport.

Even with the emergency doctor visit and the hotel hiccup it’s been a great trip.

We found 2 great restaurants, a gorgeous place to hike, the only place I’ll ever want to see a ballpark AND left with enough Cipro to protect us from any anthrax attack.

Nat and Bill will be sorry they missed it…

We’ll all make sure of that!

See you next time…

Road Trip 3: L.A., Riverside, Palm Springs and Pala Indian Res.

June 12th, 2006

PROLOGUE:

Before you read any of this account of Road Trip #3, it’s only fair to warn you:

If you are at all superstitious…

If you think weird karma can pass through your spam filter…

Or if you’re planning on taking a road trip in an RV this summer…

Read no further.

I can’t be held responsible.

(But I can blame Autumn!)

DAY 1. DESTINATION: Los Angeles, Riverside

Monday, 7:50 AM

The office is quiet and dark. No people, no food on the big table, no people. Not even the web-geniuses are here, and they’re always here.

We never leave on Mondays, always Tuesdays, but the Memorial Day weekend means the post-production people will have one less day next week to get the show put together for the following Friday so we have no choice.

We also usually have Autumn, but she’s in Africa on a long planned safari. The good news is that this means Carlos is back in the saddle again. The credit pod should be great the next 2 shows.

Our destination today is the Riverside County. First, to shoot an intro for the “The Baileys of Berkeley,” a story about a unique set of classmates, a mother and daughter, and then to a warehouse where they store all the voting machines so we can intro the election coverage.

But before we even leave L.A. we have a little unfinished business to wrap up: a new stand-up for the ever-changing Genentech story.

It’s been a bit of a moving target since we began.

The main subject of our piece is a man from Mill Valley, Neal Almgren, who’s been fighting a glioblastoma brain tumor for the last year and a half.

Though Neal’s cancer is rare, the larger story is not.

He’s been treated with a combination of drugs that have been approved only for colon cancer, which means his insurer has the ability to deny coverage. The cost left to Neal is staggering, more than 55 thousand dollars a month.

Genentech, the maker of the drug Avastin, which costs about 20-thousand a month, is now providing his drug for free, but he’s still on the hook for the rest.

Herein lies the moving target bit.

Neal and his wife were planning to sue Blue Shield to cover the remaining expense and when we interviewed the insurer a couple of weeks ago, they said they were sorry but stood by their decision to deny the claim.

But in the last few days, they’ve decided to at least reconsider his coverage.

We’ll shoot a stand-up to reflect that new development this morning so it can be dropped into the show while we’re gone and delivered to the stations on time.

There’s just one problem. We were planning to shoot the new stand-up outside of a hospital down the street and what was a sprinkle an hour ago now looks like real rain.

I smell coffee in the outer office and someone rummaging through last week’s bagel bag. I’m guessing by the complaint I hear that there’s no cream cheese, that it’s Carlos.

I’m hoping he can help figure out a plan B.

Monday, 11:00 AM

We’re finally getting on the highway and heading out of town. We’re 3 hours late but everyone agrees it was worth it.

The sprinkle earlier turned out to be a deluge and there was no way to shoot on the street so plan B became plan C.

Bill found an overhang on the KCET lot where we shot the new Genentech stand-up.

Then, as we were re-loading the equipment Bret Marcus, our Executive Producer walked out with a smile and what turned out to be Plan D.

Blue Shield this morning officially changed their position and will now cover the rest of Neal Almgren’s 55 thousand dollar a month treatment.

We shot another new stand-up to contain that good news.

It meant we are now very far behind but, like I said, it was worth it.

We couldn’t be happier for Neal Almgren.

Monday, 5:00 PM

By this time, we thought we’d be wrapping in Riverside and heading to our hotel in Palm Springs.

But like all things today, it wasn’t meant to be.

The new, 3 hour late, plan was to still blaze to the Inland Empire to shoot “The Baileys of Berkeley” but there was no way now to make it to the voting machine warehouse before closing.

The back-plan for that was to shoot the election stuff outside of a polling place, preferably a school since one of the big statewide ballot initiatives is Prop. 82… the measure providing for universal pre-school.

Plowing down the 60 East in what now a really strong rain, Nat was in the front seat of the RV shooting Jeff (the new Sunday) and the view out of his windshield.

Nat pulled back from his viewfinder and looked up, then back again through the eyepiece, and then up again.

“Is it too bumpy to shoot?” We ask.

Nat again checks the real world and then his lens one more time.

“No, not so much bumpy,” Nat said, “Loose. The windshield. I think it’s falling out.”

An hour later, we were sitting in an Arco parking lot near the exit we’d taken when we realized he was right. That the giant slab of glass that separated us from the highway was hanging on by a thread.

Carlos and Heather and I were all calling every RV dealer in the area trying to find someone who could help us without us getting back on the freeway. That, we were told by one repair guy, would be stupid.

We finally found a guy 15 miles away but that we could get to by surface streets who explained to me the trouble with the solution. Turns out, if you have an RV windshield that needs to be re-installed, there’s a 60-40 chance that it will crack on the way out or in, so you need a spare nearby. It didn’t sound promising, but we had no options. We used the hand-held GPS and were on our way.

20 minutes later, and just a few miles from mister bad news windshield guy, we saw this great little elementary school.

It had a colorful playground where we could knock out the election scripts that we may otherwise never get to shoot.

Command decision from Carlos and Heather: We would stop and shoot before we get the RV to the ER, but we had to feed the crew first.

3 blocks later, we see a cool little Mexican restaurant with a parking lot for Bill and street parking for the RV. We do a u-turn and make a plan to re-configure over carnitas.

We bail out of the death trap (sorry, RV) at the La Poblana restaurant in La Puente and head in from the street as Bill and Joe head in from the parking lot.

As we all meet inside Bill is wearing a funny grin. “Did you see the truck in the parking lot?” he says, “It’s Safelite Auto Glass.”

It took Bill and Carlos about 2 seconds to find the guy who was just finishing his lunch and get him out to the RV.

Sal Becerra who, as his card says, is a Mobile Pro Specialist, is our local hero of the day.

While La Poblana’s manager, Irma Gamez, packed up meals to go for Carlos and Heather, they stayed outside with Sal as he spent the next hour removing the glass (which in his experienced hands, did not crack) then re-installing it. And he did the guy who did it last one better: he actually used glue.

Timothy Gutierrez took this shot for us as we said goodbye and thanks to Sal. If you ever lose a windshield, you know who to call.

Since the glass had to sit and dry an hour, we all piled into Bill’s van to go back to the school down the street so we wouldn’t blow the day. We finished our election coverage and checked our watches. Sal told us if it started raining again the windshield wouldn’t hold. But our luck did another u-turn and the rain held off and the glass held on.

We jumped in the RV and raced to the freeway to head to UC Riverside determined to save this day.

The hope lasted all the way to the on-ramp.

We’re at a dead stop in rush hour traffic with every other commuter who lives inland.

There seems to be no explanation for our bad luck until Carlos puts a name to it.

Autumn.

There’s no doubt now, that she’s doing some African voodoo spell on the trip from her mosquito netted porch in Kenya.

As a group we yell out, “Curse you, Autumn Doerr!!!!!!”

Monday, 10:15 PM

After shooting what we needed at UC Riverside, which wasn’t easy given the dark cloud that kept following Joe around we got back on the road and made our way to Palm Springs, our launching pad for the next 2 days for shoots in the Salton Sea, the Painted Canyon, and the Pala Indian Reservation.

We were too tired to travel anywhere but the bar/restaurant for burgers and whatever.

I was thinking when I came to my room that we were good. We survived. We got the job done and it didn’t do us in.

I’m trying to go to sleep now, but my room is on the street. The cover band a block down is doing “Smokin’ in the Boys Room.” I can say I’ve never thought this before, ever, but what I’d give for “Dreamweaver” right now.

DAY 2. DESTINATION: Palm Springs, Salton Sea

Tuesday, 9:30 AM

Stopping for Starbucks on our way to the Painted Canyon.

Carlos and I have been up for hours.

Our drive-time talk radio host friend, Steve Kelly, had us on the show this morning, which made for an early call.

I believe Steve and others, like him, have one of the greatest jobs left in mass media.

They’re talking about the issues that matter to their communities, with the people in those communities, and without interference from some big corporation thousands of miles away.

The added bonus, for us, is that his financial expert, David Suss is married to the food writer from the Desert Times. He gives us local restaurant recommendations, though most we can’t afford, and also shares with us a tin of his wife’s homemade cinnamon and sugar fried pecans. Breakfast of Champions.

Tuesday, 12:00 PM

I wish I could have written more details about the Painted Canyon, but I was a little indisposed.

The desert is so beautiful this time of year. Everything is blooming. That’s great, really, unless you have massive mid-life allergies.

I took a Sudafed just before shooting in the 100 degree desert. Bad idea.

The crew picnicked in the RV as I sat quietly and green on the sofa.

Tuesday, 6:00 PM

Heading back to Palm Springs after the foulest smelling afternoon in memory.

The Salton Sea is a body of water that sits about an hour southeast of Palm Springs near the farming community of Mecca.

It’s dry, it’s hot and it smells bad.

The Salton Basin has been there for ten thousand years…occasionally filling with run-off water from the Colorado River over the years, but not really a sea as much of a big natural drainage ditch.

What gave it the water that is there now though was a man-made flood in 1905. The same engineering mistake that flooded the basin also created the New River: a toxic soup of a stream that flows south to north from Mexico and ends up in the Salton Sea.

We’re here to intro John Ridley’s piece on the fight over the river and decided the place to shoot was the lake’s shore.

Though I can’t quite capture the smell for you, I’m guessing you can imagine it as you look at these photos we took.

And yes, that’s a dead fish on the shore. And, yes, those people are fishing.

At the end of the day, before we hit the road, we made one last stop in Mecca, each tossed in 10 bucks and bought 70 dollars worth of lottery tickets.

I can’t explain why we did it. We never play the lottery. It’s just that our luck had been so bad, we thought karma might just owe us one.

DAY 3. DESTINATION: Pala Indian Reservation

Wednesday, 2:00 PM

We’re en route to the Pala Indian Reservation in Northern San Diego County.

The day began at the top of San Jacinto Mountain, the terminus of the famed Palm Springs Tram.

It’s one of 3 like it in the world. One is in Switzerland, the other in Cape Town. My family and I took that one to the top of Table Mountain a couple of years ago.

If in Palm Springs with kids, this is a great excursion. Once at the top, you can leave the Visitors Center and hike any number of trails. There’s one that ends up in a beautiful meadow surrounded by woods where you can picnic. It’s about three quarters of a mile to get there and an easy hike for children.

Our handler, Lena Zimmerschied, (whose name means “room divider” in German,) was great, as was our tram operator, Melissa DiMeno.

Bill got some great shots of the mountains and the valley below.

He’s no novice at shooting up there. His student film at Loyola was, in fact, “Strangers on a Tram.” I hear Spielberg loved it.

We did lunch at Grill a Burger in Palm Springs as recommended by our friend, David.

If you go, don’t forget the onion rings.

Wednesday, 7:00 PM

Heading back to LA in a stupor after another long afternoon on this twilight zone trip.

First of all, if you haven’t been through the Moreno Valley or to Temecula in the last few years, the growth is really unbelievable.

I called a friend to say, “I’m out in the middle of nowhere, and there’s all these people here!”

The point of going to the Pala Reservation was to shoot the intro for “You’ve Got Mail.” You’ve probably read about San Francisco going wireless, but even in remote communities there’s a race to provide state of the art service. And, you can bet, there’s a financial incentive behind it.

We got to the Reservation, but later than planned and had to scrap a long drive up a mountain to the shoot at the base of the transmission tower.

Bill went to scout other locations as we hung back at the base of the hill. When he came back he said he’d found a great vantage point that was even better than the one at the tower. Great. We pile back into the RV and Joe and Bill head to his truck when he realizes he’s locked his keys inside.

We just know Autumn and her crazy African Voodoo is at work again.

Thank God for the Pala Fire Department. Brian James, Steve Kane and Mark Melick saved us this time. I’m beginning to think we should always travel with firefighters on board.

As we finally headed up the hill to get the final shot of the trip, we saw a tribal park ranger heading the other way. It was when we got to the top and saw the newly locked gate that we understood where he’d just been.

Another improvisation and we finally get it all done.

We couldn’t get on the road any faster. It is really, really time to go home.

In the words of Jerry Garcia…

What a long, strange trip it’s been!

Click here to check out the photo slideshow for Road Trip 3

Road Trip 2: Oceanside, La Jolla, San Diego, Santa Barbara

May 19th, 2006

clockwise from top left: Bill, Sunday, Joe, Autumn, Heather, John

DAY 1. DESTINATION: OCEANSIDE, LA JOLLA, SAN DIEGO

Tuesday, 11:00 AM

We’re heading south on the I-5 today toward San Diego County. The RV pulled out of the lot 3 hours later than we’d planned.

I wish I could blame it on Joe, our sound-man, again but this time he went for coffee before I’d even arrived. It was my daughter’s Mother’s Day breakfast at her pre-school that I just couldn’t miss. Everyone was very understanding, I’m guessing because I brought leftovers.

(About those, I’m not worried about the bagels from this morning, they’ll be gone by San Clemente, but the selection of fabulous cheese left from a party I had on Saturday that’s now in the RV fridge??? We’re keeping our fingers crossed on that.)

Since we’ve got a couple of hours before we hit our destination, this seems like a perfect time to explain how these road trips work.

We take off every other week for 3 days, shooting the opens of the next 2 weeks’ shows and the intro/tags/crosstalks/“Greetings from California” bits, as well as anything else we’re assigned to pick up.

When I say we, I mean the usual 7 of us.

Bill Sheehy, our Director of Photography, and Joe, our sound-man, are our “Curb” crew.

Without them, you’d see and hear nothing.

Bill has spent the last few years as DP on Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” shooting our show during “Curb’s” down time.

He’s been on many other shows as well, including Kirstie Allie’s “Fat Actress” and my personal new favorite comedy, the Tori Spelling half true show “Notorious.” (If you haven’t seen it, you must! Loni Anderson as her mother! Genius!) Joe was also on those shows, and many others.

He and Bill couldn’t be more different.

Not quite “Jay and Silent Bob,” but still a hilarious team.

Bill shoots and directs all of my stand-ups, any interviews we do in the field, our correspondent “cross-talks” as well as those big, beautiful opens to the show.

He usually travels in a separate “chase van” (he swears it’s nothing personal, but I suspect Carlos did something last season….) to get the big, beautiful opens to the show, as well as those crazy, moving driving shots of the RV as we cross the Golden Gate, or scale a mountain never meant for a 2 ton box on wheels.

We also always have a second camera person who usually rides with us to get the RV’s “point of view” as we go, though he also tag-teams with Bill on the longer driving shots, and grabs those goofy, credit-pod out-takes that happen while Bill is doing serious business.

The second camera is usually Nat. But sometimes, when Nat has some very cool job shooting musicians on the Great Wall or some such thing, we have Crazy John (I think the nickname says it all) or Tom Bango, (a.k.a., “the shaman,” because like the father in Big Fat Greek Wedding who thinks Windex cures all, Bango has untold uses for Alka-Seltzer. Apparently everything that goes wrong with your body has to do with it not being “alkaline” enough) or Kenny, who lives in the mountains and has a nice pony-tail.

This trip, it’s Crazy John.

Then, very importantly there’s Autumn, our brilliant road trip producer, who figures out where we’re going and what we’ll do there.

She’s also just a little cuckoo.

We always know where we are in the state according to her hair. It’s always the color of October maples in Vermont, but in Humboldt County, she’s Little Orphan Annie, (and I look like Tom Petty) and in the desert…. well, let’s just say she has good hats.

Then there’s the newbie, this year’s trip “coordinator, Heather Tahl, (who, like I said last trip, is.) She’s the new Carlos.

(You remember Carlos from last year, right? He’s a credit pod all by himself. He was assisting Autumn on the road last season while also writing all the copy for the intros and promos. He was promoted this year to all office and edit room work. Poor guy.)

Heather’s job is to coordinate all the crazy demands Autumn and the producers (never the talent) put on her (including finding great “road food”) and still be charming enough to get someone to go on camera, or move their car so we can park.

(This must be said, as Carlos found last year, if you have a clipboard and a walkie-talkie, you can do anything with traffic!)

She’s from Maui, (I know, who’s really from Maui?) and is a vegetarian (which sometimes hampers her “road food” judgement.) We call her “Moonbeam.”

She hates it.

Not because it was Jerry Brown’s nickname, or because it makes her sound like a child of former hippies, but because it’s the name of a character she hates on “Lost.”

For Heather, it all comes back to “Lost.”

I’m afraid the “Moonbeam” thing is here to stay.

There’s, of course, Sunday driver. He’s the new Hal, who also got promoted to researcher this year because his screen writing classes at UCLA didn’t work with the schedule.

Sunday grew up in Manhattan and went to NYU and joined us from the “pledge” department at KCET for the chance to get to know his new state. He’s turned out to be a heck of a driver in spite of his well-educated self and the fact that he knocked the rearview mirror off the RV his first day out.

Anyway, all of them, plus a couple of others who’ve filled in from time to time, really make these trips fun. They’re all smart, love what they do and are so easy to work with.

For lack of a better way to say it, they’re my camp buddies; without the archery or horseback riding. (Though we have been on a tiny boat together, not a canoe, but see oyster farming, season 4.)

We work hard but laugh through it all and go places we’d never think of going if it weren’t for the big blue RV.

And, most importantly, we all know the rules:

What happens in the RV, stays in the RV!

Oops, guess the blog thing kind of makes me a traitor. Oh well, I know them, they’ll never read this. (She said, hopefully.)

1:30 PM

Our first stop is in Oceanside. It’s a pizzeria, Spanky’s, that’s been serving giant 28-inch pies to the Marines who’ve lived across the highway at Camp Pendleton since the Viet Nam war.

Inside, the walls, from ceiling tiles to floor, are covered with hundreds of photographs of soldiers, their girlfriends and their wives. There are t-shirts from their companies they’ve signed on their way to combat. There are pizza boxes emblazoned with their drawings or credos or just wishes that they’ll be home soon.

I first met the owner, Michelle, 2 years ago when we took our first RV road trip for the election special of 2004 and were in Oceanside to get the thoughts of soldiers getting ready to ship out.

“

I remember Michelle telling me then that she was worried about her customers, almost all of them are military, about her business, and about the town, and how strange it would be to have so many people just gone.

Being there today we saw what she had meant. The town seems almost empty. On the sidewalks, you’re more likely to see shop-owners hanging by the doorways waiting for customers than customers themselves.

Michelle bought the business just 7 years ago. Clearly, bad timing in retrospect.

2004 was slower than the year before. In 2005 she barely broke even. Now, she tells us, she’s getting a check from her husband each month to help keep it all afloat.

Today, while we were at Spanky’s shooting one of our “Greetings from California Connected” video postcards, we met Nick Morris, a free-lance photographer from the local North County Times. Only after talking to him a while about stories we’re doing on the military this season (wish I could tell you more, but I don’t want to talk about it until we’ve finished them) did he tell me he had grown up in Oceanside and was in the Army for 8 years, with 2 of them serving in the Gulf War.

We were talking about how PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) has affected the lives of Middle East/Gulf soldiers compared to the soldiers of previous wars.

That’s when he said, “It’s all about them taking your gun.”

“What?” I asked. “You mean when you’re leaving the combat zone?”

“No,” he said, “later, when you’re home, when you’re finally discharged and have to give your gun back.” He looked at my face and continued.

“You ask anybody, any guy, who was there, how they felt when they had to give back their gun. You know you’re different, but you don’t know you’re still scared until they ask you to give back the only thing you have to make you feel safe. Over there, it’s hard to explain, but you look at everybody, every single person, and feel like they hate you and want to kill you. Even this old woman who was sitting on the corner with her goat, I really thought she might blow me up.”

As we climbed back on the RV and said goodbye to him, and to Michelle, I couldn’t help but remember the last time we left Spanky’s. Then, in 2004, we’d driven back to L.A. while watching the Kerry/Bush debate.

I wonder if Spanky’s will still be making 28-inch pizza’s 2 years from now.

8:00 PM

We roll into San Diego and check in to the same Hacienda Hotel in Old Town where we stayed one night last season. For those of you wondering what luxury “viewers like you” provide, don’t worry, it’s a Best Western. But it’s great and, most importantly, allows a really tired and hungry crew to roll just a block down a small hill to a real margarita and basket of chips.

We do, and I know I’ll regret the bloat tomorrow. But I never regret the big table.

“

DAY 2. DESTINATION: SAN PASQUAL

Wednesday 7:30 AM

Most of the crew gets an extra hour while Autumn and I head east by taxi on Interstate 8 to the KPBS studios near S.D.S.U. where I have to do a voice track for a radio piece for the NPR stations and a radio interview with our talk show host pal Steve Kelly of KPSI-AM in Palm Springs. (More about him later when we’re in the desert.)

I say most of the crew got an extra hour, and not all, because Sunday and Heather have to take the RV to a place that cleans things out because someone, we can’t say for sure who, broke one of the cardinal rules about what we do and don’t do on the RV.

(I’m saying no more, but we do have rules.)

9:30 AM

The bus picks us up, with Bill and Joe following in the chase van, and we head to our next location to do the stand-up for a story that airs Friday, May 26, that I hope you don’t miss.

Angela Shelley is one of our long-time, favorite producers. She can do anything.

She has an incredible track record doing these very difficult pieces that have no correspondent, just people telling their stories. (See the series we did on children last season.)

There was also a piece she produced last year on the Speaker of the Assembly, Fabian Nunez, reported by Bob Jimenez that was brilliant. She fought doing the piece, said she didn’t want to do a “politician story.” And, in the end, it wasn’t a “politician story,” it was just a great story about a guy… who happens to become a politician.

This trip, we’re shooting the intro to a piece Angela produced on this experimental program for foster kids and seniors in Northern San Diego County.

San Pasqual Academy, in the valley outside of Escondido, is a home and accredited high school for kids who’ve been in and out of foster care some or most of their lives.

But this place, just a short stretch of road from the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, is different.

They’ve offered some nearby housing to seniors who have become de facto grandparents to these kids.

It is one of those amazing and rare places where it seems everyone wins. These seniors are giving support and love to these kids who really deserve but have never gotten it. The kids give these seniors a real sense of purpose and fufillment.

Their families gave them up to the state and the state has given them a family.

Win. Win.

I hope you see the piece.

2:30 PM

We took what we always take from our local guides…a card, a handshake and a recommendation for the best local food.

Mark Dederian, who works at the academy and had driven us up to the top of a steep hill overlooking the valley so we could shoot our intro to the piece, thought we needed a Mexican food fix.

He hadn’t remembered the name of the restaurant, or the exact address, just that it was near the intersection of Felicita and Centre City Parkway next to something called Pixie Sticks and right near Trader Joe’s.

We should have pressed him for more details, but we were all a little white knuckled and distracted by the thought of the truck rolling over and down the hill so we hadn’t.

We stopped at the Ostrich Jerky and Fresh Farm hut at the intersection of San Pasqual and the 78 to figure out how to get there.

Most people, after the first 3 wrong turns, would have probably just gone to Carl’s Jr., but we couldn’t give up. Local joints are what we live for so we did what any reporting crew would have done. We called 411 and asked the guys at the Escondido Trader Joe’s how to find them.

Mark may not have remembered the name, but once we’d ordered and sampled the salsa bar, we knew we wouldn’t forget it. If in Escondido, find the poetry of “Taco #1.” It’s in a strip mall. You’ll love it.

5:00 PM

Still on the road.

We tried to explain to our wonderful new Executive Producer, Bret Marcus, that it would be really hard to get from

Northern San Diego County to Santa Barbara County and still have time to shoot 3 intros we needed to do in order not to be killed the next day.

Now, Bret’s a smart guy, an experienced guy. If you haven’t read his bio, the upshot is he was E.P. of Brian William’s show until Brian took over for Brokaw, he was also the boss at ABC’s World News Now, Sunday GMA, was Senior Producer on ABC’s Turning Point and a news director at ABC stations in NY and DC.

Again, smart guy, a guy who knows what it’s like to get from NYC to Fairfield, CT on the 95.

So why does he trust Mapquest?????

Ever so optimistically, it says 2 hours from Escondido to LA and another 1 and a half to 2 to Santa Barbara.

In an RV, on a weekday, you know that means 7.

I’m using the time to work on a script my producer, Jon Dann, and I are writing about the new “breakthrough” drugs that can possibly break the bank of those who take them…

But still, even with something to do and a fridge full of cheese, this is a long trip.

8:00 PM

Rolling into Santa Barbara.

Heather went to school here, U.C.S.B., and gets us where we need to go.

(By the way, she had a lot of apartments, and so many things have changed.)

Jon and I are reconciling our scripts so I can’t join the crew for dinner tonight.

Since Heather knows the area (did I mention she used to live here?) she directed the RV to a groovy grocery store, Lazy Acres. It’s sort of a Whole Foods or Bristol Farms, but with an ocean view. I’m guessing they don’t take double coupons.

Sunday remarks on the lack of a certain type of diversity. He begins his own survey.

I picked up a salad went to the hotel and hauled out the left over cheese and crackers I’d brought from home.

I can’t tell if the RV fridge has let us down, or if it’s just really good stinky cheese.

10:30 PM

I just finished writing and still haven’t eaten. I’m hoping for the last half of a “Law and Order” (it’s always on somewhere) and, maybe a fork.

DAY 3. DESTINATION: SANTA BARBARA

Thursday, 7:30 AM

You know, even if you’re working and, on the 3rd day of a road trip, have really wrinkled clothes and have forgotten your good shampoo, it’s not so bad to wake up in Santa Barbara. I’m struggling to get my e-mail to work so I can send a script from the parking lot of the wi-fied Best Western (yes, again) back to the office. It’s just not working. After having everyone on the RV try, I have to call for technical support. Thank goodness my babysitter back in L.A. hasn’t left for school yet. Mission accomplished.

12:30 PM

Long morning, but we have one more big thing to do before lunch.

We’re actually in Santa Barbara to intro a piece that airs May 19th about the unintended consequences of insane href=”http://www.californiaconnected.org/tv/archives/375″>real estate prices on the coast.

It was one of those stories that evolved and changed as the producer and correspondent, Jamie Schenk and Stephanie O’Niell-Noe, shot it a couple of weeks ago. Only after a day of shooting did they start finding what became the lead of the story: What if you dialed 911 and nobody came?

The most critical players to the health and safety of a community, the first responders, police, fire-fighters, doctors and nurses, have been so priced out of the real estate market that, even if they grew up there, most can no longer live there.

These people are so dedicated to their jobs, so love the community, but they also have families and want to have a house and swing-set.

So very few of them (and even fewer still in the next few years as people who’ve been there 30 years retire) can afford to buy a basic 3-bedroom, 2-bath home which, in Santa Barbara, averages a staggering 1.2 million dollars.

It’s hard for many in the community, especially those with an ocean view or a strawberry farm across the street, to get excited about some sort of subsidized housing for the middle class.

I understand. If I looked out on what they see each day I’d want to keep it to.

But they’ve also got to find a way to keep their firefighters, policemen and nurses, not to mention their teachers, electricians, plumbers close by.

The reality of Santa Barbara is: there’s basically one road in and one road out.

If only 8 of the 86 firefighters live in town, when a disaster happens, where do you think they’re going to be? Most likely, an hour or two out of town with no ability to get to the job they’ve sworn, and love, to do.

It’s a reality up and down the coast. The high cost of housing can really kill a community.

Oprah has a place there now. If legislators don’t help, perhaps they should call her? Maybe she’d help.

2:00 PM

Now that we’ve finished with our 2 camera cross-talk we did with Stephanie on the pier, we’re going to stop for lunch.

We’re hoping for some undiscovered treasure, full of fresh fair and interesting local seafood.

We turn to Heather for the answer (you know she went to school here, right?) but as it turns out, she’s not a Hollywood vegetarian, she doesn’t even eat fish. (She grew up in Maui. How did that happen????)

I wonder, if she was actually on “Lost,” wouldn’t she have a shrimp now and again rather than risk scurvy?

3:30 PM

Not to go all Disney on you, but it is “A Small World After All,” at least when you work on CC.

At the Fish House Restaurant, while waiting to order what turned out to be pretty great calamari, a woman walked up to our table holding a CC postcard (last year’s RV, but we just don’t have the budget to re-make them now) to say hello.

At first I think she’s one of the many PBS viewers we meet all the time on the road.

Her name is Linda. She’s older than I am, maybe the same age as my mom, articulate and charming and nicely dressed and polite.

She really could be my mother, or one of her friends from Sunday school, I think.

Turns out, Angela Shelley, the same producer who did the piece in Escondido, had interviewed Linda for a piece that airs in a few weeks on people living out of their cars in Santa Barbara.

Knowing the reality of the homeless population, Santa Barbara is now giving permits to people who are sleeping in their cars.

It’s not only better for the community, it’s also a big help to those people, some of them families, who are safer in a car or van or, have to say, an RV, than on the street.

The bonus is that, once they’re in the system, they can then be directed to life changing, or saving, social programs; whether it be food banks, health care, or schools for the children.

I assumed this woman was one of those community activists, or maybe someone from city or county government who Angela used to describe the car permit program.

In fact, she was one of the stars of the piece.

Not because she’s running a program, but because she’s in it.

Linda lives in her van with her cat, Danny.

She was one of those people who should be rare but aren’t. A woman who’d had a good life, a husband, and a little money saved for the future who, through bad advice and bad luck, or both, ended up with a bucket seat for a bed.

Within the hour, we’d also met a parking lot attendant, Triana, who lives in her car, and a father, Jess, and his two young boys who live in a converted school bus.

It’s blue, like the RV, but this isn’t their twice-monthly road trip, this is their life.

We took some photos with Linda and she showed us cards she’s made out of our CC postcards. She’s sending them to friends around the country with a note on the back about where she is and how she’s doing and asking them to look for her on TV.

If I got her card, I’d watch.

Maybe our PR department should hire her.

And again, I wonder, is Angela Shelley everywhere????

Crazy John is heading off to the neighborhoods, rich and poor, and the police and fire stations and get more b-roll (shots without interviews) to illustrate Stephanie’s piece.

We’ll do the driving shots of the RV with Bill and catch up with John later.

Heather is telling us which way to turn since, you know, she used to live here.

Sunday has continued his survey of the lack of diversity and the count is pretty low.

4:15 PM

We’ve knocked out the shots of the RV driving through the location so quickly that now we’re using Bill and Joe to tag team with Crazy John to shoot the rest of the shots we need to back up Stephanie’s piece so that we can get home before 10.

Bill and Joe and Heather and Sunday and I leave the police station because we find out the firefighters won’t be available after 5. John runs to the police station to cover the change of shift.

Sunday adds to his count. And almost misses a light when he sees a cute girl.

5:45 PM

We’ve just left the Fire Station where we picked up some shots of firefighter Brady Beck doing some general fire station chores.

When we were introduced he paused and said my name again. “Lisa McRee?”

I’m flattered he knows the show.

“Yeah, I’m the host of California Connected, thanks for helping us with our story.”

“No,” he says, “that’s not how I know you..”

“Oh, right, yes, I was with ABC before.”

I’d spent some really great years at the network and others at ABC affiliates in Dallas and L.A.

“No, no, that’s not it, you were in Bakersfield, right?”

Wow, that was 20 years ago, I think.

And then the killing blow:

Brady, this fully-grown man, says, “I grew up in Bakersfield, I played football, my buddies and I always watched you when you guys covered our games.”

Big sigh.

The only thing worse than having someone remember your 20 years in TV by the haircuts you had, is having some very grown up fire fighter say, “hey, I grew up watching you!”

I’m so old.

7:00 PM

Pulling out of Santa Barbara now. Anytime here is always too short. Regarding Sunday’s personal survey on diversity, it wasn’t as bad as he thought. You’ll have to email him for details.

7:30 PM

As far as I know, we’ve never gone to Apple to ask for corporate funding so I have no problem saying, “Thank God for my i-Pod.”

Heading south toward home, exhausted, wrinkled, really hungry (due to operator error, the fridge really didn’t save the cheese) we were so happy to have my 2,784 songs and little i-Pod dock and speaker set (140 bucks at the Apple store) that let us unwind as we wound our way home.

We had a little old school, a little new, a little Brazilian 60’s stuff and, of course, a course of Motown.

Sunday is a genius about guessing what’s playing. But I’m not speaking to him.

He’s just told us he needs to go back to the pledge department for the next month because they need him for the upcoming pledge.

Okay, I get it. He’ll be in management. And it’s full time. 4 paychecks a month not 2.

All I can say is, “What, you need food? You need rent? You’re sooooo selfish!”

In spite of that emotional blow, we have a great drive home.

Autumn and Heather are at the kitchen table doing the expenses for the office…

Joe is showing me the great digital photos he grabbed through the trip…

Crazy John is telling Sunday about his crazy screenplay…

I’m still re-writing the script for Genentech while manning the I-pod shuffle selections.

But at some point we all stop what we’re doing and just stare out the RV windows and drink in the beautiful coastline.

We really should get to the beach more.

9:30 PM

HOME

We rolled into L.A. sometime after 8 and the RV dropped me at home.

As I walked in the door, my neighbors from across the street were ringing on the phone.

I could see them in their window as the big blue bus pulled away.

They just laughed and laughed.

So did I.

See you next time.

Lisa

On the Road Again

May 4th, 2006

DAY 1. DESTINATION: BOYLE HEIGHTS AND ELYSIAN PARK 9:20 A.M.

Well, it’s here. …

After a hiatus of a few months…(which I’m convinced is getting shorter every year, could it be global warming, shrinking the time?)… It’s day one of the first “California Connected Road Trip” of season 5!

We haven’t left the parking lot and Joe the sound guy is already making us wait. Joe moves a little slow until we get him his latte with 5 squirts of syrup…

So before we shoot a frame, it’s off to Starbuck’s!

It is great to have the old crew…Joe and Bill (our Director of Photography) Carlos and Nat…

Plus our “newbies”: Heather Tahl (who is,) and our new driver, Sunday.

Yep, say it out loud, Sunday Driver!

I’m sure that’s not going to get old…

Maybe we all need caffeine!

9:40 A.M.

Heading south on the I-5, Autumn bounces a grande latte all over the new R.V.

I win 10-bucks.

11:28 A.M.

First location in Boyle Heights is wrapped and the sun has come out. Sunday passes the parallel parking test but the navigational team of Autumn and Heather has him a little perplexed.

If you’ve never been to Boyle Heights, it’s one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, just east and across the river from downtown and home to 300 very different and telling murals that depict the past, present and future of Latino life.

It has a feeling of a world unto itself, of a small town, even as you glimpse the outline of downtown L.A. in the near distance.

There are lots of people on the street, mostly Latino, but also Anglo, and Asian and African American, on their way to work or a park with a stroller parade of babies, going in and out of shops, chatting with friends in doorways of small shops. Most of the signage is in Spanish and English but occasionally something in Chinese or Korean.

While we held the R.V. on the curb waiting for Bill to set up the next shot, a woman from inside one of those neighborhood businesses ran out to say hello. Ana, from the “Cut, Curl-Up and Dye” hair salon, watches the show’s Sunday repeat and wanted to say hi. She and her husband gave a us a tour of their business and recommended their favorite local Mexican restaurant, El Tapeyac. Forget Fodder’s or Zagat’s, on the road the only recommendation to take is from a local. (Throughout this season, we’re going to share our favorites with you, but more on that later.)

We went on to finish our shots before heading to lunch and there they were…Ana and her husband…They’d called ahead and found it closed for lunch on Monday. They instead led us to Ciros, down the block and we weren’t disappointed. (Try the carnitas, or 2 pound burritos or, as I did, the crunchy tacos fried to perfection with the softest shredded beef inside. And don’t be shy about asking for more of the amazing roasted pepper salsa and guacamole and tomato Pico de Gallo. Heaven!)

We couldn’t stop talking about how nice Ana and her husband were to actually take the time to find us and steer us on to the next place, though it’s not totally surprising when you think of L.A. as it really is: not so much one big city and more of a daisy chain of communities that, in many if not most of them, treat visitors with the courtesy and warmth extended a neighbor.

We continued the afternoon in Elysian Park and the L.A. Police Academy (Sgt. Gilbert kept an eye on us from his motorcycle…..not standard issue, his own BMW we learned.)

We had good weather and a great shoot but all decided what made the day is Ana is our “local hero.” What a great way to start our new season.

DAY 2. DESTINATION: THE SOUTH BAY.

We had to get an early start to make it down to the Los Angeles/Long Beach Port Complex and shoot the intros for our season opening piece on port security.

Rain was predicted so we weren’t at all shocked when we ended up with a crystal clear, gorgeous day. We should have known luck was with us, Autumn didn’t spill a drop of coffee.

12 NOON

We stood atop Knoll Hill, a dog walking park overlooking the port where my old friend and former colleague from ABC News, the lovely and talented Judy Muller, joined us to tape a cross-talk segment to follow her port piece.

Judy went part time at Nightline to teach at U.S.C.’s Annenberg School of Communication and hadn’t planned on doing much more than occasional reporting. Luckily for us, she’s changed her mind.

Judy’s been a great supporter of the show and, as the west coast reporting goddess for ABC for many years, knows California like the back of her hand. Look to see her doing quite a few stories this season. As she said, there are few places left to do long form storytelling about the things she really cares about.

She cares about California.

We’re lucky to have her.

5:00 P.M.

Standing on Point Fermin, just north of Long Beach, we look out to Catalina and down onto the cliff at the tumbled down neighborhood that fell toward the sea almost 80 years ago. Looking further south we see the ports, and a time lapsed image of the promise and pitfalls of California.

The green hills of the island, that from that distance look untouched; the small fishing boat that you can barely see, though you can imagine the windy deck and the fisherman on it, feeling king of the world and a speck in the sea all at the same time; the foundations of the sunken city that collapsed in ’39, up-ended, graffiti covered “Stonehenge” sculptures that were once someone’s kitchen floor. And over in the port area, the shocking reality of tens of thousands of containers coming from half a world away to stock the shelves of our Wal-marts being unloaded from giant ships burning fuel lousy with sulfur that are giving kids in San Pedro burning asthma.

That is the crazy joy of doing this job. We see what it was, what it has been, what it could be, for better or for worse.

We hope for better.

DAY 3. DESTINATION: KOREATOWN AND SANTA MONICA 9:00 A.M.

Since I live steps away from this community in L.A., this is not really foreign territory to me, though it still is a bit.

I can’t read the signs on most of the stores and businesses, but I know them anyway. I shop for great vegetables here, I eat there, at 4th and Western I wash my car, I bought a great old wicker chair on that corner at Wilshire.

The intros we’re shooting today are for our pieces on immigration. Just looking up the street at the Salvadoran, Honduran, Korean, Thai, and regular old American cafes, at the Mexican furniture place or the second hand French antiques joint, you know you couldn’t have picked a better spot to the make the point.

We’ve always done stories on immigration. But what I like about the Cal. Connected way of covering the issue is that our job is not to get people to yell at each other about it, or to preach or shame. Instead, what we hope to do is to let you walk in someone else’s shoes; a migrant, a rancher, a border fence hole repairman, a congressman, and find the people who are trying to find solutions to whatever down-sides there are.

We do know, “coyotes” are bad, border area ranchers who can’t let their kids out to play at night are suffering, homeland security issues are real.

But, when you walk around east L.A. or Koreatown, the vibe of life is the same as in communities of 10th generation Americans.

We hope we can help you get there, even if just through television, and meet families with the same family values you have: children, education, God …not in any one particular order. At the risk of getting preachy…they live right beside me, they are part of my world and I’m glad they’re here.

2:00 P.M.

If you are ever in Koreatown, or in downtown L.A. for a game or a show at the Staples Center, you must eat at the Honey Pig!

In the interest of full disclosure, even though this isn’t a teen novel or the DaVinci code case, this wasn’t our own unique discovery.

This we owe to the L.A. Times (which, for my money, has the best Weds. Food section of all American papers!)

On Wednesday, I had read the paper before boarding the R.V. to San Pedro and saw the “undiscovered” restaurant of the week was on West 8th Street. We were scheduled to shoot until noon on West 5th. It was a sign from God.

You have to see the pictures and look at this link to the Times (their food writer can describe it so much better than I ever could….my sophisticated food verbage would only include something like “yyyyuuuuuuummmmmm!!!!!” and then some squeals of delight that you really can’t type.

You must have the address (see below) or just know what a cute pig looks like, because the signage has nothing in English; just Korean lettering and a drawing of a little pig face.

Again, yuuuuuuuummmmmm!

(Further proof, I’ll never get the dream job of the L.A. Times food writer.)

6:00 P.M.

We never even left the L.A. area, but feel like we’ve been around the world.

In Santa Monica, what Harry Shearer on NPR’s “Le Show” calls “the home of the homeless,” you can’t help but be struck by the contrast between “The Ivy at the Shore” and its beautiful people and 24 dollar hamburgers and, just across the street, a 24 hour community of sleeping homeless on cardboard next to the boardwalk.

If the cross cultural experience didn’t give you a world feel tour, maybe travel time will.

We’re getting on the I-10 at rush hour.

I’ll be home in about the same time it would take me to get to Shanghai….If I’m lucky!

Thanks for traveling with us!

lisa

On the Blog Again

Road Trip 6: Modesto and Mariposa

Road Trip 5: Back to the Bay…

MONDAY

MONDAY EVENING

TUESDAY MORNING

11:30 am

2pm

2:45 PM

4pm

8:30 pm

Weds AM

Weds 9:30 am

11am

Road Trip 4: San Francisco

Tuesday Mid-Morning

Wednesday

Thursday morning

2 hours later…

Thursday 3 pm.

Road Trip 3: L.A., Riverside, Palm Springs and Pala Indian Res.

DAY 1. DESTINATION: Los Angeles, Riverside

Monday, 7:50 AM

Monday, 11:00 AM

Monday, 5:00 PM

Monday, 10:15 PM

DAY 2. DESTINATION: Palm Springs, Salton Sea

Tuesday, 9:30 AM

Tuesday, 12:00 PM

Tuesday, 6:00 PM

DAY 3. DESTINATION: Pala Indian Reservation

Wednesday, 2:00 PM

Wednesday, 7:00 PM

Road Trip 2: Oceanside, La Jolla, San Diego, Santa Barbara

DAY 1. DESTINATION: OCEANSIDE, LA JOLLA, SAN DIEGO

Tuesday, 11:00 AM

1:30 PM

8:00 PM

DAY 2. DESTINATION: SAN PASQUAL

Wednesday 7:30 AM

9:30 AM

2:30 PM

5:00 PM

8:00 PM

10:30 PM

DAY 3. DESTINATION: SANTA BARBARA

Thursday, 7:30 AM

12:30 PM

2:00 PM

3:30 PM

4:15 PM

5:45 PM

7:00 PM

7:30 PM

9:30 PM

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