CHUMASH COUNTRY

=| You leave the classic SoCal Culture Zone

When you leave LA on the Pacific Coast Highway [US-1]. You see this right away. The highway spreads out a little and become more accommodating as traffic falls away. Beaches to your left, the Santa Monica hills coming down on your right; the Light seems to brighten, the Air freshens. Before you know it you're in Malibu; whether you know it or not, you're also in Chumash Country.

Find a California map. Cover the coastline from Malibu out to Lompoc, where the Coast turns north at Pt. Argeullo. Chumash are the aboriginal, the First People of the Lands from the coastal range watersheds on down to the coast and out beyond the Channel Islands. I've been told they've been here 10,000 years, of which I Know Nothing, save that they're still here, and have been here a long, long time.

They say they are a sea-going people, and they make planked boats that allow them to orient themselves to the water rather than the dry inland hills. They use double-bladed paddles, as do only far Northern peoples; their tomols are shockingly akin to constructions of Polynesians, who I am also told are Kin.

My primary Farmacists are Chumash. One trained as a youth in traditional Chumash ethnobotany, and the Family now practices traditional healing arts. They pay their taxes, get on fine with their neighbors,and provide me with classic old sativas from local collectives, classic old strains which are effective for my pain and are the least expensive in the array. Hot damn !

But not today. The DEA ran them back into the hills not long ago. They weren't doing anything against local or state law, but the DEA is a Law unto itself, engaged in a long-term campaign against California's medical cannabis system. Had to go the Other Way. Got up early (as always) and took loverly drive down PCH into LA County to one of the 'dispensaries' you've already read about in David Samuel's NEW YORKER article "Dr. Kush". The menu was up online, prices & photos posted; have been there before, too, and knew them to be running a tight shop, offering quality product at competetive (if not bargain-basement) prices. Pleasant, straight-forward transaction; declined use of the lounge and headed back north, retracing the route from the southern edge of Chumash Country back into Ventura toward Santa Barbara.

Tis a little cool by California standards, and the waves aren't much, but there are surfers in the water and bicyclists on the wide, well-demarcated shoulders. I'm in a mid-80's Benz, just hangin' my arm out the window listening to Faure. Topanga Canyon, Mulholland Drive, and US-23 rising in quick order into the mountains and i can't help but grin in anticipation of an early '09 rendezvous with a Great Old Pal of Decades, a truly rare beast who I have finally managed to 'make the case' to elude a high-pressure and very public job for a few daze. J~ is a biker; I'm a hiker (if/when i have knees at my disposal) and we split the difference by renting an appropriately sporting vehicle or two and taking off into the hills along drives such as these.


US-23 has a perfect pair of 180's turns stacked almost immediately above the PCH, but to savor US-23's descent from Thousand Oaks, take it from the top. Please. In daylight, and stone-cold sober, too ~ take exceptional care for the cyclists & bikers. Trust me, its an infinitely-better first-time drive heading toward the shore.

"Life is Suffering" my Buddhist friends explain. "Life is good ... "



= 26 Oct 08