Telling a colonel what to do is one thing but someone who can remember his mom telling a story about how a baseball hit by Babe Ruth fell into her lap might get away with offering him our very strongly felt opinion base on experience. [We have hitchhiked from Pennsylvania to Tonkawa and traveled by Greyhound coast to coast at least three times.]
Getting him to read "Watergate The Hidden History: Nixon, the Mafia, and the CIA," by Lamar Waldron (from Counterpoint in Berkeley CA!) before the next round in our continuing Nixon vs. Kennedy debate will be a bit more of a challenge.
Our hope is that the colonel will change his own ground rules and take longer to do the trip or perhaps make the trip in annual installments of two weeks each for the next several years. If he wants to see as many American icons as possible, we can't offer much of an opinion about what to see until he gets to Route 66in Oklahoma, but we can strongly recommend that if he wants spectacular scenery, he should get to the Grand Canyon ASAP, and then budget time to see Yosemite, the redwoods, Lake Tahoe, and the Monterey Peninsula. California is a very big state and it will take a few days just to skim the highlights. At that point he can run down PCH and see Big Sur, the Hearst Castle, and the Bixby Bridge. He'll wind up in Santa Monica, where he can visit Venice Beach before going to the airport, turning in his rental and jumping on a plane back to Germany.
Our hope for the teacher is that he will get to California, have a St. Paul's moment and when he returns to his luxurious home within sight of the Manhattan skyline sell it, put the money in a safe investment, and then jump back in his motor home and become a motorhome vagabond inside the California borders for the next 12 months (or more).
The hippie will (we hope) get to some California towns we have never seen and finally get to live out his Fred C. Dobbs wishes to find some nuggets of gold in a miner's pan.
Simone de Beauvoir wrote (Ibid page 136): "We do not see much of San Francisco because we stay only four days and don't know anyone."
Now the disk jockey will play the Cantina Band's song "Out in California," Glenn Campbell's "Wichita Lineman," and "Living on Tulsa Time." We have to go and contact the National Parks people and ask two questions: "What state has the most National Parks? And "How many National Parks are in California?" Have a "life is short; eat dessert first" type week.
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