on friday, nick bott and i went to santa barbara in search of one trent wiesen. at the time, of course, we didn’t realize that our search would be futile. we were naive, overly sanguine–as youths such as ourselves are wont to be.
trent, a friend of ours, had invited us to road trip down to his place (a 5 hour trip) for the weekend. the invitation happened some time ago (to our eventual frustration), but only on wednesday night did we decide to accept it; i rented a buick regal from enterprise and we planned our drive for late friday evening. friday evening came quickly, and nick and i made our preparations. sooner or later one of us realized that we needed to call trent and let him know we were coming down. i called his house 3 times that night, with nothing but the answering machine: “hello, you’ve reached the wiesens, please leave a message. beep“.
still, we thought, he had invited us for this weekend; he was just out of the house–obviously not out of town or anything. so we figured we had better get a move on, and we’d continue to call while we drove. we pulled out of stanford at 10:30 or 11:00 pm, and started the long trek. it was a great night–moonless, but the stars were out, and no one else was on the road. feeling the freedom of the long dark stretch ahead of me, i couldn’t restrain myself, and pushed the car over 100mph several times. sadly, it seemed that there was a governor of some sort in effect, because as i hit 110mph the engine would drop down.
needless to say, we made great time to santa barbara. the downside was that, while nick and i knew trent lived in or near santa barbara, we didn’t actually know where his house was. we had kept calling until the hour was no longer decent, but to no avail. thus it happened that at 4am saturday morning, we made the choice to give up on finding trent for the time being, and we directed our course southwest from downtown, where we hoped to find a beach. without too many wrong turns we eventually stumbled upon leadbetter park on the south coast of santa barbara, near the harbor. we pulled into the parking lot, exhausted from driving and singing loudly to CDs the whole way.
it was worth the drive, however, to stumble out into the crisp, foggy, night air and feel cool sand beneath my feet, and to hear the susurrative crash of waves just outside my vision. that night we slept in the car, and woke up around 9 or 10 am.
the first order of business on saturday morning, after leaving leadbetter (and paying a parking fee–they had kindly started charging us for parking at 7am), was to find out what the deal was with trent. no one answered at his home, still, so we called his aunt who lived in los altos. she gave us the address of his house in santa barbara, and we stopped at a gas station to look it up on a map. it turned out he lives 15 or 20 miles north of where we were, so we got in the car and made our way north to goleta. it was difficult to navigate the maze of residential streets based on the sketchy (and sometimes wrong) information from the map at the gas station. eventually, though, we found trent’s house. sitting outside, we called the place again, but no answer. they were definitely not home. we composed a short note and went to stick it to their door, asking them to call when trent got back.
at the door, we noticed motion inside….was someone there after all? we knocked. the door cracked open an inch, then another inch, then a foot..suspicion…the person behind the door was asian, possibly vietnamese, male, and looked to be about 22. nothing at all like trent or his family. nick and i were obviously confused, but as the man made no move to initiate conversation, we asked, “is trent there?”. in halting english came the counter-question: “are you the police?” nick and i looked at each other. “no, we are just looking for trent–we’re friends…not police.” he opened the door a little wider and looked around. then he informed us that the wiesens were gone on a family vacation until the 13th.
we thanked the man and left, never finding out who he was, or what he was doing in the wiesen’s house.
for a moment we were disappointed, but then realized that the possibility for adventure had definitely increased. our minds began to imagine all the places we could go with a car and nothing better to do. some of the suggestions were the grand canyon, phoenix, las vegas, orange county, san diego, death valley, and a host of other tantalizing locations. we soon faced the hard truth, however, that many of these places would take 8 or 9 hours to drive….leaving us with a 12 or 13 hour drive back to stanford on sunday. coming back to reality, we decided to stay in santa barbara and hang out at the beach on saturday, and maybe go visit the wine country on sunday on our way back up.
we did hang out at the beach all saturday–reading, sleeping, throwing the frisbee, and in general feeling that pleasant laziness that comes from the sun kissing with poisoned lips, sapping strength while exuding golden nectar. as it happened we got hungry around the same time we were going to start roasting, so we went in search of dinner. our search ended very abruptly upon sight of a fresh choice eating establishment on state street. we stuffed ourselves with all-you-can-eat salads, pastas, breads, soups, and pizzas. fat and happy, we lumbered across the street and caught the 7:20 showing of signs at the paseo nuevo theatres. a great movie with a lot to say for it, and it had wonderfully visceral tension without being grossly shocking. the characteristic darkly toned suspense i’ve come to expect from m. night shamalayan.
after the movie we were once again exhausted, so we parked our buick next to the same beach as the night before, and slept peacefully (if fitfully) in the cushy reclining front seats.
sunday morning was more of the same–inspiring devotionals on the beach just after sunrise, then more baking in the sun during the midday. i finally finished a book i’ve been working on for over a year: warranted christian belief — the concluding book in the trilogy concerning the epistemological notion of warrant, by alvin plantinga. a must-read for any epistemologist with at least a few years of philosophical training.
sunday afternoon found us on state highway 154, snaking northeast through beautiful mountainous desert interspersed with the occasional lush vineyard. just past solvang, the dutch experiment in california, we turned into the grounds of the bridlewood winery. we sat at a table looking over a small valley on which hills grew the lush varieties of grapes used to make exquisite wines. we talked about deeply important, philosophico-theological things, like the meaning of hope and the conundrum of coincidence. it didn’t surprise me anymore that nick would bringn these things up as topics of conversation — his love for stretching his mind in contemplation of spiritual truths had been amply demonstrated to me time and time again. a refreshing quality.
also refreshing was our retreat from the sun into the cool, oak-lined hall where we tasted 5 of bridlewood’s best wines. nick and i voted unanimously that the 1999 chardonnay was possibly the best wine we’d ever tasted. and at half price, we couldn’t resist picking up a bottle.
with that, our adventure was officially over–we got in our de facto motorhome and i braced myself for the long 5 hours of driving ahead of us. stopping once only, for gas and subway sandwiches, we made great time and passed many slow people on our way north. the highlight of the drive was at sunset–flying at 90 mph with the long shadows of gigantic poplar trees on the left making dark furrows in the golden green of the farmland to our right, as dead ahead and to our sides we were ringed by mountains and hills that looked like gigantic sand dunes that god had raked his finger through, while we were listening to what can only be described as a paean of absolute beauty in the form of the final anthems of the gladiator soundtrack, and realizing with each charged strain, the transcendental lens of music, that sometimes heaven can’t help but bleed through to the earth.
we rolled into nick’s half moon bay beach house at 10pm, and relaxed in the hot tub after celebrating our safe return with a glass of the chardonnay. i spent the night there and drove home this morning, shirking work and all other responsibilities in order to go grocery shopping and take a much-needed shower.
our search for trent was futile, but the trip was most definitely not.
