California 5

We went into Willits yesterday evening to buy some groceries and despite my protestations Clive insisted going shopping in his work clothes. I’m concerned that if I stay here much longer I may turn into a hillbilly. He blended in really well except for his lack of tattoos. Not everyone in America is a redneck – we called into an auto shop for some car oil and we got into a conversation about guns with the guys behind the counter. One of them was very dismissive of the gun culture and said “we don’t need the Taliban when we’ve got so many of our own idiots going round killing people”. It was refreshing to hear.

We’ve spent a lot of the time in and around the barn. Set amongst the trees it is cool and Clive, not famous for doing things by half, has air-conditioned the building. We can drive the cars in and work on them in comfort. Yesterday a guy came to get the VW Kubelwagen started and it has now been driven to his workshop for him to tune it up and fix some of the problems it has.

For driving into town and picking up provisions there is a beat up pick-up. In this part of the world it seems everyone has a pick-up of various sizes. As with most of Clive’s cars it shows signs of neglect – dents, broken lights, scratched windscreen, missing wing mirror and generally grubby. I’ve tried my best to patch it up however I think if it was a horse I’d put it out of its misery.

They have his and her mules to get between the house, cabins, barn and the many trails. It’s a brilliant work-horse capable of going up and down steep narrow trails, towing cars, hauling logs and carrying a shed-load of tools for every eventuality. This afternoon we cleared it out and gave it a clean up with a power washer.