Jack Elliott's Santa Barbara Adventure

Golden Eagle

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Jack Elliott

Posted in San Luis Obispo | Tagged Golden Eagle, Snapshots | 2 Comments

The bat-winged double doors flew open smacking the saloon’s walls with an emphatic clap. He stood there, a bulky figure, face obscured in shadow, the dim sooty flutter of tallow candles warping his features into a caricature. His flat brimmed hat traced a line through the glowing window across the darkened, wagon rutted road behind him.

The drifter entered behind a mustache resembling a hedge of baleen protruding from his upper lip. He strode measuredly across the creaky pine plank floor, the double tap of each heel to toe footstep cracking the silence like gunshots. His stain spattered overcoat shifted to and fro with his movement revealing a glimpse of two tied down six-guns hanging low. A ragged old man in a shadowy corner muttered to himself, as he snatched a shot glass of rotgut whiskey with a shaky hand.

The drifter sidled up to the bar surveying his surroundings in a dead-eyed deliberate stare, the light catching a thin scar running through the grizzled stubble on his cheek. The bartender eased backward, the small of his back butting up against the counter beneath the bottles. His withered face drooped from his skull and two deep furrows at the corners of his mouth accentuated a pair of fuzzy pink cheeks that hung like dog jowls. His bottom lip quavered ever so slightly. “What’ll it be?” he asked.

The drifter leaned sideways against the end of the grimy bar cocked on an elbow, a turned shoulder toward the corner of the room, his back to the wall. He felt the glare of all eyes reading him like the tea stained wanted posters tacked up throughout town. “Sarsaparilla,” he answered.

Posted in Fiction | Tagged Bars, Cowboys, Fiction, Old West, Root Beer, Sarsaparilla, Stories, Tales, Westerns | Leave a comment

Crotch Rocket Mountain Bikes (1985)

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Jack Elliott

On the street I lived on as a kid, a friend of mine lived up the way, and across from him lived this older dude who assembled Crotch Rocket mountain bikes in his garage and sold us parts.

I always had BMX bikes up until that time, and the only other bicycles I remember being popular were ten speeds with skinny tires like pizza cutters and those curly handlebars. This is not to say mountain bikes were newly invented, but they were new to me and my experience.

The idea of a big bike made specially for riding trails and rough terrain was entirely new to me and utterly irresistible. I just had to have one.

The gleaming white of the Crotch Rockets the neighbor guy rode around must of matched the gleam of my moon eyes as I stared at the raddest bike I ever saw.

I desperately wanted the bike, but I was a bit hesitant and embarrassed about riding something called a Crotch Rocket to elementary school. I had already stirred up more attention than I ever cared for by wearing a Sex Wax t-shirt to school one day. Being a young boy, the name of the bike was also comical. Being an immature adult, it still is.

Jesusita and Tunnel were two of the first trails I ever rode a mountain bike down. I remember Tunnel being pretty brutal without suspension. I tried it once, as I recall, and then stuck to Jesusita.

I doubt many guys were rocketing down trails on those old bikes except for maybe smooth single tracks like Knapp’s Castle. Ball Buster Bicycles, Inc. would’ve been a more accurate brand name.

Here is a profile piece on Crotch Rocket mountain bikes published in a 1985 edition of Bicycle Guide magazine:

Bibliography:

Museum of Mountain Bike Art and Technology

Posted in History | Tagged Mountain Biking, Tales | 6 Comments

Sisquoc Falls

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Jack Elliott

Clubhair Mariposa Lily (Calochortus clavatus)

Posted in Santa Barbara | Tagged Snapshots | Leave a comment

Selby Rocks, Carrizo Plain

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Jack Elliott

Saddled up the iron horse and pressed peddle once more out to the Carrizo on Sunday hoping it would be clear enough to do something and stay dry. Nope. We were wet. The Temblor Range across the plain disappeared behind spotty, intermittent showers throughout the afternoon as we hiked the Caliente Range. The clouds would build into a dark lumpy blanket and then unload sheets of gray cascading onto the polychrome plain.

In a landscape otherwise devoid of rocks, the Selby Rocks breach the undulated surface of the grassy plain along the base of the Caliente Range. The tell-tale traces of the region’s human history are recorded on the gritty surfaces of these building-sized rounded blobs of weathered stone. Bored into the rock in numerous places are mortars once used by Chumash or Yokut Native Americans to grind nuts and seeds.

Soda Lake on the plain with Selby Rocks in the shadows in the lower right corner.