The white man's secret weapon.

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Avila Beach, late afternoon of the same day.



I leave my new found friend behind, this old and mentally deranged old native american who claimed he belonged to the sioux nation, living in his old cr*ppy tent in Los Osos National Reserve.

His raving and his old battered "peach pipe", his toothless gums and wrinkled old man's face, wrinkles that might go back several dozens of years but surely not to these times when the Sioux Nation was still great and powerful and battled general Custer successfully, with the red skinned man still being real warriors and not beaten yet by the white man's secret weapon, King Alcohol.

Slowly my mind calms down, the guilt complex he left simmering in my mind moving to the back of my skull,

I'm reaching San Luis Obispo. A lively but at the same time laidback town with stately buildings and young friendly people walking the sidewalks, music is coming out of bars and pubs, the air being so close to the ocean, is salty and clean.

I park my bike on the main drag, Higuera Road, and walk a bit around, have my lunch in a small diner that seems to be frequented mostly by students and youngsters.

Walk a bit more around admiring the artwork in the many galleries in this neighborhood before cycling on to San Luis Obispo Bay, on and on to Avila Beach for yet another lunch.

- you tend to get a real good appetite when you travel the world by bicycle - .

Avila Beach is quiet and peacefull, an old wooden fishing pier the only thing to see apart from a long broad beach with a bunch of youngsters drinking beer and having fun.

By the time I'm done and ready to return to Morro Bay, it is late afternoon with sunset well on the way and darkness there after.

By the time I'm back in Los Osos National Reserve it's pitch dark, the old man's tent a dark shaped among bushes and trees, no camp fire nor rambling old sioux warrior in retirement.

Maybe he's inside that dirty tent of his sleeping off whatever he was putting in that "peace pipe" of his, that mix he wanted me to smoke no doubt before I made my hasty escape.

Or else he might have walked to Morro Bay to buy supplies...well, whatever.

"you and me together in my room", I can hear a thai female voice chant inside my skull. while I cycle by the dark shape that is his tent...sure why not but not he and me together smoking the "eace pipe".

smoke your treasured holy pipe alone for all I care for.

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