On a desert mountain ranch nestled amid Joshua trees outside of LA is Xantusia - a triathlete's playground. Triathletes come to Xantusia to train - swim, run, bike. Bike workshops are also conducted here. Within a 25 mile radius - you'll find a monastry, a prison, a walmart and the movie set of Terminator.
(top pic: last shot i took on my camera before it died.)
(fourth picture from bottom: Toni takes us on a walking tour)
(bottom picture: the open space allows a Joshua Tree to stand before the sky)
At Xantusia, named after the lizard commonly found in Joshua Trees, life is slow and simple.
Xantusia stands on the grounds of a little town called Valyermo, where there are 5,000 people. Some are born here, while others have traveled across the country and world to be reborn here.
The small community share the prosperous land around them with those passing through and wildlife. Bob cats, wild hares, coyotes and the occasional mountain bear, lion and rattle snake. According to triathlete pro, Mark Montgomery, who runs the B&B at Xantusia, the animals cause no harm - "there's enough land and food" for all. In the night, it seems coyotes do venture as close as your backyard.
"Spike" the husky-looking dog, who stays outside in the nights, has probably had many nocturnal run-ins with the coyotes. Or so I am told.
At Xantusia, I feel like a consummate city slicker.
I find the mountainous land around me both refreshing and intimidating. As a tiny person placed in the middle of these desert mountains, I can't help but feel a certain respect for the unknown wildlife that roam freely around and beyond me.
Nature here has an overwhelming prescence - almost omnipresent.
The other day we ran on a mountain trail - we ran up to altitudes as high as 5,000-6,000" Running back to the foot of the mountain - was great fun and scenic - but i couldn't help looking over my shoulder whenever I heard loose pebbles rumbling down the steep slopes half ready to see a feline friend/foe lurking around. As it is domesticated cats already scare me.
At Xantusia - I find myself engaged on a level very different from where i am born and raised. Here, I hear the trees breathe. I notice that birds don't just fly - they glide. I see how the sun falls behind the mountains in the evenings. And when I close my eyes, I wonder why the breeze sound like waves rushing to the shore. With open spaces that stretch out for miles and miles till mountains overlap - I understand depth.
In the evenings when Han is out on his bike rides, I sit with my book at a look out just by the house. It feels luxurious. And I begin to wonder.
At Xantusia, people seem to be as open as the lands they live on.
The guy who conducts the bike fitting workshops, Dan - whom Han calls the Godfather of traithlons - just got married earlier this year. His wife Toni picked us up from Thousand Oaks on Monday and drove us to Xantusia. Toni is about 48 - but looks 15 years younger. Over several conversations - I've discovered that her family was originally from Senegal - but moved to Antiga and finally to the US sometime around the 1900s. I noticed from a picture she showed me how her mom looked a little Chinese. She tells me later that she has Chinese blood. "I saw that in your mom's eyes," I say.
She shares with me some of her stories. I find out that she too loves to travel and has been to over 30 countries. The closest to Singapore she's been to was Japan. She was then dating the drummer playing for a David Bowie Tour... and as it turns out - Toni used to work as a receptionist for Stevie Wonder. She tells me of how she helped chart her family tree and history during a trip to Antiga some years back. Her story reminds me of my personal resolution to do the same for my family history/tree at some point. I know little beyond my grandparents. They're all gone now. And i also begin to wonder what might have happened to my paternal great grandfather who was said to have worked as a chef on some ship decades ago and never returned to China. I wonder where he went - and if I have family beyond.
Mark, who runs the B&B, has won up to 70 plus triathlons around the world. At Xantusua, he opens his home to visitors who are mostly bike/triathlon enthusiasts. Outside breakfast, lunch and dinner, he feeds us with stories. He's a fan of Charles Bukoswki and is said to make great magaritas. "We don't use maragita mixes here...made from fresh lime," he says. On my first day here, I ask him about Lance Armstrong, whom both him and Dan knows from over the years of racing, and he says: "Dan's even been to Sheryl Crow's house...when they were still together." We talk briefly about how that relationship ended
and learn that Sheryl "runs a tight ship." What a great quote, i instinctively think. a throwback from my reporting days. It's interesting how I still function in that way - collecting quotes during everyday conversations. Can't seem to kick that.
I learn, during one of our earlier walks around Xantusia, that a neighbor has recently built a helicopter from scratch. i didn't see the chopper - but as I looked ahead to where Toni was pointing out with her finger - i see a makeshift heli pad.
"I think he used to be an engineer from Boeing," she tells me later. She tells me later too that the 75-year old neighbor had started putting his energies into the helicopter after his girlfriend died in a car accident earlier this year. I feel a need to see this man. And his helicopter. It's interesting how this piece of personal information seems to have created a certain bond with this character i've yet to meet.
At St Andrew's Abbey, not too far from Xantusia - there's a retreat center, a spartan chapel and a generous garden. Marcela, my new Argentinian friend and I stroll through the monstary's compounds. Marcela was my companion while Han and her husband attended a bike workshop. Marcela and Christian just got married in Vegas days earlier. At the monastry we take pictures of the two ducks in a small pond. we were extremely tickled that someone hadplaced a yellow rubber duckie in the middle of the pond. I am told that the monks who set up the monastry were Chinese - who sought refuge here in the 1950s. I google the monastry and discover this: "THE MONASTIC COMMUNITY at Valyermo was founded in China in 1929 by the Abbey of Sint Andries Zevenkerken in Brugge, Belgium. The monks prayed, taught, and worked in China until they were expelled by the communists in 1952. In 1955 the community relocated at Valyermo in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains."
At Xantusia, I wonder about the inmates at the nearby prison who sit in their tiny cells in a building that sits on vast lands as the wildlife roam freely. At Xantusia, stray dogs show up and become family. Spike, Pumpkin the pitbull, Charlie and Babe.
At Xantusia - strangers have somewhat become friends, old memories are revisited, and new ones forged. At Xantusia, some are born here, and some are reborn.
