The Trees Are Calling – Trip 16

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Highway 17 on way to Flagstaff, Arizona

I started writing this last night when I was thinking of the route we’d be traveling today. Earlier in the week week, I had hemmed and hawed as I couldn’t fix on a destination, go far away, or stay closer to home. Last December, when I created the itinerary for this year, I had penciled us in to drive up to Great Basin National Park. It’s been nearly 20 years since we were there last, which its 600-mile distance out into the middle of nowhere might have something to do with. On the other hand, Chiricahua National Monument in southern Arizona is only 250 miles away.

The Gap off Highway 89 in Northern Arizona

Telling someone of my dilemma and saying out loud that a 1,200-mile (almost 2,000km) roundtrip drive for a hike to some 4,500-year-old trees and a disappearing glacier in Nevada seemed excessive, well, that sounded weak to my ears because, 20 years ago, that wouldn’t have figured into our thinking. So it was fixed that we’d not be taking the easy way, we were returning to Great Basin National Park.

Navajo Bridge near Marble Canyon, Arizona

Initial plans had us stay in Cedar City, Utah, for the first night out, but we got away earlier than we thought we’d be leaving Phoenix, so we set our sights on Beaver, Utah. The photo above was taken when we were not yet in Utah but on the western side of the Navajo Bridges after crossing the Colorado River down below. Both Caroline and I had the sense we’ve been up here more than a few times this year. Maybe it’s just a few, but at the time I’m writing this, I’m feeling too lazy to scroll back through the 120 earlier blog posts I’ve published this year to figure it out exactly.

Colorado River seen from Navajo Bridge near Marble Canyon, Arizona

In just three weeks, we’ll be up here yet again as we’ll be staying a night at the Marble Canyon Lodge before taking a hike up the river a short way at Lee’s Ferry. The Spencer Trail is what we’ll be aiming for, and I’m putting this out there right now as I try to build my resolve to hike this strenuous trail, but let me be clear: it is not the steep ascent that is bothering me but the narrow trail with butt-clenching drop-offs. If we can make it to the mesa top, we’ll be offered some spectacular views, but even if we only make it part way up, we should be able to look back here at the Navajo Bridge for a perspective we’ve never seen before.

Vermillion Cliffs near Marble Canyon, Arizona

When I took this photo, Caroline and I had already been marveling on our way north at how green everything was. Well, between Phoenix and Flagstaff during and just after our monsoon season, that’s normal, but this far north, it is rare. So, someone who lives in an environment that is seriously green might wonder, what green? But to our eyes, these are levels of lush desert greenery that make us stop and capture the infrequent hue found among the Vermillion Cliffs.

Vermillion Cliffs near Marble Canyon, Arizona

We’ve never grown tired of these views; they look as exotic to us as they always have. A rarified sight that continues to be a constant reminder of how parts of the earth still look when not taken over by people. This is also the area where condors have been re-established, and come mid-October, we’ll not forget binoculars and my telephoto lens in the hopes of grabbing a couple of good photos of these rare birds.

As we were about to turn west and head into the high plateau where the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is found, we were running out of sunlight. This would be the first time in a long while that we’d be passing through the notorious town of Colorado City, Arizona, just south of the Utah state line. Back when we first drove through the area, Warren Jeffs and his nut-job father Rulon (Uncle Rulon to his followers) were both in charge of this polygamist enclave. Not satisfied with no less than 50 wives each, Warren was living a life that included rape, incest, and sexual assault of children. That was all traded for a life in prison, though he’ll be eligible for parole in 2038. I almost forgot to mention that Warren married all but two of his father’s wives, which I think means he married his brother’s mothers. The more I refresh my memory about Colorado City, the more I think we need to visit this outpost of depravity to walk among the many children of the Jeffs clan.

Neighborhood Update

JWise Life

Phoenix, Arizona

Caroline and I walk a lot through our neighborhood, so much so it’s now a routine. If we are in town and it’s Monday through Friday, our route typically covers between 2.5 and 3 miles. On weekends, we can get lazy and opt for a short 1-mile walk to get things going. No matter the initial distance, we always aim for about 5 miles a day, more when we are traveling. But this post is not about distance or travel; it’s about the place where we walk.

It’s easy to take for granted the nature of our hoofing here and there, but frequently, we are greeted with skies that stop us in our tracks, often right here with the palm trees helping set the scene and have us snap a photo. The idea is that someday, we might need reminders of what sunrise looked like if we were no longer able to go out and see them for ourselves. Yes, this is the thinking of people growing older.

As we bolt across one particular wide and noisy street to enter a quiet neighborhood, we first encounter a home that plays host to anywhere from a half-dozen to a few more than a dozen cats. Those felines use parked cars for shelter or for the warmth of their hoods to keep toasty. On roofs, they gain an overview where maybe they signal to other cats the coordinates of prey. Every so often, kittens show up.

There’s a small park the cats often visit, but so do some coyotes. Just the other day, we had a great encounter with three coyotes scouring the park for furry morsels. As they saw us, they took off save for one that didn’t seem to like the idea of running away from a meal but reluctantly followed his mates. We continued our walk, and they continued moving away until that male decided there was enough room between him and the side of the street we were on, and he slipped through to return to his hopeful breakfast plate.

One day this past week or so, we encountered four hawks. Hawks on their own or even paired is not uncommon, but four of them took us by surprise. There are many birds out here, such as the woodpeckers drumming on metal things on nearby homes; pigeons, quail, parrots, and mockingbirds also call the area home. The other day, we saw our first flock of geese flying south. And I shouldn’t forget to mention the raucous grackles, the cactus-loving wrens, sparrows, and the delightful hummingbirds.

There are more than a few ant colonies we pay attention to, various rabbits, lizards, and, at certain times of the year, bats. Along the way, we pass “White Dog,” Penny, Bella, and Lexie, guarding their respective yards. In a previous post, I already wrote of Lucy the Donkey whom we see daily.

Continuing our walk, we are confronted by those people who, not wanting to stink up their own homes, smoke outside and stink up the outside world. Speaking of stench, during these summer months, we pass sewers that have a constant flow of effluvia that can make us wince when we stumble in and out of the cloud. Also of note, we are noticing “Open House” signs for homes on the market again. We’ve not seen those in years, as homes were snapped up before the “For Sale” signs ever went up; something’s afoot.

In one particular home, we are certain, live drug dealers. They are not connected to the electricity grid and have a gas-powered generator to run their operation (a mobile home). The infernal racket just grinds at the ears as we pass, but still, it’s better than being on one of the main thoroughfares where idiots in loud vehicles start the day with the growl of their douchey cars, trucks, and motorcycles. I’ll include this right here as it feels appropriate: we also walk by a lot of dog poop.

There’s always the weather to mostly enjoy. Today was the first time the temperature dipped into the 70s since summer began. It’s a rare day we see rain, but this monsoon season seems to be one of the wettest that either of us can remember. While the humidity and mosquitos irk us, it seems like a small price to pay for what feels close to 365 days of perfect weather.

Finally, there are other people out here. There’s the guy who sets up the “school zone” signs and raises the flag at the grade school, a guy walking around with a golf club (for snakes, he says, but we think it is there for intimidation against the homeless who criss-cross our neighborhood and live in various hidden pockets near a greenbelt that runs through here), and another guy who seems uncomfortable passing others and will always move to the other side of the street and even change his course. We often encounter two Korean ladies out for an early morning walk, and sometimes, they are joined by two other people. There’s the friendly lady carrying a rosary and working it who many times stops to talk to dog walkers (or chat with us), the kids waiting at a couple of school bus stops, the trash truck drivers and various others moving through near the break of dawn.

Drifting Consciousness

JWise Life

Dried Gecko

This homeless man in front of me sits in a coffee shop, twitching, but he’s fully asleep. He’s dreaming, but his hands and feet never stop moving. As he drifts into deeper sleep, his head tries to find a comfortable resting spot, but the need to appear awake to avoid being asked to leave signals his body to look alive.

His sleepy eyes pop open and survey the landscape, but he’s fighting the exhaustion of being on streets where not remaining alert means the little he may have can be taken from him. Through the narrowing lids, I can see his eyes rolling as they lose focus and work hard at bringing this man to rest, but he’s fighting it.

He, like so many others who pass through here while I sit comfortably writing after a great night of sleep, sipping a coffee, experiencing the luxury of free time that allows me to interpret those around me instead of just trying to have a few moments of shelter, rest, and use of toilet facilities.

At what point he became aware of my attention to him is of no importance as in his situation, he is used to and aware of being observed, and maybe in his world, that means he would soon need to move on. That’s just what he did.

The Power of the Pen

JWise Thoughts

Notebooks

One might think I know enough about myself by now, considering I’m 59 years old and that most of my habits would be fixed; well, it turns out that I’m still learning. On our recent trip up the central coast of California, Caroline bought me a nice little notebook as she liked the motif of snail and flowers on the cover. From the 1980s through the early 2000s, on the rare occasion I did write, it was on paper. When I started blogging, I enjoyed having spell-checking at my fingertips, along with the added convenience of not having to transcribe my handwriting. In 2010, on a whitewater rafting trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, I picked up a half-dozen Moleskine-ruled notebooks as there was no possibility of having a computer with us on that epic journey.

Over the course of 19 days, disconnected from the grid, I filled those notebooks, and when I got home, I bypassed transcribing them onto the computer and instead wrote what amounted to a first draft of what would become a book on yet more paper. While parked at a number of coffee shops, I tried to flesh out what I’d jotted down in the canyon as the impressions were still flowing through me. Only after that did I transfer those handwritten pages to the computer. I failed to see any connection between the original note taking with what I ended up with: a book instead of a series of blog posts. I attributed what came out of that exercise to the monumental scope of the truly overwhelming environment.

In the intervening years, I’ve turned to writing on paper during other whitewater adventures that took us up into the Yukon, into the Balkans, or just for the convenience of having a paper notebook stuffed in Caroline’s purse while we walked for miles through some corner of Europe. Each time I practiced this craft of using pen and paper, I was blinded by the magnitude of the environmental intrusion of the place we were visiting. Until this last long holiday weekend.

Heading out the next morning after Caroline’s gift, I gave in to the idea that I’d leave my computer in the hotel room and take my new notebook instead. Keep in mind, when I sling my computer over my shoulder, I’m doing so with consideration that we’ll sit down somewhere with wifi or at least a table so I can start writing to capture the events of the day. How was it not glaringly obvious that I was limiting when I’d be able to write? With a borrowed pen from the Red House Cafe, where we had breakfast, I started writing even before we were seated. Waiting in line, I got busy. Once the cafe opened and we placed our orders, I continued to write without having to clear space for my computer. When later we arrived at the aquarium, I didn’t care about going to find a place to set things up, I asked Caroline for the notebook and the “borrowed” pen, and I just started writing when and where inspiration struck.

Why have I allowed myself to lose countless opportunities to write when the thoughts strike me? Sure, I’ve sent myself plenty of dictated emails while driving or asked Caroline to text me a message as I spoke my ideas and thoughts to her but the notebook offers me a different experience. There, on paper, standing next to the sea at sunrise, looking at my wife, I can write to my heart’s content instead of hoping to remember the moment so at breakfast; I can break out the computer trying to remember what was in my heart and mind.

This brief post should act as a reminder to me to let go of the computer and always count on pen and paper. Due to taking so many photos, I’ve grown too comfortable having the computer nearby to make a backup, even though I’ve not had a memory card fail in more than a decade. The computer, in some ways, has become a boat anchor and a habit that needs some reworking. I need to remember the adage regarding the power of the pen. In any case, I do love the action of putting pen to paper and concentrating my thoughts and inspirations at the moment they are occurring. So remember to always have a notebook at the ready with a couple of extra pens.

As William Makepeace Thackeray once said, “There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.”

In Love – All Day, Everyday!

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Cambria, California

We easily remember transgressions, one-liners, and bad jokes but try to remember the crashing waves at dawn, a sunset of purple-orange gold, or the sound of a bird chirping as it glides over a river. Try to see in your mind’s eye the pelican’s wing flirting with the ocean, the smile of a best friend no longer part of the world, or the voice of someone who told you they loved you many years ago.

Cambria, California

It is only through words that any of these things live on and are able to be recalled and then shared with others.

Cambria, California

Writing is the exercise that all who claim to be human and have meaningful experiences should be practicing, else these precious moments are as easily lost as the last wave that crashed ashore and is now gone forever.

Cambria, California

Carving names and dedications on trees and benches, drawing them on rocks and walls, attaching locks to cables, bridges, and branches, we try to leave something that offers a kind of permanence that we or someone we’ve loved has been here.

Cambria, California

Leaving a symbol so that we might return someday and find it still there is full of hope that someone should stay in our hearts and memories well into the future. Maybe more of our lives should be spent practicing writing our stories in order to give a larger space to the meaning of the moments that inspire us to not forget those we’ve loved and the special places we’ve shared with them.

Cambria, California

To that end, I must share how I smile at Caroline standing at the cliff’s edge, looking over at me and the small amount of fog between us. She smiles at me and then returns to watching the sea. When pelicans pass by I know she’s taking mental note if they are flying in a V formation overhead or as a string following one another over the waves. My wife is certainly aware that as the morning sky brightens with hints of pink, blue, and a pale gray due to the late summer fog that’s rolling in, the sun crawling over the horizon will be making dramatic changes to the entire scene. To her left, waves have started to capture the first rays of direct sunlight; we are seconds away from seeing the sun for ourselves.

In the transition zone between night and day, there are a few others out here: some dog walkers, another photographer, and the surfers who were here before all of us. The waves grow larger in the advancing day, the fog thickens, and we must get going as nobody gets to linger forever.

Cambria, California

Just one more moment, one more walk to take a seat before the seas and gaze at all that must remain unknown. At night, we’ll do the same as we ponder the void and countless stars that will never warm our brief existence. Though we may never visit the bottom of the sea or a distant planet, storytellers have the ability to bring us places that remain out of reach for most people. When we write our own story, we have a reference point to revisit later in life. The adventures of our younger lives become the narrative of that long-forgotten self whose journey was possibly vastly different than that of the person approaching their sunset years.

Cambria, California

There may come a day we find ourselves sitting at a favorite place by the shore, missing the other who had shared our smiles, joy, and gaze of amazement as we dream of what adventures might still lay ahead. Look out there, out into the distance, and then try to pull it all within you. None of it will stay long as the next horizon beckons, but you should leave yourself and others these breadcrumbs of memories upon the page; one distant day, they might just bring delight to someone looking to remember their time at the seaside when they were lost in love and wonder.

Cambria, California

We must turn to writing in the same way we each care for our own physical health: by exercising. Just as the bird flies as a large part of its nature, humanity uses words for all that we do, and yet we most often simply satisfy ourselves with how we verbally express ourselves, even to the point of being oblivious of our own poverty of vocabulary. At my age, approaching a stage of late-life maturity, I still see the fledgling wordsmith trying to master the flight of narrative that might one day glide effortlessly as birds do over the ocean. The truth is that strength is an evolving asset that must be cultivated on a regular basis, or the skill will atrophy.

Cambria, California

I’ve learned over time that the same might be said about our ability to see and that far too many people are blind while their eyes are still perfectly functional; only their minds have taken their sight away. Truth and beauty may be subjective, but the desire to paint the world as unworthy or digging deep to find truth too demanding is the domain of the human returning to the animal or, worse, a kind of death. To be present, we must be alive and vibrant, riding in on waves and gliding into our potential but can the majority of us bring this idea or reflections to the page? Pride in driving a car, owning a home, and winning a game, are surrogates of distraction to knowing one’s self. When you write, you codify your thoughts and risk exposing that you possess a great inability to articulate thoughts deeper than the thickness of skin, able to tolerate the ridicule of yet being stupid. Writing makes you vulnerable; hence, the majority avoids it.

Cambria, California

But one day, you will be gone. Who might remain that could have enjoyed exploring the depths of the person they want to keep on remembering? What about children, great-grandchildren, or future relatives a couple of hundred years from now interested in looking into the history of their lineage? Who among us wouldn’t treasure the diary of a distant family member writing of their time, surviving in a world so vastly different than the one in which we find ourselves? Our age makes this capturing of fragments so simple, allowing me to sit here in front of the page exploring the brief experiences Caroline and I have so we may never need to sit alone after one of us takes permanent leave.

Cambria – All Day!

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Cambria, California

After our intense 16-hour day yesterday, we skipped setting an alarm, but our internal clocks didn’t seem to appreciate the effort to sleep in as we woke shortly after 6:00 anyway. We looked out our hotel door over to the ocean and while there was plenty of light out there, the sun itself was yet to appear. The same might be said about us getting ourselves out on the other side of said door as we sat in the room reading and writing. At any moment, I’m certain one of us will take the initiative to shower and it’ll be in the middle of that when the sun barges through a window and has us feeling lazy.

Now aware that we might miss the greatest sunrise ever, I get to the adulting and get this ship of Wise underway. Because I know readers are looking for the smaller details, I’ll overshare by letting you know that just seconds prior, I had doffed my drawers and was heading to the shower when Caroline pulled her head up from her searching for English words related to weaving in her quest to translate some things for her friend Claudia and told me she was just about to do the same. Shooting her some side-stink eye, I turned around and put those still warm and slightly funky underwear back on because who wants to sit their bare ass on a hotel chair? I got back to writing. Later, when Caroline gets to editing this post, she’ll be wishing she’d let me go shower instead of adding this little tidbit regarding my musky nethers in need of washing being aired out here on these pages. Oh good, she’s already turning off the water right before I start in on describing my bowel movement.

Cambria, California

From my butthole, we head out for breakfast which is a short 1/2-mile walk north along the ocean. Yeah, I, too, am hoping my chocolate starfish, or the more politically correct Fudgy Seastar, does not become a theme for this beautiful day.

Caroline Wise knitting in Cambria, California

Breakfast at the Oceanpoint Ranch Canteen was finished, but our coffee was still hot, so why not sit a while, knit, read, write, and sip that coffee for a while longer? Our plan, or lack of a plan, with nothing etched in stone or even drawn in the shifting sands, was as amorphous as my occasionally missing maturity. We could drive up the coast attempting to find the one spot we’ve not been a dozen or more times before (not to imply we wouldn’t enjoy it all over like it was the first time), but sitting here in the cool 63-degree sea air (17c) with me writing and Caroline working on those socks using the yarn from our trip to Rügen, Germany, last year, also by the sea, it starts to feel like we should have a down day. Why not just stroll along the beach, grab more coffee, and return to the Moonstone Grill for lunch while incorporating more of this post-breakfast activity? That sounds perfect, and it’ll be just what we do.

Cambria, California

Across the street to the boardwalk and trail that we’ll follow to the north, further than we’ve ever traveled on this path. For unknown reasons, we never made it this far on our visit last year. Then again, I could be forgetting things, but to the best of our collective memories, this is our first time right here.

Cambria, California

How could we have missed this beach?

Caroline Wise in Cambria, California

We’ve traveled this 100-mile length of coast more times than most Californians ever will, and still we are enchanted by this opportunity to be here again and again regardless of the effort or cost. That we are still able to stumble upon places that we’d somehow missed might baffle us, but we explore them and the familiar sights like they were all found during our first visit here. It’s as though living in a desert prepares your senses with a kind of sterilization process to see the vibrancy in the verdant world where everything is new all over again.

Cambria, California

While we are not looking for jade here on Moonstone Beach, as we are looking for moonstones, of course, that doesn’t mean Caroline won’t pick up the nicer examples of some pretty jade and share them with me. Many years ago, we owned a rock tumbler and used it exactly zero times, and ultimately handed it off to Goodwill. Trying to find the balance between hoarding, collecting, and not getting to attached to things, we do our best to fight impulses to have it all, but as I just looked at new tumblers over on Amazon for only about $100 I can’t help but want to nudge Caroline into getting another one we can store in our closet unused for 5 or 10 years before giving it away too.

Cambria, California

Regarding this photo, I took no notes while out on the coast and so I’m in Phoenix right now trying to find what I’d like to say about it. On my headphones here at Starbucks, I’m listening to Max Richter’s On The Nature Of Daylight, looking for an emotional context to paint the right image, but even with some of the most beautiful music I can find to help inspire me after I’ve left a place, it’s not always easy to find meaningful words that might accompany a photo I found worthwhile to share but difficult to write about. Such is the nature of beauty.

Caroline Wise in Cambria, California

Went as far as we could before realizing that we could sprint around a corner and that if the tide came up, we could return by the road on our right-hand side. What you might not see with clarity is that Caroline is walking on pebbles instead of sand, rock hounds paradise over here and the place where she hopes to collect a solid half a dozen moonstones to take home with us.

Cambria, California

So there we were, all by ourselves, on a private beach of sorts due to the circumstances of nobody else being here, aside from lots of birds. Why no one else is here is a mystery; it’s Labor Day, a holiday, and there’s not a soul unless these feathered friends have souls. Is everyone else bolting home already? And was there ever an everyone else out here? Guilty admission time, yes, for photographic purposes I triggered this seagull blizzard that I’ll from here forward refer to as a “gullard.”

Cambria, California

There’s the matter of a lone surfer, but he’s out in the waves, seemingly content to float alone and enjoy the moment of solitude, not appearing to offer a care about riding the many waves that pass under him. I suppose the same might be said for us as we have an entire beach of sand, and Caroline even found a pink bucket, yet we are not building sand castles.

Cambria, California

It all looks so well laid out, somewhat permanent, really based on the ice plants behind the bleached driftwood, but the reality is that one storm will roll in and redesign everything. So the truth might be that we have been on part of this beach before, entering from the northern end, but on that visit, the configuration was so different that today, we recognize nothing other than the joy of being here.

Cambria, California

Not feeling like we’d walked enough, we continued right past the stairs that brought us down here and around another corner at what appeared to be the south end of how far we could go, but again, we could pass easily enough. Ah, there are stairs down there, so we can go back up the cliffside on those.

Cambria, California

Nope, that wasn’t going to work unless we were about to start entertaining a latent death wish due to the surf cutting between us and the other side where the stairs promised us a path to lunch. Maybe we could have gotten there, but a vertical cliff with what might be a precarious trail to some young bucks screamed at us who are full of age-instilled wisdom with brains that measure the rocks with jagged edges and consider our buoyancy factor determining that if we enter that rollicking water, there were hints of serious injury if not total annihilation.

Caroline Wise in Cambria, California

Are you sure that’s the best place to grab a seat to rinse your feet before putting those sandals back on?

Cambria, California

Finally, off our private beach walk and four miles later, we see that our path is going to take us right over to the Moonstone Grill for some seaside grub. How it became this late is one of those great unanswered questions, as it felt like we just left breakfast. Caroline insinuates that we’ve been lollygagging.

To celebrate such dawdling, Caroline raised a toast with a Manhattan and set in for an extended lunch of resting our feet and senses as just how much ocean can one take in at a time. From previous experience, we knew that no matter what we had for lunch, a dessert was going to be had, and it was the ice cream with hot Oregon berries because, oh yeah. After this indulgence, it was time for more sounds and visions of the sea, and that boardwalk across the street was beckoning.

Cambria, California

Caroline coined a new term today; feel free to Google it after I share it, as it simply never existed before today and will be published for the first time in history right here on this blog. The word, with a drum roll, is “pelicanado.” It describes the masses of pelicans that fly in to drop down to the sea where a bunch of other birds has gathered, as there must be a school of fish below that they are feasting on. As waves approach, the pelicans scramble out of the water (not always successfully), returning to the air but circling back around just to dive bomb right back to where they were feeding. Well, she’s right; it looks like a pelican tornado, a.k.a. pelicanado. Regarding my summation about the school of fish or if this was a social gathering, I willingly admit a total ignorance in the way of pelicaning.

Cambria, California

A young couple sitting at the seashore, they are us, we were them. There were others before them, and others will follow. For the moments we sit there, we are the first and only to see exactly what it is we are witnessing, and these times influence who we are beyond the minutes we’ll take up the bench and claim it as our own. Putting into words what we’ve taken in and shared with our minds and imaginations is as impossible as teasing apart the sand from the surf and sky, and yet we’ll sit there knowing that we are somehow in love with more than the person on our side.

Cambria, California

After walking the length of the beach, this is, in fact, the end, we headed over to some stairs away from the hot sand to find a bunch of benches, a pool, some massive barbecue facilities, and other amenities such as nice cool shady trees here at Shamel Park. A break was just what we needed.

Cambria, California

Somehow, it’s approaching 4:00 in the afternoon, and it feels as though we’ve done a bunch of nothing or, again, in Caroline’s parlance, we’ve been honing our lollygagging skills. Unable to do a thing while we sat doing nothing, we tried rubbing our two brain cells together to muster a plan and realized we needed coffee like pelican need fish. It was awful nice just remaining at our picnic table, planted under the cool canopy sheltering us from the now oppressive sun. The sea breeze wafts over us at a pleasant 72 degrees, and our only complaint might be that we can’t take some with us tomorrow when we point the car towards home. Realizing these perfect conditions, I don’t believe anyone could blame us for this momentary proclivity into zero action and total laziness.

Surfing in Cambria, California

Eyes are heavy by the time we reach our hotel, where the car is parked. We have two options for that coffee, with the second one closing in an hour; it’s the one we’re going to. It’s called the French Corner Bakery. On the way over, I called ahead to Robin’s International Restaurant, where we have a reservation for 8:00, to see if we can move it up to 6:00, no problem. We sit down for our coffees after meeting Justin, the guy behind the counter, and start a nice chat with him instead of doing much writing or knitting.

As the bakery is about to close, we only have to walk a short way across the street, and we’ll be at Robin’s. Our original dinner date was to ensure we’d be on hand for sunset, as we just love sunsets. So now we might miss our cherished moments as the sun dips below the horizon, but we’re practical enough to know that we can’t have it all. Then again, maybe dinner goes by quicker than anticipated and we’ll be back on the other side of Highway 1 before dark. This being our last night out, if we weren’t satisfied with things yet, this trip would have been for naught as you can’t capture perfection in the last hours of a multi-day trip.

Sunset in Cambria, California

Maybe we skipped dinner? Not a chance; we simply didn’t dilly-dally. We got down to business and felt that we’d just have to get back to the ocean for one of these moments of golden glistening ocean and warm orange sky.

Sunset in Cambria, California

Since when was one photo enough when 3 or 4 can better get the point across because choosing one was impossible?

Caroline Wise and John Wise in Cambria, California

Selfies of Caroline and me are obviously not as frequently shared as images of her because I’m the one behind the camera. At some point down the road this or last year, Caroline had said she didn’t feel we were taking enough so I’ve made the effort to get us to pose for these more often. To this end, I scrolled back through the blog this year; 17 pages with seven posts per page took quite a long time, as I’ve probably shared thousands of images this year for Mexico alone. Anyway, it looks like I’m fairly well represented on these pages, though I think I could share more photos of me with my hair out for the mad scientist look.

Sunset in Cambria, California

And this, as they say, is that. The end.