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.

Aquarium, Coast, and Whales – All Day!

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

There was no sleeping in today; we were out at the first moment the sun peeked over the distant horizon. Golden light spilled into the sky, accompanied by a blinding streak of white slicing over Monterey Bay. Over in Germany, some of our family are spending this Sunday together for their annual September reunion. Over WhatsApp, they share smiling faces; we share a view of the rising sun over the Pacific.

Strangely, there are only about a dozen of us out here for the start of the day, well, us people, the pelicans, some seagulls, a few others, and a splashing seal putting on an acrobatics show. The sound of the surf and birds don’t appear to offer the local group of women exercising under the trees enough of a background, so they’ve brought a soundtrack the rest of us can listen to as we pass by. The same goes for some of the walkers and runners who somehow don’t think that they might be disturbing others who prefer to listen in on the natural environment.

We move away to find another beautiful spot under the riot of nature, unpolluted by the ugliness of our fellow humans. Once we’ve basked in the cleansing light of the sun but not yet burned to a crisp, we’ll need coffee to wash off the grime of disdain for the rude people around us. That’s right, we bathe in boiling coffee before trying to drown in it. And where does this ablution occur this morning? At the Red House Café on 19th and Lighthouse. Any ill will towards others that I might have gathered was temporarily kicked to the side as a father passed by with a baby and a toddler in a stroller and their dog in tow. The toddler excitedly announced to us and everybody in earshot that he’d just seen a fungus. That four-year-old boy was serious about how amazing the sight of a real live fungus was, and if that enthusiasm isn’t able to put a smile on someone’s face, nothing will. Not to imply that I’m not generally happy, but I cannot turn off my annoying trait of always paying attention to others, something at which Caroline is coolly adept.

The day had started to resemble yesterday as we were the first in line again and we found ourselves at the same table on the patio, only I order something different while Caroline opted for the yummy frittata again. Last year, when we first ate here, Caroline pointed out how unbelievable it was that we were now sitting here on the cafe’s sunlit porch while on our earlier visits to Pacific Grove, we wouldn’t have wanted to afford the place nor join the line. By the way, this patio and house is not where we ate breakfast; it was just a nice little bungalow on our way there.

Back to the similarities between days: we’ll walk away from the Red House Cafe after our breakfast for a return visit to the aquarium. I’m fairly sure, though, that it will be like visiting for the first time as all the swimming creatures in the cold seawater tanks will have reorganized themselves just for our time among them. Of course, I’ll be taking plenty of photos to prove this. Not that this matters, but I’d like to point out that I’m not, in fact, ignoring Caroline right now as I write these musings as she’s practicing her texting-fu chatting with her German bestie, Claudia. Not only are they communicating across the oceans as Claudia is somewhere in Europe, but my wife is smiling like a loon from time to time. The reason I can’t be sure about Claudia’s whereabouts is that she and her significant other seem to vacation as much as we do if not more. [Nobody we know vacations as much as we do, I reckon. – Caroline]

The parallel universe of coincidence again sees us walking the water’s edge to the aquarium. Is it the exact same time we are arriving for the 9:30 members-only opening, or is it slightly earlier or later?

Once inside, a glitch derails our move to the always-beckoning Kelp Forest, and instead, we are drawn to the Open Sea to experience the jellyfish all for ourselves. Not content to just have my photographs and potentially nonsensical blog posts, Caroline saw the opportunity to bring videos of the jellies home with her.

Was our time among the jellies two minutes, or was it a half-hour? It’s hard to tell now that we’ve learned that these gelatinous Medusozoas warp time with their tentacled ancient arm things. After more than 500 million years they’ve evolved to a level of sophistication that allows them to live in a timeless infinity, pulsing through an ocean traveling forever; that, or they lay in wait to sting a hapless human to death.

After our psychedelic jelly encounter, Caroline needed to maintain the visual intensity, and what other than laying down under a school of sardines could come close?

Try as I might, I cannot understand just why the hammerhead shark evolved with its eyes so far away from its body. What kind of wicked sensing system is in that crossbar that holds eyes that cannot possibly see what it’s about to eat? I should probably do a little bit of searching before making such assumptions, as it turns out that hammerheads have 360-degree vision thanks to their peculiarly shaped heads. Combine that kind of vision with the old ampullae of Lorenzini, and I’m growing increasingly certain that the ocean is stuffed chock full of aliens.

I’m noticing a trend with animals that sport some level of transparency, such as man-killing jellies. These predatory tunicates are able to swallow whole scuba divers who approach too closely. I know they don’t look that big, but that’s because we are looking at them through rearview mirrors, so we can see their immense size in such tight confines found here in the aquarium.

You could wager that I’m now fearful of searching for information about the brittle stars, and I don’t mean the ones from Hollywood. First of all, I came to see that this is not what I thought it was; it is a sea star of the Brisingida family, meaning it’s a predator (hopefully not like the one from the movie). Not your ordinary sea star, of course not; this one doesn’t just filter its meals from the current of water around it. According to an NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) article, “Their spines are covered in tiny claws which act as sort of a “starfish Velcro.” Using these claws, they snag all passing life (regardless of size, I’m speculating) and then pass their meal down to their mouths using tube feet.

Here you go; it turns out that Brisingida sea stars are related to brittle stars, and before I got to the NOAA article, I opened a page from Scientific American about how brittle stars see. This won’t be good, and spoiler alert, the details are about to be shared. I’ll paraphrase here, “Their arms are loosely coordinated by a nerve ring in the animal’s core, almost like eight co-joined monster animals with a mutual interest in where to go, what to eat, and making little monster stars.” And people have the audacity to complain about paying taxes when we are able to go to a restaurant, sleep in a cozy bed, and live on land in houses instead of in this underwater world of nightmares?

Time-warping hallucination-inducing jellies, people swallowing tunicates, and now these f&%#ing hagfish. Blind and toothless, they eat the dead, from the inside no less! Not enough horror for you? They are known to suffocate other fish that try eating them by the copious amounts of slimy mucus they are able to produce; we’re talking serious bucketload amounts of the stuff that clogs the gills of the fish, and if that’s not doing the trick, they can tie themselves into an overhand knot while in the fish creating more difficulties for the idiot fish that won’t be trying to snack on this creeper again, should it survive.

Right after we return to Phoenix, I want to find out if there’s a doctor performing hagfish stem cell therapy so I can be the first man on earth with a self-lubricating slime penis.

After our encounter with the self-lubricating seaworms snarfing on death, we were psychically contacted by the flamboyant cuttlefish to pay a return visit to the salmon snailfish. How did we miss this yesterday? Their bodies are semi-transparent, which does not portend good things, and what about those mesmerizing hypnotic eyes? Oops, too late! Caroline was the first to be put in a trance by the blue-silver eye that allowed the fish to communicate to her that, as a species, they do not like their scientific name of Careproctus, which was derived from Ancient Greek where κάρα or kara translates to face and πρωκτός or prōktos is translated as anus meaning they are Butthole Faces. I want to adopt one.

Are things weird enough for you yet? Do you see those chin fins? The salmon “asshole-head” snailfish uses them to look for food in the sand as it plants itself face first on the sea floor, see photo from yesterday. By the way, you might notice its eyes are now black; that’s because this “Po-Kopf” (German technical term) has met its match with a bigger asshole-head who is stealing its powers in order to crown me King Facia-prōktos.

See that crab? Salmon snailfish are known to use them as repositories for their eggs; yep, you read that right: the fish with butt face uses king crabs parasitically by installing its eggs in the crab gills, turning them into a mobile home/incubator for their offspring. Jesus, Caroline, what are we doing here in this house of horrors?

This is the point in the aquarium where all truths gleaned from any loose-lipped Perciformes will be erased using the kinetic color pulsing living embodiment of the “Neuralyzer” as seen in Men in Black (oh my god, John, just how hypocritical are you?). Obviously, it didn’t fully work on me, and I can only surmise that my good fortune in retaining the truth about the secret marine culture that uses us for its entertainment has been left partly intact due to our particular sequence of events whereby some strange chance I took notes prior to my mind-washing and didn’t trash the crazy stuff I wrote. Trust me, I thought twice about sharing what’s in my notebooks but this is what I found there.

No, seriously, where did the first two hours of the day go? We cannot leave the aquarium without a pilgrimage to the Kelp Forest, but getting there could be problematic as we suffer from “Needtoseeitallagainitis.”

Any number of things could distract us on our journey that must conclude with finding the exit. Oh, what’s this? It’s the old boilers used here when prior to the aquarium taking over, this was a sardine cannery. Funny how, in all the years of visiting Monterey, I think this is the first time I’ve ever photographed the old sardine processing equipment near the entry.

Well, sure, that is a kelp forest out there, but we’re looking for the one with that old familiar musical accompaniment that makes us all sentimental when we listen to it at home in the weeks and months between visits (MBA Kelp Forest Live Cam).

Ah yes, the soundtrack of Jaws starts its haunting throb as the shark approaches.

And with that, we have to bid adieu to another visit to one of our favorite places ever here at the great Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Obviously, we broke free of the aquarium, which is more than any of the fish can say (not that fish say a lot, as far as we know). Though a magic sardine whispered at us that Queen Elizabeth would die in four days, but come on, how could a sardine know that?

You can trust this isn’t just some more lollygagging for the sake of wasting time; we left our car at the motel as parking anywhere near the aquarium is difficult at best and an underwater horror story at worst. Regarding this never-before-seen view of the bay, by us anyway, there’s a small passage between the Hopkins Marine Station operated by Stanford University on the left and the aquarium on the right. The white sand beach is Cabrillo Beach and appears totally inaccessible to those of us on the wrong side of the fence, which is apparently anyone not working at the research facility.

We know we are inching towards the next exit, that of leaving Pacific Grove and the Monterey Bay area. Heavy hearts weigh on empty stomachs having us consider our lunch plans. Oh no, the Mexican joint we ate at yesterday doesn’t open for lunch on Sundays! Lucky us, I called ahead to the Borg that we’d be a bit late picking up our car as we were looking to have something to eat first, and our choice of grabbing a bite at Peppers was nixed; well, the mysterious voice on the other end commanded us to go to the Monarch Pub and Restaurant for some English grub. All of a sudden, the words of the sardine were haunting me like this was some kind of foreshadowing or were the butterflies trying to message us?

Klingeling! That’s the sound a German bike bell makes and has brought me around from my fits of hallucinatory madness, which propelled this writing. Now, back in reality, I’m here thinking of that wonderful post I wrote in Germany just last year that featured 23 images of bicycle bells and some thoughts about the process of aging. You should read it if for no other reason than to cleanse the mental palate of the things drawn out of my imagination, you might have endured in the paragraphs above.

It was 3:00 when we hit Highway 1, traveling south. We were well aware that we couldn’t afford the indulgence going down the coast that we took on our way up. With only 4 and 1/2 hours of daylight remaining to our still glorious day, we’ll be measured, discriminating, and intentional about where we choose to spend our precious time under the sun.

Knowing this limitation, we hadn’t planned on the heavy traffic with two complete stops at construction sites and a serious backup at the Bixby Bridge.

We were about to sail right past Big Sur, or so was my intention, before Caroline wailed about how beautiful the view of Point Sur was, so I quickly pulled over.

Did we even make it a few miles before the view had us pulling over again? Nope, this is looking behind us from the same pullout where I photographed Point Sur, but it is beautiful that way, too; I just had to include it. Now, we’ll hit the gas and get moving, as we have a long drive ahead of us before we pull into Cambria for the night.

Oh, this is nice, but so were the other stops along the way that I’m not including in this post because I’ve already included 42 photos, and that’s simply enough, along with being the answer to the Great Question.

How had it taken us 90 minutes to get this far? The Henry Miller Library is in Big Sur. We’re hardly crawling along at a snailfish pace, but the library is open which for us is surprising as we are typically on the wrong side of the clock for a visit. This can only mean we MUST stop.

For those who don’t know, Henry Miller is considered a literary innovator and has been said to be a major influence on the original generation of Beat writers. His works were banned in the United States for many years, likely due to the sexual content. When I was in my early 20s, I tried reading Tropic of Cancer and Sexus, and neither title gelled with me; they are now long gone. As I cannot deny his influence nor the respect I have for an author who inspires so many other writers, it was fitting that we’d take this opportunity to stop in and even support the place.

While I feel my interest in the Beats has passed, and I read On The Road by Jack Kerouac many years ago, I’d never read his book titled Dharma Bums, and so that was my title of choice today. We didn’t have a lot of time to make choices as we’d arrived shortly before they were closing. Caroline chose Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan about, you guessed it, Ferdinand Magellan. This is a beautiful little bookshop full of interesting titles for those interested in alternatives outside the mainstream books that are not typically carried by the dominant big box store.

Leaving the library and enjoying the art and grounds here next to Highway 1, a fully naked, bubbly young lady flutters by as if this might be how she goes about life every day. I keep my camera aimed at this old typewriter as I must control my creepy old man persona trying to escape.

Not 10 miles down the road, the massive view beckons, and we easily oblige, but it’s okay as we are getting close to the halfway point to Cambria at a mere 55ish miles down that way or so. Caroline had already gotten back in the car, and I was about to do the same when something caught my eye.

A spout of water is what flashed into my peripheral vision, and not two seconds later, a whale breached. Yelling at Caroline to jump back out, she was soon next to me. Not only did the two of us see the breach, but the crack that followed was amazing, too. The lens I was using is obviously not ideal for capturing whales more than 2,000 feet away from shore and maybe 150 feet below us, but that’s what I had. I took a lot more photos than this, as we witnessed several breaches in a row, but this was the best one. I also photographed them spouting, but from this distance, those plumes look like tiny, rather unspectacular white splashes.

We sat here a good while, waiting to see the pod surface again and hoping for more breaching, but it wasn’t on the menu of events that blew minds on this great day. Well out of sight, was a barking seal that likely wasn’t breaching. As we continued south, we saw more pods spouting in the distance, but taking photos of them didn’t work out; the memories were terrific enough.

Here we go stopping again as we saw more spouting. No seals within earshot, but we did see some pelicans and some old architectural thing. That’s the Big Creek Bridge built back in 1938, just a few miles north of Lucia Lodge, which is also about the halfway point between Pacific Grove and Cambria.

Now, on the next stop for even more whales and some excited Germans looking for wildlife. While the distant cetaceans spouted there would be no breaching, we left quite satisfied I hope the Germans were too.

There comes a point in time when, as daylight is slipping away, my mind goes to work on the geometry of what lies ahead, where we want to be, and the position of the sun in the sky. There’s no reason to be in a less-than-optimal place for sunset, so we have to pace ourselves; hence, this stop to sprawl before it all.

This photo is only here as a reminder that while traveling Highway 1, there is not only the ocean side of things. Not sure you can see it but there’s a house in the center of the image and something like an artists workshop cabin on the right.

This looks promising, but I think there’s better, so we keep going.

But not before I snap this perfect photo of Caroline smiling in the golden late day light on a curvy coastal road with a background of pampas grass, little fluffy clouds, the moon, and sea while wearing her Mayan motorcyclist t-shirt picked up from Taller Leñateros in San Cristobal, Mexico, earlier this year. What a life.

The last stop during daylight hours, as this is the place we’ll watch the sunset. It has vibes of “best spot” to me. We crawled under some barbed wire and stepped onto some crumbling coastline to find the position that would be just right for this curtain call.

We’re still about 20 minutes from Cambria and were not leaving this spot before that sun fully disappears from view. It is Sunday night, and not sure what restaurants will still be open after 8:00. We opt for a poor excuse for a Mexican place in San Simeon, but who cares when we’ve been feasting on all the wonderful sights found on another perfect day?