Coast – Page 9 – John Wise

Sunday Closing The Loop

May 9, 2021 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Moonstone Beach Boardwalk in Cambria, California

We got up a minute before the alarm at 5:59. An exchange of telling each other that we love each other, a hug, and a moment of recognition about how wonderful a vacation we’ve been having. Things were mostly packed last night; I just needed to get on my shoes, stop this quick bit of writing, leave Seferina, the housekeeper, a little something of gratitude, and head out the door. Hopefully, it will still be before 6:30 as we take our last walk of this journey along the sea, and then we’ll turn our car east for the long drive home.

Moonstone Beach Boardwalk in Cambria, California

Out before the sun peaked over the mountains to the east, we were able to watch its first rays illuminate the world around us in golden sunlight. The flowers return to their vibrant colors, birds become more active, and humans emerge from their lodgings to join us on the boardwalk.

Moonstone Beach Boardwalk in Cambria, California

And here comes the sun, oh glorious sun that illuminates our way and breathes life into all.

Moonstone Beach Boardwalk in Cambria, California

Just met a fellow Canon camera enthusiast who was down on the Central Coast from the Oakland area. Her name was Tabitha, should she stumble on this entry and read a bit. She seemed most interested in the wildlife but also the catharsis that comes with being on the seashore. Tragically, I also learned that where she lives has become a trap because high rents and low-paying jobs have limited her options to escape the crushing despair of a bleak existence. But here at the ocean, she finds her better self and is able to celebrate the win of being away from home, if even for a short while. I wished her the best and rejoined Caroline on an overlook where she was patiently waiting for me.

Snail on Moonstone Beach Boardwalk in Cambria, California

Minutes become hours, become days, and still, we reach for another moment where the secrets of what draws our fascination to the coast might be made known.

Moonstone Beach Boardwalk in Cambria, California

Maybe the great mysteries should remain just that so we can continue to return again and again as we search for the elusive in places that strike magic into the depths of who we are.

Snail on Moonstone Beach Boardwalk in Cambria, California

Only an hour was carved out for our time along the Pacific before we dropped the key off and moved onto Main Street for breakfast at the Creekside Gardens Cafe. After we leave there, the challenge will be moving without distraction to arrive home before midnight.

While Google suggests that the way we came via Santa Barbara and Los Angeles to the south is the fastest route, it is also the one that takes us by a dozen or more beaches that will tug at our inner Schweineschnecke that would defeat us from getting home while we are still able to keep our eyes open. We both know that we’ve seen a fair share of the abundance of beauty that lies out here along the western edge of the United States, and still, we want just one more photo, one more walk along the crashing surf, another chance to listen to the birds, or clean sand out of our shoes. We will try to do our best to just drive, I swear.

On Highway 1 near Harmony, California

That intention lasted maybe 10 minutes before we pulled over to snap a photo of the green rolling hills that we missed on the way up. This is certainly the end of giving in to temptation…

Harmony Headlands State Park in San Luis Obispo County, California

…That lasted for almost 5 minutes before we were making a U-turn to check out what Harmony Beach State Park might have to offer. It appeared that we might be able to walk to an overlook about a mile down the trail, but unfortunately, the information didn’t offer any real indication of exactly how long the trail would be. But we easily convinced ourselves that 20 minutes out and 20 minutes back was manageable.

Harmony Headlands State Park in San Luis Obispo County, California

Wouldn’t you just know that the ocean view wasn’t to materialize until we were right upon it at about the 2-mile mark?

Harmony Headlands State Park in San Luis Obispo County, California

The trail extends up the coast, but now we have a 40-minute walk back to the car, so we’ll have to be content that we visited yet another destination on this trip that we would have driven by on previous visits.

When we pulled into the very small parking area here at Harmony Beach, there was one other car parked. On our way back, we passed a family of about a dozen members and maybe ten other small groups that were hiking in. So lucky we were that our time out here was in quiet isolation.

Arizona Rest Stop on Interstate 10 at Sunset

Prior to leaving ten days ago, we already knew where today’s lunch was going to be: Shakey’s Pizza and that’s exactly where we went. Traffic out of L.A. was at times heavy but the traffic returning to the Southern California area here on Mother’s Day was crazy. All the same, here we were already in Arizona before sunset and managed to arrive home at 8:30 p.m. instead of the midnight return I was worried about.

Saturday Winding Down

May 8, 2021 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

We beat the Saturday breakfast crowd by heading over to Lily’s Coffee House at 7:30. We had slept in, which meant there wasn’t a walk along a dramatic coast or into a mysterious forest before eating either. The entire process we typically rely on during these travels is all akimbo as we have forsaken the rising sun in order to lazily get moving when the light of the day or the tension of bladders finally pulls us out of slumber.

Sitting at Lily’s with the locals, easily understood by the conversations, we spent two hours sipping our coffee after finishing our first meal of the day. What remained the same out of our habits was Caroline pulling out her knitting and me the computer to write about the previous day. Now, with the absolute necessities out of the way, we drove back to our measly motel of mostly meh (and convenient parking) for a walk along the Moonstone Beach Boardwalk.

Walking, walking, and more walking…discussing how we are likely entering the phase of the trip in which we panic and take photos of every single thing we see to capture all the important details. This was followed by a conversation about the quality of the images we take, and when I say “we take,” I mean that I feel unable to take photos alone as nicely as I can when Caroline is by my side. I’m certain I’ve written about this before, but we have a new take on the subject, and that is when we are together, the images when viewed at some future date, have shared memories embedded in them. When I’m off taking photos on my own, we don’t share what the experience was, and only I was taking inspiration from what I was seeing. Out here on the coast, or anywhere for that matter, when we are together, our experience is laden with love, and so it must be the lingering memory of these special moments that seeps into the images and reappears when we gaze upon them years into our futures.

Allow me to introduce you to Dipsacus Greenstein, joining the likes of great conductors Leopold Stokowski and Herbert von Karajan and currently conducting the Cambrian Coast Ensemble, bringing the roar of the ocean, the subtle breezes of offshore cool winds, and the waving plant life into full orchestration for us visitors’ enjoyment. We offered a standing ovation for the incredible piece we were enjoying. The second number performed for all those present was Teasel’s Dream; you should have been there.

We’ve passed through Cambria a number of times and, for some reason or other failed to ever visit this stretch of ocean. Maybe it was our enthusiasm to reach Big Sur or Monterey or the thought that had we headed down Moonstone Beach Drive; we would be in some wealthy enclave with views of the ocean thwarted by mansions along the shore. It turns out that the majority of the beach here is wide open, and about a mile of boardwalk above the cliffside offers everyone an easy path along the shore.

Icicle, you sickle, we all suckle for ice cycle! So that was goofy, but that’s what came to mind before I learned that these succulents are now called ice plants. When I was a kid growing up in Southern California, we called them icicle plants. Speaking about growing up and not being totally effective in that endeavor, when I learned the Latin name of this plant, I chuckled. It’s Delosperma, and yeah, there’s a part of me that’s that childish.

And no, I didn’t post this photo to indulge my inner idiot. Caroline loves the green-to-red transitions on these beautiful plants that populate so much of the California Coast, and so it’s here to bring us back.

Finally, she took off her shoes to walk along the ocean, and after about 30 feet of nice soft sand, we were walking on gravel that wasn’t as nice or as soft, but she was committed and endured a million ticklish and moments of painful pebbles that made up this section of beach.

Indulge me with my broken record, but once again, I have to wonder out loud: why are two of only a few people out in this spectacular landscape? By midday, I’ll struggle to take photos of the environment without people obscuring the view, but right now, we are essentially alone on a beach in Cambria.

The Monterey cypress tree is named as such as it’s native to the area between Carmel and the Monterey Bay of the California Central Coast. These trees down here and farther south in the San Luis Obispo area are transplants and help control soil erosion. They are well suited to high winds, but the number one reason, in my view, that they are here is found in their aesthetic value.

Can you sense my grabbing at more images than I should be posting? I often wonder how many will be enough when, some years down the road we no longer live near enough the places we currently love to visit. Or maybe our state of health precludes us from ever returning. And so I’ll continue pushing up what will hopefully be an adequate number to bring smiles to our old faces about those days we stood here holding hands, pinching ourselves at how lucky we were to be somewhere so beautiful.

Dear humanity, please continue your obsession with watching and listening to streaming life instead of being out here polluting the outside world with your inanity. Instagram is your friend, your mentor, and your god. You, as an average mortal, only require your drive-thru Taco Bell and more stickers from your favorite coffee shops. Experience is well over-rated. Can you sense the loneliness of visiting such a forsaken place without others to affirm how amazing you are to yourself?

Continued from above. The water leaps out of the ocean due to boredom, as there are no otters, dolphins, whales, penguins, giant sea turtles, or polar bears that might otherwise make this place cute. Nobody of any particular note ever comes here to showcase anything of value. Bands don’t play out here, there are no Buffalo Wild Wings for over 100 miles in any direction, and you’ll notice we don’t shoot selfies out here as it’s embarrassing to have fallen into such a void. So, in closing, you will serve the rest of humanity well by telling others to veer away from the California Central Coast. Thank you to the victims of being tricked into visiting this area.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program already in progress.

Pink, white, and yellow flowers framing a wooden boardwalk with a blue sky and the sea in the distance are part of a well-balanced diet that feeds the soul and staves off premature old age. Holistic dietary requirements depend on age, physical activity level, and happiness goals. Only consume under the supervision of love and know your limits.

Why, oh why, have I given myself such a steep ladder to climb so close to the end of this vacation? Worse still, I’m writing this five days after we were here, and I’ve already shared so many impressions on the previous posts that I feel that I’m not really adding anything new other than the sights of what we saw.

Finally, we are about to transition to something else…

…but not all that far away. We are across the street from the boardwalk for some lunch at the Moonstone Beach Bar & Grill. Should you consider visiting, please heed our warning; it is not cheap here along the coast. As a matter of fact, it’s downright expensive. Our room a few doors down from here was $191.25 a night, and a lunch of 1 beer and iced tea, calamari appetizer, three oysters on the half shell, an avocado bacon cheeseburger, fries (they are separate), a vegetarian sandwich, and a dessert of a scoop of vanilla ice cream topped off with hot berry compote came in at a hair over $100 including tip. Now add about $35 for breakfast and $150 for dinner, and without any shopping or other drinks/snacks the price of a day out here is quickly surpassing $500.

I’m reminded of the days when we avoided these pricey enclaves and instead headed to Seaside north of Monterey to find the cheapest motel we could (we did that here in Cambria for this stay, too), and we’d kind of choke on the idea of paying $79.95 not including tax for the night. Nature’s Valley Oats ‘n Honey granola bars were our breakfast, turkey sandwiches made from ingredients in an ice chest and backseat were our lunch, and just as often our dinner, too. But when we got tired of the cold meals, we splurged and hit Burger King.

After lunch, we headed into the quaint old shopping area around Cambria’s Main Street, off Highway 1. After driving by those other years, it was time to check out just what is here. Of course, the coolest things we found exceed our comfort zone of what we are willing to spend on such treasures, but these redwood objects pushed a few buttons. (Never mind that we have no space in our apartment for any of these things.) Lucky for us, you can only shop here by appointment, and we had to satisfy our curiosity by looking through the windows.

This is the Squibb House Bed & Breakfast, and while not across the street from the ocean, it is in the wonderful Main Street area at a fairly reasonable price of between $195 and $225 a night.

This was an essential stop in town and our second time here at the Ball & Skein yarn store. Caroline lost a needle required to knit my socks, so why not buy more needles and other stuff while we’re here, supporting the local economy?

Then it was back over to Lily’s Coffee House for a second time today, taking a coffee break to knit and spin yarns. Caroline is doing the knitting while I’m responsible for the stories. Part of the winding down is not wandering more than two miles away from our motel. There’s no special meaning behind this total slowdown other than maximizing relative laziness.

It’s a cool 64 degrees (18 Celsius) with a calm breeze under clear blue skies. Other than it being perfect out here, there’s not a lot to report. But I do have a lot left to write about yesterday, so I’m turning my attention to that page.

After some temporary leisure-induced writer’s block, I was able to open the spigot of words and sat for nearly two hours with my cold coffee, which had been boiling hot, to hammer out another thousand or so words, thus completing the tale that was yesterday’s adventure.

On our way to the other side of town that we were supposed to explore too, I caught sight of this object out of the corner of my eye and had to make a quick U-turn to verify that I had seen what I thought I had. Wow, this is the Fresnel lens from the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse (now Light Station) that we had walked out to yesterday. I had bet Caroline when we were out there that I believed there had been a lighthouse atop the tower in the past, but she was disbelieving. I was right.

We didn’t make it to the other side of the shopping area as it was getting late, and we were wanting to walk the other half of the boardwalk we hadn’t explored yet. So we’ll postpone the remaining window shopping and browsing in that part of town to a subsequent visit. I’m hoping it is obvious to most people that you are looking at a closeup of the Fresnel lens.

This is where we would spend the next two hours as we walked into the sunset on our last full day on the coast. It also turns out to have been a photo I stared at for two hours as I tried to kick-start what I wanted to write for the remainder of this blog post. I’m sitting in a coffee shop four days after our return from this adventure and my difficulties are being compounded by the fact that it’s also the fourth day of a fast, so the thinking circuits move with the speed of cold molasses.

From above, so below. In the previous photo, we were just above this cliff that can be seen left of center, but Caroline wanted to walk along the water’s edge instead of on the boardwalk, so we headed down. It turned out that we were already at the end of the boardwalk anyway.

This recurrent theme of me focusing on the low sun to set my exposure in order to shoot something in silhouette is an old favorite of mine. It also helps in yanking down the reflective brilliance of blinding white light coming off the ocean, creating a warm ambiance that makes the already molten sea appear even more metallic. The sense of the late day also feels amplified, and to me, this type of image is a kind of exclamation point signaling that we’ve reached that perfect moment in the golden hour.

We are at Moonstone Beach, and while these rocks look a bit like Swiss cheese that might come from the moon, these are not what the beach is named for. Little white speckled gem-looking rocks are scattered across the stretch of beach here in Cambria.

These are happy people wearing the faces of gratitude for all that we get to do and for the privilege of being with each other to share these experiences.

This is sad kelp on its way to desiccation as it has been dislodged from its grip on the ocean floor for this journey onto land. While we can appreciate our encounter with the still fresh, fly-free, and shiny sea plant, I can only imagine the turmoil it must be suffering as it realizes it has no ability to bring itself back to its watery home.

On the other hand, there’s this beautiful creature already well versed in navigating the land who I’m fairly certain will bring herself back to the car where I’ll be able to return her to our desiccated desert-dwelling hundreds of miles from here that we call home.

But hey, isn’t home where the heart is? If it is, that’s Caroline sitting out on the bench while I soar overhead, trying to poop on her.

Yeah, I had to go there on that last bit of writing just so after Caroline reads it while proofreading the entry, I can hear her over at her desk ask me, “Really? You seriously wrote that you see yourself pooping on me?” You can rest assured I will laugh my ass off, and then years down the road, after this is long forgotten, we’ll both laugh at the folly of youth…even though we are already approaching old age.

And with that, the sun set and we peeled away from the golden ocean as we finished winding down another amazing vacation.

Friday Closer Examination

May 7, 2021 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

You can rest assured that I had yet another photo of Caroline in the Nest that could have been posted here, but after more than half a dozen images of our perfect lodging on the coast, maybe those were enough. That begs the question: how much of enough is ever enough? When it comes to being out at the edge of the sea, we apparently have an insatiable need.

We are trying to make better sense of why this is only the third time in 10 years we’ve chosen to be out here on Highway 1. The reasons are multiple, but now that we’ve been on the coast for a week, we understand we’ve been missing out on some immense beauty. About those reasons that kept us away, the first, which I think I’ve shared before, maybe even on this trip, are the driving conditions as they relate to other drivers. While the road is twisting and narrow with not many places to pull over, there are so many aggressive drivers using the road to challenge their mettle that those of us out here to soak in the beauty are abused by having them on our asses. The second reason is that the Oregon coast has pulled us up to its more casual, more accessible, and equally beautiful shores.

In the intervening years since we first started driving this incredible stretch of scenic road, I’ve learned to go as slow as I want and pay a lot of attention to people behind me. If I see a car on the straighter segments a half-mile or so behind us, I start looking for a pullout right away. This has turned out to be a great strategy as by being proactively defensive and rarely driving faster than 30 mph in a 55 mph zone, I can maneuver into the smallest pullouts that would be too dangerous to pull into if we were moving a little too fast as the gravel and lack of guardrail next to the ocean can be intimidating. This has allowed us to discover natural springs, drinking fountains, and overlooks we would have never stopped at 20 years ago.

All the same, I can’t help but feel that I’ve already shot almost every ocean view out here ten times before. If we are lucky, we’ll travel this road another ten times during our remaining years.

We found a parking spot in a crowded curve and decided to take the hike anyway. This is the Salmon Creek Trail that is supposed to lead us to some spectacular waterfalls.

Sadly, we didn’t make it to the waterfalls and had to satisfy ourselves with this small cascade. The combination of a big crowd and people playing piano music (because the natural environment without such accompaniment might have been boring?) sent us in the opposite direction back to our car. If we didn’t know we were old earlier today, this would certainly be an indicator of our intolerance for the selfish shenanigans of youth. On the other hand, maybe it simply signifies that after so many days in remote locations listening to the surf, wind, birds, scurrying lizards, barking sea lions, and encroaching squirrels looking for snacks in settings of cliffside, ocean, and fog, we’ve grown comfortable with the tranquility that is a large part of the Central California Coast.

Instead of making the theme of today’s Closer Examination, maybe I’ll change it to The Lament. Here we are at Ragged Point. We stopped for lunch and decided to walk over to a trail that leads down to that beach. I was already uncomfortable at the restaurant as we were mostly among people our age and older. So, it wasn’t that they were our age; it was the difference in attitude when compared to those our age back at Treebones. This place is for the cruise ship crowd having passive experiences while we enjoy at least a hint of being among adventurous people. That’s it; I’ll quit right now with any more complaints or negative observations, I hope.

San Carpoforo Creek pullout has space for three or four cars; we were the second one. It was a nice walk out to the beach past the creek that is pooling out there. For a moment, we weren’t sure we’d be able to pass the creek until we reached the point where we were able to walk around it because it wasn’t actually flowing into the sea. The other car belonged to two young women setting up a tent on this windy beach. A smile came up on my face thinking of their adventure of trying to sleep in the howling wind. Certainly, the days of building grand memories.

Another new spot for us to explore here at the Piedras Blancas State Marine Reserve & Conservation Area. It’s dawning on us out here that we’ve never before taken the luxury of having so many consecutive days on this short stretch of the coast. This grants us a level of granular scrutiny that is similar to what we experienced on our 20-some-odd days up in Oregon this past November.

California and some of the wealthy here who made it their life work to protect the coastal regions should be commended. These areas are outstanding in their natural beauty and no amount of manmade architecture could add an iota of value to what nature has sculpted out of the landscape. There is nobody else out here, not a single person. We know this because there are few places to pull over and park, and we’d not passed another parked car for miles. Further south, there were no other cars parked along the road, just the ever-present circuit racers zipping by.

Happy to slow things down even more, I get down on my stomach to gain a ground-level view of the low-lying plant life hugging the windswept earth.

It’s colorful down here, crawling upon the tough plants, looking for the tender ones that solicit my eyes to take notice.

I wish I could have pulled out a notebook and pen while I was looking at this succulent because here I am a day later at Lily’s Coffee House in Cambria, sitting in the shade while a nice breeze washes over me and Caroline has taken a walk back to the car to fetch a knitting item and I’ve got nothing but an empty mind that’s enjoying the down moment to listen to the birds. And then Caroline walks up still holding a bag she was going to drop at the car. She found herself distracted in another nearby shop and is now walking over to where we parked. I wish her luck at not being drawn into another shop, telling her I’d see her in 10 minutes to an hour.

So, back to the plant life and something witty or insightful about this beautiful specimen. Well, I still have nothing and will have to just leave it here as an example of a color scheme we were both taken by.

Scroll back up half a dozen photos to the one with a trail leading to the edge of the land and check out the grasses; there’s not a lot to see in a broad overview. But take your gaze away from the ocean and blue skies and look down towards your feet, and that’s when this other universe becomes apparent. What I didn’t share with you is that as we got closer to the sheer cliffside, there were deep cracks in the dirt where it looked like runoff from rains was draining through widening openings in the earth. While I’m not a geologist, it looks to me like more of this coastal land is heading into the sea.

Our car sitting there next to the road is significant to the two of us. You see, so many travels we’ve made up and down this highway and often short on time, we’d see those lone cars pulled over at the narrowest of places just barely off the road, and we’d wonder, what is so interesting out there? With so many named sights to see, who just stops at random spots along the coast and then disappears from view? Today, we are those people.

This is an old farmstead home just south of the Piedras Blancas Motel we’ve mentioned on so many other opportunities. We’ve stopped out here due to something we missed as we were driving north last week. As we passed the motel, we were looking for a low spot on the road where I took a picture of a large wave crashing well above the highway, but we couldn’t figure out where it was. We told ourselves that as we came back down this way, we’d be sure not to be distracted so we wouldn’t miss it this time. We still couldn’t find it. So, we pulled into the motel parking area and went on a walk.

Seeing a trail over by the ocean without a No Trespassing sign, we walked that way, and the path went south behind the old farmstead. Well, this was interesting enough as I saw that, at first, I thought was a coyote but then realized it was a bobcat. I’ve never seen a bobcat in the wild.

We found part of what we were looking for; no, it wasn’t this snake, nor was it the greasy black skeletal remains of a seal that were scattered about. Before getting to what it was we were looking for, let me satisfy anyone’s curiosity that might be wondering. Yes, Caroline picked up one of the vertebrae, asking, would I have a problem bringing it home? Gack, yes, I’d have a big stinky problem with that. We agreed that if she found the skull, we’d have to bring it with us. Lucky me, we didn’t find it. I’ll bet the caretakers at the falling-down motel took it with them to boil the rancid meat off the bones. The fur that was shredded in small pieces stunk too, but even I had to examine it closely and touch its bristles, as the hair was way coarser than I could have ever guessed.

Back in January 2002, we stayed overnight at Piedras Blancas during a pretty fierce storm. As we left, driving north, there were some frightening large waves breaking over the highway; click here and scroll down to see a couple of photos from that day. In front of the farmstead, we started walking along a paved section of road that I finally realized wasn’t the access road to the old house; it was a two-lane highway with a double yellow line on it. At the end of the pavement in front of the motel, it dawned on us that we were walking on an older version of Highway 1, and where it was cut off, the old road had been removed and realigned further inland. To the right of these coastal cypress trees, where there is no longer any ground at all, is where the highway had been. We were incredulous.

While it’s a bit difficult to make out, the old Highway 1 scar is on the right of the photo, and the wave photo from 2002 is breaking over a bridge that crossed the drainage. No, the ocean was NOT that close to the road before. After figuring out the mystery and getting back to an area with cell service, we Googled things and learned that back in 2017 and 2018, when the realignment took place. When we get home, we’ll be looking for other old photos that were never published that we might have shot while taking this part of Highway 1 that no one will ever drive again.

There’s an unmarked driveway about 1/4 of a mile north of Vista Point, where a large parking lot welcomes visitors to see a giant colony of elephant seals. This photo of seals is not from the main location but from this unmarked smaller lot. But we are not here to see more belching farting elephant seals; though we do enjoy their scratching, sunning, and rude sounds as much as we ever have, we are going on a hike.

We are on the Boucher Trail, walking north. How it should work out that on a Friday afternoon, we are the only people out here is beyond my wildest imagination. Okay, it could be the howling wind that is contributing to the isolation as others enjoy comfort more than beautiful oceanside walks among the wildflowers.

Twenty-five years ago, when we first learned of the elephant seal colony while on a drive north during my mother-in-law Jutta’s first trip to America, we were directed to a spot we had sped right by. There was no parking lot, no marking, or anything else, giving a hint of what was out of sight just below the cliff. We were able to walk right out on the beach to get fairly close to these enormous creatures. Now, all these years later, the colony has grown and inhabits many coves along the coast here in the San Simeon area. While we can’t go down to the beach, it was nice to be here away from the crowd.

We continued on the trail, continuously hoping for a better shot of the lighthouse, and then, all of a sudden we were at a junction with the road that travels right to it. From the road, a gate prohibits access, but from the trail, we were able to walk down the gravel driveway to get to this secondary gate. A sign asks that we do not enter without being on a guided tour; we heeded their request and were quite satisfied to have been this close.

The walk back was as wonderful as the walk out.

This is the last photo of the day where we covered 22 miles of Highway 1 in 8 hours instead of the 35 minutes Google suggests it should take. What an absolute luxury it is to have the time to do a slow crawl, taking a closer examination of a small section of coast we’ve usually mostly driven past.

Wednesday Whales and Fog

May 5, 2021 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

On Monday, Caroline had asked about going whale watching today. I kiboshed that idea as we have some 50 miles of coastline to drive, and knowing us, that would take the better part of the day. So, I offered a compromise: we’d head over to Lovers Point, the place our motel is named after, and we’d spend the morning watching the squirrels. The action was just getting going when the inexplicable happened…

The distinctive sound of compressed air shot out of a blowhole caught our attention; then we spotted an arching back: whales right near the shore! For forty-five minutes, maybe even an hour, we watched a small pod of whales feeding right here at Lovers Point, making these two lovers super happy for every moment they were hanging out in our presence. But, there was another surprising aspect of our encounter…

A mom was traveling with her calf directly by her side. Just when we thought our brief time in the Monterey Bay area couldn’t get any better, it got seriously better. The worst thing about seeing whales is trying to peel yourself away from wanting to see more. Luckily, we watched them swimming away, which allowed us to head down the road.

But of course, it now being past 11:00 a.m., the local yarn shop called Monarch Knitting was open, so we had to add shop #5 to our yarn buying spree. Caroline is holding yet another skein of yarn that will transform into socks for me someday.

Leaving the rather large yarn store, I spotted a Mexican restaurant across the street. Seeing it was now past lunchtime, we stopped in at Mando’s for chips, guacamole, a chimichanga, and shrimp for Caroline. And I forgot to share that this morning, we breakfasted once again at the Red House Cafe.

Out on Highway 1, driving south, we encountered a lot of fog. No, seriously, it was a lot of fog just not in this photo yet.

Okay, so I was focusing on the moments when the fog wasn’t hugging the coast, and we were gaining glimpses of the aquamarine waters below.

Well, I’m not so sure anyone will ever believe that we were driving mostly in the fog if all I keep sharing are these beautiful landscapes.

Ah, there we go; that looks like pretty heavy fog, right?

We are in Lucia, and the ocean is just beyond that cabin, believe it or not.

This is the bridge at Limekiln State Park with some of the most interesting positioned campsites we’ve seen. Maybe tomorrow we’ll return when we can visit earlier in the day.

In all of our years on this road, we’ve always managed to miss the natural springs offering travelers a drink of fresh water. If you are driving too fast or have some asshole (there are many on this road) right behind you that risks rear-ending you, you’ll go right by these treasures. It’s not like there are dozens of places to turn around on the Pacific Coast Highway, and there are no signs informing you of upcoming springs.

We’ve been out here now for nearly five hours before we finally get to our destination.

Treebones Resort, home to the Human Nest, where we stayed for New Year’s Eve 10 years ago. We are here for the next two days.

This is our perch on the sea; it is all ours. Also all ours is our time tomorrow as with the driving and not having shot so many photos today, this entire blog entry is complete right after dinner here at the resort. Good night.

Tuesday Coastal Wandering

May 4, 2021 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Writing in situ presents a couple of challenges. Our days are already long as we use the majority of daylight to remain active. The rising sun and setting sun see us eating, and any residual evening light is used for a walk after feasting. When we finally reach our room our day has already been roughly 14 hours long. We do not reach for the remote control, though. Instead, I try to bring together loose ends regarding the details of this day for the blog. By the next morning, Caroline and I were making decisions about the photos selected for the previous day’s entry, and when that was done, she started editing the post I finished writing the night before, which was for the day before that.

As she is busy editing, I’m trying to think about what I’ll start writing this morning about the previous day. It’s inevitable that she’ll enquire about some garbled ideas I tried to capture in what looks like a haphazardly tossed pile of words that I, myself, who penned the random word scramble, have trouble deciphering. This interrupts my thoughts about what I might write about yesterday by dragging me into the day before while simultaneously considering that we have a new day ahead of us, and it, too, requires consideration. So, in effect, I have three days of travel running through my mind, and after some time out here on the road with consecutive 16 – 17 hour days, I start to suffer a bit of confusion about the time remaining, where we are, and what’s next.

Then, I bring my attention back to the photo at hand and focus. I’m writing about the snowy plovers we were watching yesterday morning as they darted back and forth, side to side, on the hunt for breakfast in the receding surf.

With the aquarium closed, we have no real choice but to do other stuff and that stuff starts at Marina State Beach north of Monterey. North will be the direction of our travels today.

Considering how I opened today’s post, I feel that those plovers and this man fishing on the beach are the ones who are really on vacation, but I admit that I only say that tongue-in-cheek. Out here with the purpose of walking hand in hand with Caroline, enchanted by every little thing except the trash, my exploration of the details we are experiencing and some thought along the trail about which of these impressions should be noted later, this structure of travel and vacation really is my perfect scenario.

If I were a flower that had the ability to document its world, I’d be taking photos of the insects that stop by helping pollinate me. I’d photograph the people who try to smell me or simply gaze at how beautiful I am. Hopefully, I wouldn’t be complaining too often about the dog that lifted a leg to pee on me and instead would sing songs about the abundant sunshine, occasional rains, and the intimacy of my world when fog hangs low and the surrounding world disappears.

One minute, these shapes emerged from the surf after it returned to the sea, and with the next crashing wave, most of it was gone while another pattern formed in its stead. The many times we’ve seen these on the beach, they were already present as relics on display for our passing eyes, but today, I’ve finally seen them being made and just as quickly removed.

This image and the two above were taken at Salinas River State Beach. The weather you are seeing is supposed to follow us all day.

Moss Landing State Beach was our next stop on this journey north. If I thought our Saturday drive was slow at 18 mph, so far, we have driven 20 miles in two hours for the breakneck average speed of 10 mph. Someday we’ll graduate to staying in a place next to the pool at some resort and reading a book, but for now, we keep on moving.

What contributes to making a vacation memorable for us beyond the extra handholding and time together is the myriad of details that create the totality of an environment. It’s easy to only focus on the extraordinarily beautiful and spectacular but how that picture gets painted in memories years down the road is important to me too. Maybe it’s not just the dramatic coastal views, lighthouses, and wildlife but the thread of all sights and impressions that were taken in as the experiences of the day. And so, even this lone fishing boat returning to the harbor, cutting its path between the otters we were watching further up the channel it too plays a part that reading or seeing fishing boats 20 years from now might help bring us back to those days when we stopped to watch them on the California coast.

There’s truth in that old saying, “You can never see enough curlews and plovers on the beach,” okay, I made that up, but there should be an old saying stating this obvious reward for being at the edge of the sea.

From the sea forest offshore, emissaries were sent as sacrifices so we might know their kind.

In order to move closer to the coast on our way to Manresa State Beach near Watsonville, we left Highway 1, and to our surprise, we spotted a Starbucks out here in the middle of nowhere. You can’t even see the coffee shop from the main road, and it wasn’t until we left their parking lot that we saw this amazing house. Since 1897, the Redman-Hirahara House has occupied this site but fell into disrepair long ago. In 2004, it was designated a National Historic Site but obviously has not attracted funding yet to save the fragile-looking former farmstead.

It’s a half-mile walk from the parking lot down to the beach, and with Manresa State Beach being part of the California State Park system, there’s a $10 charge for visiting. The cost was well worth it, and the pass is good for all other California State Parks for the remainder of the day. So, down the trail, we went looking for all that we may find.

Bright yellow flowers in front of the sea trigger memories of previous visits to the Oregon coast, where we’ve seen the invasive gorse in bloom. This is not the same plant, but the view is reminiscent and puts a smile on our faces all the same.

This is neither gorse nor the flower in the photo above, but it is yellow, obviously, so that might imply I’m trying to show a close-up of what I’ve already photographed, but I’m not. It’s simply another pretty flower I want to remember.

While I grew up in Southern California and have seen and smelled my fair share of eucalyptus, I can’t say I ever consciously recognized that the hard seed pods found under these trees at some point during the spring bloom with a thousand wispy flower elements. Picking one and squeezing the still green center of the seed, an almost solvent-like smell of fresh eucalyptus was released. The aroma was almost nothing at all, like the smell that wafts through the warm California air.

Because not all coasts along the Pacific Ocean look the same, one should explore as many as possible to discover the many sights on offer.

Good thing we’re on backroads instead of Highway 1, or we would have missed the guy on the side of the road. We actually turned around after remembering we had some cash, and for $15, we bought half a case or six baskets of fresh GIANT strawberries. Plenty of other times, we’ve been fooled by a layer of golfball-sized berries that were hiding tiny berries below, but not this time. As it was already after lunch and we were a bit hungry, we probably ate half this crate in the next 15 minutes.

Welcome to the SS Palo Alto at Seacliff State Beach in Aptos, California. This broken old ship made of concrete was built for service during World War I, but it never saw battle and was decommissioned in 1929. Apparently, it was once part of the pier system and used for fishing, but subsequent storms over the years have torn the ship apart, and the pier is now falling apart, too.

That yarn in Caroline’s hands is destined to become a pair of socks; she’s seen here after picking it out for me at The Yarn Shop In Santa Cruz.

Lunch followed at Taqueria Los Pericos, which was what came up after searching for the best burrito in Santa Cruz: they deserve that title.

I’ll give you three guesses as to why the park we are at right now is called Natural Bridges State Beach. Also of note, I’m sunburned to a crisp by now, as not only did we forget my hat in Arizona, but we left our sunblock at the motel back in Pacific Grove! Of course, Caroline applied sunblock to herself before we left, and she had her hat on. It’s always about Caroline and what she needs. I beg for sunblock reminders as I burn easily but she always forgets about me, ALWAYS! By the way, if she tries editing this to say I refuse the sunblock and my hat, she’s lying because she’s ALWAYS LYING, I swear! Though, on rare occasions, I’ve been known to need to stretch the truth, but NEVER about her and her constant neglecting me…not that I’m complaining. [really, John…? ಠ_ಠ]

With my face so burned as to be peeling off my skull in a blistering, pus-drenched ooze of juicy, crunchy bits, I refused to consider a 4-mile roundtrip hike through Wilder Ranch State Park down to the beach and instead opted to stop just north of the park where as luck would have it the reflection of the sun off the ocean probably permanently disfigured me, which is also Caroline’s fault. Why it’s her fault is still being worked out in my mind as I write this, but I’ll be sure to share my reasoning once a clever enough amount of convincing blame can be assigned without embarrassing me for embellishing a story.

As my eyes were welling with tears from the pain I was so stoically enduring, Caroline began to recognize the life-threatening situation I was facing. Without cell service this far out in the middle of nowhere (we were nearly 60 miles from San Francisco at this point), she insisted I pull over into Año Nuevo State Park. Somehow, she remembered that there was a payphone near the entry station. This memory is from 16 years ago when we last visited, but it was just my luck that the payphone no longer worked, so I laid down and cried. Caroline cruelly likely knew beforehand that the phone didn’t work and that sepsis was setting in; she brought me here to the edge of sanity just to watch me suffer. Through it all, though, I still love her a lot. [oh, ok then… ಠ‿ಠ]

Enough of the shenanigans. After learning that the elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Park would not be visited on this trip either, as was our experience 16 years ago, we decided we’d go as far as Pigeon Point Lighthouse and turn around. From here, we were only 50 miles from San Francisco, but this type of vacation is definitely not conducive to visiting big cities; as a matter of fact, Santa Cruz, with its 64,500 people, was nearly too big for our senses after only four days away.

This appears to be our third visit to Pigeon Point; the first was with my mother-in-law in May of 2005, and our second visit was seven months later in December 2005. We may have passed it again since then, but there’s no note of it to be found here on the blog. There is a hostel on the property we could rent, but for the two of us in a place that hosts six for the price of $400 a night, it feels a bit steep.

Sadly, the lighthouse is in poor shape. When we were here last, the Fresnel lens was still in the lantern room, and I took a great shot that captured a slice of light from above, but now the lens has been moved into a nearby building for its own safety until a time when the tower can be renovated.

With a final glance at the ocean in the late day, we turned south for our return to Monterey, where we were once again eating with Hee-Kyong who owns Wonju Korean Restaurant. She was such a terrific host the other night, and we feel that any little bit we can help support her business might be helpful. Back at the motel by 9:00 p.m., it was later than we’d have preferred, and tragically, this is our last night at Lovers Point Inn in Pacific Grove, but tomorrow, a wholly new adventure awaits us.

Monday, Now With 100% More Aquarium

May 3, 2021 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Sunrise in Pacific Grove, California

Not exactly up with the sun, but close enough. We are on our way to Toasties Café on Lighthouse Avenue, where instead of disappointment, we dine on yummy breakfast. This is only our second morning out here walking to our destinations for the day, but it’s becoming a habit in no time. By the time we leave on Wednesday, there will likely be big sadness even with four more nights here on the Central Coast of California.

Does it ever happen to you when you are out somewhere that you see yourselves in others? There are times at breakfast when our future selves come in and sit down across from us and surprise our current selves with new behaviors, especially out-of-character traits like drinking so early in the day or being finicky. Sometimes, there are also younger versions of us snuggling and sharing a romantic moment at an exceptionally beautiful location.

Pacific Grove, California

Looking south on our walk north to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Just out of view on the right are dozens of fishing boats. A local informed us they are out there for squid, which coincides with Monterey salmon season. Over the course of these ten days, we’ll be on vacation I hope to share enough photos to adequately represent the narrative visual arch of our travels, so, in 10 years, we’ll have a sense of where we were back in 2021. By the time this day is over, I’ll have taken nearly 900 photos to get to the 20 I’ve chosen to post. I think I could easily post twice as many, but then I’ll feel compelled to write to those too, and there’s simply not enough time in the day to explore, eat, choose photos, and write a quick 1,000 or more words that offer the most important impressions we had.