Thursday Something Or Other

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Caroline Wise in the Human Nest at Treebones Resort on the Big Sur Coast in California

It was foggy last night as we crawled up the ladder to our Nest at the cliff’s edge. It was foggy this morning as we descended the ladder after leaving the cozy warmth of our down comforter. We left our sleeping bags at home so we could snuggle in the cold coastal air that easily flows through the perch we are calling home for a couple of nights. Somewhere in the middle of the night, I woke and looked through the branches surrounding us, and up in the dark sky, I could make out a few stars. The fog had dissipated just enough to offer me a peek at distant suns while the barks of sea lions rang out from the waters below.

Every surface exposed to the moist air was damp. Good thing I listened to Caroline about putting the otherwise unused rainfly over the top of us to help keep our blanket dry; the pillows didn’t fair as well. Cute to me was how Caroline greeted me, “Good morning, mad scientist!” I guess tossing and turning on a somewhat hard thing that at one time might have been called mattress had frizzled my hair into a scholarly disheveled appearance. Minimal, sorry, no ablutions followed, although nature’s call was heeded before we took ourselves to the comparatively warm dining room for breakfast and internet.

No, the internet is not important for these travels aside from offering Caroline a connection to do her daily Duolingo lessons and as for me, I need the connectivity to upload photos and to save blog entries. Of course, while on the road, we enjoy the luxury of having our smartphones to find dining options and detours from main roads, details that our paper maps 20 years ago were not able to offer. Other than that, we try our best to avoid the news cycle (yes, I accidentally learned while out here that Bill Gates is getting divorced), and obviously, we don’t turn on the TV unless it’s winter and we’ve checked into our lodging seriously early. One last thing about the news finding us: one year, we tuned in to NPR to listen to This American Life and a fascinating story about Curly Oxide. While listening to the broadcast out in the middle of Nowhere, Idaho, we learned that Marlon Brando died, which was back on July 2, 2004, and I only know that because I blogged about it.

Caroline Wise knitting at Treebones Resort on the Big Sur Coast, California

Breakfast was a self-serve affair with quiche, chia pudding, granola, and fresh fruit on offer, with the obligatory endless coffee. As we sip on that infinite supply of life force, I’m sitting across from Caroline, who’s knitting my next pair of socks, of course, and I’m writing what you are reading. Somehow, it feels like a Saturday, which I can only attribute to the last five days requiring us to be places, and now, here on Thursday, we are moving lazily without a hurry to be anywhere in particular.

It’s 9:30 a.m., and the fog lies heavily on the earth around us, so we are not so motivated to head up or down the road to our next trail or overview. Then again, there comes a point where no matter how involved we are with our hobbies, we grow fidgety, probably due to the nagging thought that we are on vacation and are supposed to be busy with other stuff. For all we know, just 10 miles south, we could run into blue skies. It’s likely going to be that possibility that will drag us away from the hot coffee supply and into new aspects of the day. But for now, I will try to delude myself that I’ll stumble on more things to write about.

By 10:15 a.m. and a bit of talking with staff about perspectives and how a pandemic is altering habits and expectations (thanks, Dan at the front desk), the fog is lifting, and we are getting our first view of the ocean from here. The sun is shining on the property, and if that’s not the trigger that kicks us out of our comfort zone into a new comfort zone, nothing will. Hopefully, I’ll be returning to writing at a new overlook soon. As a matter of fact, we spoke yesterday about having lunch at Lucia, so maybe that’s where we’re going.

We had to head back to the Nest to pick something up, which turned out to already be in Caroline’s bag. You have no idea how often it happens that what she’s looking for is within inches of her already. All the same, it was great that she had us come out this way, not only for the view but for being at the right place at the right time.

While we were up on our cliffside, a neighboring couple in one of the new sites below us offered to take our picture from their perspective; they said they’d email it to us, we hope they follow through.

John Wise and Caroline Wise at the Human Nest at Treebones Resort in Big Sur, California

Wow, by the time we returned to Treebones later that day, the couple that took our picture from the Autonomous Tent site below had sent it to us. It’s rare that we have a photo of us not taken by me. It will be even rarer that we might stay in one of the two Autonomous Tents as not only are they booked solid for the next year, but they are priced at a lofty $645 a night with a two-night minimum. You do get your own bathroom and shower, though, and the views are outstanding.

Now ready to go, or maybe not? We turn left instead of right and visit the hillside organic garden seeing where many of the greens and edible flowers are grown for the restaurant. In a seemingly small space, every available square inch is covered with plants, and many are flowering now, so it feels like the proverbial Garden of Eden. A greenhouse, fruit trees, and a compost heap round out the garden.

Close to the garden are 3 or 4 beehives next to the Sweet Spot Honey Processing Hut. We spoke with one of the gardeners about why so many pest traps are out; they have a vole problem. A garter snake we saw hopefully catches a couple from time to time. Okay, now we’re really ready to go.

Our first stop driving north was at Sand Dollar Beach State Park, and whoever named this was probably related to the people in Phoenix who name a community Emerald Pines or Amber Creek because after walking down to the beach, there wasn’t a sand dollar to be found, not even a tiny fragment. But there was a consolation prize found in the body of a decaying sea otter, whose face a buzzard or two had been feasting on.

The beach itself is a quiet place. Steep cliffs surround the cove, and the beach is mostly rocky, with a couple of small stretches of sand. At high tide, I doubt there is any sand here. The rocks near the shore that are exposed at low tide, while covered in moss and seaweed, don’t have a single anemone at their base, not a seastar, nor a barnacle or mussel. In the scheme of things, maybe this isn’t the most dynamic beach we’ve ever visited, but at the speed we are moving, this is a luxury not to be in a race to see special places that draw us back or have a schedule where we stay, eat, drive, with little time to linger. As I wrote that last word, I thought maybe this trip should be titled the “Lingering On The Central Coast Tour.”

We note that Limekiln State Park is south of Lucia, which wasn’t clear in our spatial memory, but we are now hungry and heading directly to Lucia Lodge before they stop serving lunch. A huge deck below the parking area we’d never noticed before was open for diners, and there was a table open with our name on it. Greasy fish and chips for me, veggie burger and fries for Caroline will need to carry us through 8:00 p.m. as we changed our dinner reservation from 6:00 so we would have more of a reason to hang out until we’re ready to ascend the ladder to our outdoors bed.

Content to just sit here on the deck at Lucia, we’ve ordered a couple of coffees and a slice of cheesecake; we are on vacation after all. The knitting needles are out, with one held in Caroline’s mouth as she adds stitches that require a fifth needle. Great, the needles are dropped, and the spoon is tightly gripped, letting me know we are about to go into battle for the larger half. Should I believe she’s getting ahead, I’ll try some whining about her attempts to dominate our dessert. She hates whining, so she’ll rage quit eating my cheesecake, and I’ll get a solid 75% of it. Right! Like Caroline wouldn’t fight for her fair share using the excuse that she’s concerned about me and my health due to “the diabetes,” so, in her mind, she’s just saving me from myself.

Patches of blue sky appear behind the fog that comes and goes before burning off to open amazing vistas that demand we just sit here. For a short time, it felt like the day was warming but then a light breeze comes in off the ocean, and maybe it’s cooling off. We’ll just have to sit here longer to get a better read on what’s what. What we can do with that information is beyond me right now so sitting here even longer might help in bringing answers. That doesn’t work, but we are given more sun. Nothing left to do but sit here and enjoy this moment of perfection.

Not the best photo of two horses in a flower-covered pasture with one of the most awesome views in all of California but it’s being posted here for Katharina, our niece in Germany.

Warning, sharp curves, and familiar sites ahead, along with even more words. Maybe it was pessimism, or maybe it was the wish to have a slow day, but as I started writing this blog post, I had the sense that the fog that wrapped the coast last night and into the morning was going to be with us a good long time. And so, figuring that and knowing I’d need to post something or other to fill the page for this day, I just kept on writing before knowing that we had a lot of adventure ahead.

If one curve looks like another to you in any of these photos, don’t let that dissuade you from at least once in your life seeing this coast with your own eyes at least once in your life. The nuances you see in person are extraordinary, no matter the time of year you might visit. Caroline and I have been here at all times of year over the previous 25 years and never have we been disappointed, even under foul weather. How can bad weather contribute to the extraordinary? Mystery on gray, rainy days blossoms in place of the wildflowers and the clear aquamarine waters; that’s how.

Treebones Resort offers guests a list of nearby places to visit; one of those on the list is Partington Cove Trail. There are three forks of the trail, with the first one we took going through a short tunnel carved in rock coming out into this view. In a cove like this one, you will see just how pristine the waters of the Pacific are here on the California coast. This is not a loop trail, nor is it long, though this is the only way short of owning a helicopter that you will ever see this small cove.

Heading back to the main trail to see the cove that this area is named after. While difficult to identify in this photo, those are redwood trees.

Partington Cove is a small rocky inlet with some huge boulders to scramble over should you feel like jumping in some apparently deep water where the surf will dash you to bits against the shore, but if that’s your idea of a good time, there’s nobody out here stopping you from you doing you.

On to the third fork which appears the lesser-traveled of the three. This trail doesn’t take you to the ocean; it takes you into redwoods along a small creek. I know, how isn’t that appealing to those who make this mile-long hike?

Sticking with tradition to see just how much water sticks to someone, Caroline had to step into the small creek running through the canyon. For those of you just finding this blog recently, you may not know that Caroline has doffed her shoes dozens, if not hundreds, of times to step into as many waterways across the breadth of America as she can.

Note to Claudia: While my best friend and wife has keen language skills among her many talents, dressing is not an exacting science to her. So, as you browse these entries and see her wearing these Adidas sweatpants, know that she’s also about comfort on her own terms.

Redwoods, one can never see enough of them, ever.

Flowers, too, because every time you gaze upon beauty, you extend your life another 10 minutes.

In just five minutes, I gained another 30 minutes of life. Just imagine that if you look at three beautiful things a day for 50 years, you’ll add a full year to the time you have to explore life!

Blam, another 10 minutes added to my reserve of time. By the way, we are no longer on the Partington Cove Trail but are now across the highway, where we spotted another path; this one is called the Tan Bark Trail. Strangely, it wasn’t on our list of recommended destinations.

Caroline and I often joke, probably to the point of annoyance if you had to hear it for yourself, about certain places being the Swiss cheese of sights. Meaning, just the common everyday old stuff of no particular interest as a road stops being a Scenic Highway while we feel like we are still on that special designation. Here we are, on this hike into a forest that we find spectacular, and yet, it didn’t make the list?

Consider that you are only seeing a pale representation of nature on display. All the smells, sounds, and ethereal depth painted by contrasting colors and dancing lights are lost in these photos. I suppose this is as good a spot as any to share with you that Caroline has added a new word to the lexicon; it is photogenous. We were approaching something or other out on the road when she attempted to describe a view as being photogenous, so we are going with it, and you’ll be reading more about how photogenous places can be.

My apologies should be offered as I didn’t warn readers early on that this post features 45 photos, 46 tons of beauty, 47 trillion words, and this one purple lily.

We’re still on the Tan Bark Trail as we are enchanted in this narrow canyon and astonished that no one else is here.

This photo is especially for Caroline as she has a thing for long exposures of running water, and I know she’ll be surprised that I managed to get one without a tripod or nearby tree to steady the camera.

She asked that we take a selfie here as it’s been days since we last took a photo together. Well, maybe you can see from my color why I might have been reluctant to capture a reminder of the wicked sunburn I adopted. You can see in Caroline’s skin tone what sunblock and a hat do, compared to Mr. Macho-I-Don’t-Do-That and a deep red coloring that I prefer to call blushing.

Attention Readers: You are now leaving the trail for the next part of the adventure of John and Caroline.

There are a number of natural springs along the Big Sur Coast. Almost 100 years ago, they were tapped as drinking fountains for travelers on this old road; today, only a few still function. This is the Rigdon Drinking Fountain that no longer offers passers-by the opportunity to quench their thirst.

Should you be wondering how close I am to finishing this post, I still have a baker’s dozen of photos remaining. Does this image have a story, John? Not really, other than we find it to be an appealing view, and it will likely be yet another powerful reminder of our good fortune to have been out here once more.

The appearance of the coast changes dramatically as the light shifts over the course of the day. Many of our travels on this highway have been expedient due to a lack of available time to linger, but these eight days directly on the coast were meant to offer us all the opportunities we might be able to take advantage of. So, here we are, looking back and then forward again.

Forward through Pacific Valley without a great vantage point to grab a photo. There’s a lot out here that cannot be seen from where I pulled over but there was nowhere else to do that, and so this is the best I can offer for now.

This is one of two “conundrum” shots. I should have made do with one image of the late-day sun shining in a narrow band of warm light on the calm ocean, but I loved this shot as much as I loved the sunset view four photos below.

There’s a beach down there, not the one in view, but just beyond the jutting rock on the left.

But before we visit that beach, we have to stop at another spring-fed drinking fountain at Seven Stairs. Yes, we certainly did drink from this spring in addition to the unnamed fountain the day before, and no, we have not had to suffer the ill effects from inadvertently drinking giardia. Also, this being California, if there was any chance of disease or illness, there would be large warning signs alerting people to the dangers.

This is the beach from Willow Creek Vista Point and our last stop before returning to our second night in our Nest.

Also, Willow Creek Vista Point and the image I referenced above that was my conundrum.

Should you, too, find yourself with a loony bird, then you too will understand why so many photos of her smiling from your nest are important. You should have heard her mating song that lured me up there.

This is why we pay such a premium to spend a couple of nights in a drafty oceanside perch high up a cliff. The view is from our bed.

In order to maximize our memories, I need all the views of the approach to our Nest.

Not an easy location to take photos of as the sun sets; a drone would have come in handy, although drones are not allowed in the resort.

These are the yurts and probably the primary attractions of Treebones Resort, though the Twig House, Tree House, and now the Autonomous Tents are all very attractive, too.

The fog is again trying to move in, and a breeze is kicking up, too, but nothing can dampen our enthusiasm because we have once again experienced a perfect day.

Frog at Treebones Resort on the Big Sur Coast in California

Last-minute addition: after we left the dining area, we heard this really loud frog croaking near a water feature, so we had to investigate if we might see this giant. It had to be big because of the booming sounds it was making. We spotted this guy on the side of the wooden pool, and he was tiny, like about 2 inches or 5 cm, but it was loud, like we couldn’t believe.

Up The Coast We Go

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

How is it we’d never explored Carpenteria before? It’s a nice little town by the ocean that’s every bit as beautiful as Santa Barbara. We started the morning at the Carpenteria State Beach next to the Santa Cruz campground. With a little breeze and some serious humidity, the temperature felt a lot colder than in Arizona. After a short walk along the shore, we started our long drive north that, instead of the 4-hour jaunt it should take, might turn into a 10-hour meander for us.

We are on Highway 101, and if we’re not careful, we’ll pass out on the road due to the deep breaths we take, trying to savor every hint of the eucalyptus that permeates the air and interior of the car. That is, until a skunk makes itself known and has us wondering if it’s hitching a ride. And no, it isn’t the smell of weed, though we smelled plenty of that last night at Motel 6.

Our next stop was at the Glen Annie / Storke Road offramp in Goleta, where instead of turning right, which would have brought us to our great aunt and uncle who used to live here just north of Santa Barbara, we turned left to go have breakfast at Cajun Kitchen, an old favorite of theirs. Keeping up the tradition of my aunt Ann, Caroline is having a side order of toast with coffee, though when we are done here; we’ll backtrack a few miles so she can indulge in a healthier breakfast at Backyard Bowls on Calle Real.

A note about yesterday: we played semi-truck bingo as we passed so many familiar shipping company brands hauling stuff back and forth across the desert. From Old Dominion and Covenant to Swift and Werner, we ticked them off the list. Sadly, Sweet Simon with the skunk logo wasn’t seen, but then again, it’s been years since one of those trucks was seen on an American highway.

And what about breakfast at Cajun Kitchen? You can’t go back; it’s not the same without our family members. Nostalgia is a bittersweet dish that prods us to realize we should move on and away from things that can never be the same again, especially those places that are so intertwined with others.

Out of shared experiences with others and on to adventures shared by the two of us. We’ve been up this road plenty of times to be quite familiar with the golden rolling hills of the Central California Coast, but only rarely have we been here in Spring, when things are vibrantly green with bursts of color splashed upon the landscape. Yellow flowers appear and then quickly disappear. Getting a photo of them is difficult, with few places to pull over on this road and most everyone moving along at nearly 80mph. The photo I wanted remained elusive, while the one I took failed to show the grandeur.

Let’s Knit in Grover Beach was our first yarn store visit of the day. Caroline is holding one of my next pairs of socks in her hand. In her right hand is her mask, which I asked her to take off so I can capture her smile. California is remaining vigilant about masks and hand sanitizer. Some locations still have mask mandates in place outdoors, although the CDC has backed off of that necessity. Yes, maybe we’ve drunk the Kool-Aid, but things feel better here with people being aware compared to the Wild West circus we are going through in Arizona. But enough about COVID; we are here for yarn, coast, fish, and great weather.

From Grover Beach up to SLO, as it’s known up this way, or San Luis Obispo, we stopped at the old Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa only because of its location across the street from, guess what?

Yarns…At The Adobe. While I grabbed another skein of fingering weight yarn for yet more socks, Caroline went hunting for some locally dyed crimped yarn that would find its way into a shawl. With no other business in SLO and 137 miles remaining on our SLOW drive north on Highway 1, well, that and the fact that we only paid for 24 minutes of parking meter time, we left town in search of more yarn and our next encounter with the ocean.

Great day for a drive.

Our first stop to take in the ocean is at a place we’ve never been before, Estero Bluffs, just north of Cayucos.

I learned as I’m writing this up that there’s also an Estero Bluffs State Park, but that’s further north up by San Simeon, another 20 miles up the highway. How these two locations share the same name is a puzzle I’m not solving here. By the way, the crowds heading up the coast today I was anticipating due to the road south of Big Sur being reopened never really materialized.

When we reached Cambria, where we were staying the next weekend, we were hungry for lunch and, of course, more yarn. We got the important stuff out of the way first with a visit to Ball & Skein & More. While it should have taken us 2 hours to cover the stretch of road we’ve traveled so far, we are now 5 hours into this journey with no intention of speeding up.

Outdoor seating in springtime has its advantages, and here at Robin’s Restaurant, it comes in a beautiful garden setting with properly socially distanced tables. It seems the kitchen got behind, but how could we care about that when we are enjoying the nearly cold breeze coming in off the coast?

There’s a section of road here in Cambria we’ve never traveled that runs along the ocean, and across the street from the hotel we will be checking into on Friday. We’ll have more time along this stretch of the sea soon enough.

Flowers are blooming everywhere, and if wasn’t for the fact that I already have 28 photos included in this post, I could have included more of everything from rolling hills to the ocean. Considering I feel inclined to write something with each photo, I only create more pressure on myself when I get carried away with showing the nicer aspects of our travels.

If I’ve never stated it before, it is my goal with these travel posts to share the arc of the day and what others can experience if they are NOT in a hurry to get somewhere. You see, years and years ago, there was a magazine called Giant Robot, and one of their features was called something like “My Perfect Day.” In those articles, they asked artists, musicians, and other creative types to describe a perfect day for themselves in the city they were living in, such as Tokyo, Edinburgh, San Francisco, or Sao Paolo. It was always a treat to read how a graffiti artist in Brazil might wake up for breakfast at their favorite little cafe, go record shopping, walk through a shopping district, stop to meet up with friends for a beer, and close out their day with activities that made them happy such as painting or whatever. With that in mind, I try to show a perfect travel day where Caroline and I are fully experiencing every moment of the day.

I mean, what’s the alternative? Lay around in the sun, fart, and go for a swim like these elephant seals? Well, I suppose, in some ways, that’s exactly what we are doing today.

The colony of elephant seals out here at Piedras Blancas is huge, and this was just the northern side of their on-land home.

Posting images of this place is an exercise of my obsessive-compulsive nature because we’ve stayed here once, years ago, and loved it. It’s been closed for many years now, and we thought it was supposed to be destroyed by the State, but instead, nature is taking its long, slow hand to remove it from its perch on the sea.

I’m telling you, I could have posted dozens of photos of flowers today.

I could have also shared dozens of photos of twisty, winding roads clinging precariously to the edges of mountains that drop precipitously down to the ocean.

With hairpin turns and vistas that beg us to pull over and linger in such impressively beautiful sights.

And then get out of the car again and fight the winds that work so hard to trigger my vertigo as we get close to the edge for photos that will remind us forever of the places we’ve been.

You are looking at a couple of miles of road that snake along the foot of these mountains. While it might be difficult to see in this smaller version of the photo, the road is out there as a thin tan line cut into the slope. Should you be wondering why I’m not waxing about the aquamarine color of the ocean and the silvery sheen where the sun is reflecting off the Pacific, it’s because my treasury of descriptive language has limits, especially when reduced to oohs and aahs, as we stand, astonished that we are once again in such a gorgeous place.

Nope, there’s no yarn out there, but we are starting to see some shifting in the weather.

Where’d this come from? Have we seen it before? Did I photograph this on a previous road trip up Highway 1? Well, it’s new to us today and looks remarkable from our perspective.

The waterfall is missing in action here at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. I can’t say we’ve ever seen a situation where it was absolutely dry.

While things look beautiful here at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, California, like Arizona, is experiencing drought conditions. Oh, we’ve finally reached Big Sur.

As we expected, the Big Sur Bakery was closed when we arrived, and our hunt for eucalyptus soap also came up empty-handed, but we did get this sweet photo of an amazing flower.

One minute later, we drove into this wall of clouds, and for the rest of the late afternoon, we were in drizzle and gray. That earlier estimate of turning a 4-hour drive into a 10-hour drive was a little off by 3 hours, as it took us 13 hours to travel the 240 miles to our destination in Pacific Grove just south of Monterey. I’ll save you the math; we averaged 18 miles per hour today, or 29 km/h.

Dinner was at Wild Fish Restaurant on Lighthouse Avenue, just a short walk from our hotel. Oysters, mussels, red snapper, and sable were the menu items that found their way to our table and that piece of chocolate strawberry cake we shared.

We are staying at the Lovers Point Inn at Lovers Point because, of course, we are!

Travel Habits

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Caroline Wise and John Wise in Phoenix, Arizona

Leaving Phoenix, Arizona, before noon is a luxury. Heck, leaving anywhere at any time is a luxury. A sure sign of aging is that I no longer really feel comfortable taking selfies when I’m driving, so we took this one in the parking lot as we were about to depart. At times over the years, this was a habit that preceded almost every trip, but we’ve gotten lax about it in recent years.

Most preparations for this vacation were finished by yesterday; all that was left today was picking up a bag of ice for the ice chest, some raspberries, and cashews. With all of that out of the way, I tried planting myself at King Coffee to get some writing done, but all I could think about was departing the valley. Then, about 4 hours before I thought we’d leave, Caroline told me she was ready to go. After a stop at In-N-Out on the far west of Phoenix, we were ready to embark on the long haul over the desert.

California Stateline

As we left, the plan had been to drive into California on Interstate 10 and make our way to either Tehachapi or Bakersfield, but having this extra time available, we detoured in the direction of Santa Barbara. Stopping to take pictures at state lines was also an old habit that fell out of favor; again, we’re fixing these omissions.

Kia Niro dashboard in the desert of California

We were supposed to have our first 100-degree day (38c) in Phoenix tomorrow, May 1st. So, how the hell is it 110 (43 Celsius) here in the California desert on April 30th?

Traveling Interstate 10 in Southern California

Why would anyone get off the freeway to take a photo at an empty offramp that seemingly leads nowhere? I’ll give you one guess. Note that there are no bushes or anything to hide behind out here, so you know it wasn’t Caroline who demanded we take this exit.

Pad Kee Mow at Mix Bowl in Pomona, California

Once in the Los Angeles area, or Pomona, to be more precise, we stopped at Mix Bowl on Indian Hill Blvd. Being early afforded us the time to sit down for dinner at an old favorite place of ours. We’d not been here in countless years, but we did recognize one of the guys working there. I looked up an old photo here on my blog and showed him a picture of the place we had taken back in January 2001 on our very first visit when it was still called Big Bowl before they were sued to change the name. While the fried morning glory is no longer on the menu, we were able to start with steamed koo chai and grilled pork before sharing one of the best pad kee mow with fried tofu that we know of. Some habits are worth the effort of maintaining.

Los Angeles, California

Dozens of offramps beg us to get off the freeway and go explore, snap some photos, and bask in nostalgia but with our destination up the road, we had to keep on driving. This was right at sunset when we were passing downtown Los Angeles on the 101. We finally pulled into Carpenteria shortly after 21:30 and snagged a room at Motel 6 for the relatively inexpensive price of only $110 minus tax with a veterans’ discount. Tomorrow, we head up the coast from here as we are right next to it, which gives us an extra 137 miles of the coastal region before reaching Cambria, where we were originally supposed to meet the ocean.

Another Year – 58!

JWise Moments, Photo of the Day, Travels

Caroline Wise and John Wise driving to Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

Woke just before 5:00 a.m. without the assistance of an alarm and got to preparing a hot breakfast prior to a short walk. After a stop for a latte to go, we are heading south in the direction of Tucson. Our destination is Saguaro National Park. Along the way, we return to one of our favorite pastimes, reading out loud. Caroline is closing in on finishing The Greedy Queen: Eating with Victoria by Annie Gray, which is taking an inordinate amount of time due to us not being in the car all that often.

Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

The particular reason for this day out on the road is that it’s my birthday. Not only are we traveling, but Caroline baked me a cake; well, bread to be more specific although a dessert bread for sure. What kind is it, you ask? Almond, dried apricot, and orange, a yummy favorite of ours from the Moosewood Cookbook.

We were supposed to be heading into New Mexico back on Friday, but after weeks of dithering about where exactly we’d end up, I lost the enthusiasm to pick a place. So, at the last minute, as just this past Friday, we decided to drive to Saguaro National Park.

Caroline Wise at Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

It’s been years since we stopped at the closest national park to the place we call home, though we’ve been meaning to do this for years so Caroline could collect a Junior Ranger badge from here. Today is the day. And it was also the day we forgot our park pass so instead of paying the entry fee, we just went ahead and bought another yearly pass, knowing that the money goes to one of our favorite causes, the preservation of America’s beautiful wildlands.

Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

After checking in at the visitors center and confirming that someone would be able to accept her workbook we printed at home, we took off for a loop drive down a dirt road so my wife could gather the depth of knowledge about this park that might qualify her as Senior Junior Ranger Woman.

Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

We intended to take two short walks from the road, but at the first small pullout, seven other cars were parked with absolutely nowhere else to park nearby, so we continued our slow eight mph crawl up the road. We didn’t drive that slow due to the poor conditions of the road, nor did we drive that slow to piss off the people coming up behind us on this narrow path; we drove this slow because under 12mph in our Kia Niro, we are only using electricity and with the windows open the quiet is more befitting the environment.

Caroline Wise and John Wise at Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

I took five shots to get this one reasonable image, but what’s missing is the grand vista stretching for miles with a million cacti between us and the mountains in the distance. This could have been remedied by switching to my 10-22mm wide-angle lens, but I should know better than switching lenses on a dusty road. By the way, how do you like how I coordinated the color of my shirt with the color of my beard?

Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

We don’t know which plant this skeleton is from, though it’s obviously not from one of the nearby saguaros but we thought it beautiful enough that it was worthy of snapping an image of. Maybe this will be the photo that propels me virally into social media fame, though that would mean I have to throw it up on Instagram, and well, I’m just about too lazy to even try that.

Caroline Wise at Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

Truth in advertising admission, I’m standing behind Caroline, holding her purse while she goes ahead so I can snag a more “natural” image of her ascending the stairs on this short trail to view some petroglyphs. You might think that it’s no big deal that I’m holding a purse, but do some math regarding today’s birthday, and you’ll see I was born in 1963, and I obviously do not have the DNA to be comfortable holding a purse. As soon as I get the photo I want, I will yell at her to rush back to fetch her purse so I can maintain my illusion of what it means to be a man.

Petroglyphs at Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

There were more approachable petroglyphs at the top of Signal Hill, but this abundance from below was more appealing to me, so here they are.

Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

I can’t help but wonder if Phoenix and Tucson once looked like this. Meaning a wide-open desert covered with cacti of a number of types but especially saguaro. These sentinels of the Southwest have been known to stand for up to 300 years with one particular now dead specimen having reached a height of over 40 feet with 52 arms. Evolution works by bringing ecosystems into harmony, and so I tend to believe that there’s likely a very good reason why these cacti have these characteristics, and while they are protected today, that doesn’t diminish that we’ve cleaned millions of them off lands where we built houses.

Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

Sure, it’s great that we at least have pockets of them on lands forbidden to be developed, but what have we lost in our efforts to replace nature with concrete, cinderblocks, and asphalt?

Caroline Wise becoming a Junior Ranger at Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

Poems, puzzles, drawings, and questions across ten pages are now complete and Caroline is being sworn in yet again and awarded a Junior Ranger badge, quite the honor.

Longhorn Grill in Amado, Arizona

For 20 years, we’ve meant to stop in here at the Longhorn Grill so we can claim our bragging rights to having eaten under the world’s largest fossilized steer skull ever found, and now, here on my 58th birthday, which is also the same day Caroline has earned her dozenth Junior Ranger badge, we’ve finally done it. Was it worth it? That depends. Was the food amazing? No way, but we didn’t expect it to be, considering it’s midway between Tucson and Mexico, meaning it’s in a relatively impoverished area of the state, and there isn’t anyone passing through these parts looking for gourmet food. Can I recommend it? Absolutely, because these cherished icons sitting roadside across America won’t be there forever, and often, you meet some amazing fellow travelers who contribute to making our days memorable.

Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona

Earlier, as we drove south out of the national park, I noticed on the GPS a northern section of this western branch of Saguaro that had a road passing through called Picture Rocks Road that we’d never been on. Seeing it had been so many years between visits, there’s the chance we may never pass through this area again, so I figured we should take the detour and check it out, just in case.

We arrived back in Phoenix before 5:30 p.m., which was a lot earlier than I thought we’d be home, but I don’t feel like we diminished our experience of being out for a Sunday drive on Easter during my birthday. As a matter of fact, I’d say this was a gloriously beautiful day that once again presses on my mind to come up with the superlatives that might convey a hint of how perfect this was for Caroline and me, but I guess the old saying, “You had to be there,” rings true and will have to suffice.

Vaccine Anyone?

JWise Photo of the Day

Caroline and John Wise about to receive COVID vaccine

This past Monday early in the morning Caroline logged into Arizona’s COVID vaccination website on the hunt for an appointment to at least get me vaccinated, as she’d been doing every day for the past couple of weeks. At 57 years old, obese, with diabetes and high blood pressure, I’m not the person who wants this ugly virus. Much to our surprise, she not only found an empty slot, but she was also able to snag a second appointment for herself 10 minutes after mine. We’d heard that the sites weren’t being strict on scheduled time so we showed up 45 minutes early and were waved right in.

Caroline Wise receiving COVID vaccine

Along a serpentine path around a series of buildings, the barcodes of our appointment verification emails were scanned in and the confirmation number written on our windshield. At the next checkpoint, we were asked about allergies, those with allergies had yellow caution tape tied to their driverside mirror. Not having allergies, we were told to continue driving through the gauntlet of volunteers. The next question was if this was our first or second shot, we continued to the left with other first-timers. The person at the final checkpoint asked all of the questions all over again while also inquiring about our current health condition and if we’d had COVID already.

A few feet forward and a cadre of volunteers verified our data, handed us vaccination cards, requested we open our doors, and asked us to raise our sleeves. The time of the injection was noted on our windshield, we were congratulated on taking the initiative to get this done and asked if we’d like to schedule our second shot, we said yes. The morning of April 7 will see us back here at the same site getting another gentle little jab in the arm. We were told to pull up further once more.

Car at COVID Vaccine site

We pulled up behind some other cars and someone wrote on the windshield when we could leave: 11:30. Caroline and I have now been vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine and so far we are seriously happy to be halfway there to having the recommended dose that will hopefully offer an ounce of protection against the worst effects of COVID-19, should either of us contract it at some point in the future.

At 11:30 we were asked how we were feeling and with a confirmation of “all good”, the attendant cleaned off the notes from our windshield that followed us through the entire process and we were off to find us some lunch. While this all took a minute to finally get the appointments, today went surprisingly smoothly. Now we just need a few billion others to get the shots and get our planet back to normal which is kind of new and still unfolding. I’m curious what exactly it might look like.

Exit Ahead

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Heavy, gray clouds obscure the bright blue sky above, but it’s a better view than we were experiencing the first hour of driving south when all was black. Our first photographic pullout is the Winema Lake Viewpoint in Neskowin. When the roads are wet, narrow, and winding, and the sky is dark, the path feels precarious and is only made more so by those who race up behind us, familiar with its contours and obviously annoyed at the person impeding their move forward. I’d like to claim that we were driving slowly to savor our dwindling time out here on the coast, but it was dark, and in any case, we intended to leave in the dark as we’d covered this part of the coast yesterday. Now it’s time to really slow down and take things in, even if the people behind me are shaking their fists in a futile effort to get me to step on the gas.

Dreams awaken soon with our first pitstop at a discreet corner, where we find this sign leading us to a part of a trail we’ve not hiked yet. I’m posting this as a hopeful reminder that while we’ve hiked the other end of the trail at Cascade Head, we’ve not walked this 3.7-mile (6 km) rainforest trail. Something new already for next time.

I must admit a bias while on Highway 101 driving north or south: what is on the west side of the car holds the most interest for me. On the west side of the car, the giant Pacific Ocean is to be found. On the east side of the car are more homes, businesses, forests, lakes, rivers, and boring stuff. Well, until Caroline spots this sign for the Darlingtonia Wayside. First of all, a wayside is nothing like a State Park and is certainly 1,000 miles away from being something similar to a National Park; it is a lowly wayside. Except, this wayside is a spectacular one because it has an enchanting forest trail over to this Darlingtona thing it is pulling our attention into…even if it is on the east side of the road.

Witness the cobra lily, aka the Darlingtonia. Then, like a cobra striking its victim, engaging in further research on my quest to learn more about this plant, I find that the location has a new designation not yet reflected in the signage of the wayside. It is now all grown up and has become the Darlingtonia State Natural Site. I stand corrected about the meek value of this place and am in awe of the mighty Darlingtonia plant.

I think I heard them murmuring, “Nom nom nom” as we stood on the platform overlooking them: they are meat-eaters. Maybe they eat insects, maybe they eat flesh? I asked Caroline to climb over the banister for a closer look and see if they had a nice scent, but she refused. Maybe she knew what evil might lurk in my cold heart?

This is familiar, yet not, and that’s because we are not looking at the boat dock that I’ve photographed dozens of times already. We are looking north on the Umpqua River in Gardiner.

During this late fall Oregon road trip, we learned early on about the pleasures of our seat warmers. Having them in Arizona seemed like a weird indulgence when we bought the car back in December 2018, and last year’s trip up here was had when we were still flying places so our own car wasn’t present. This brings me to another luxury we eschewed in our old Prius: the maps on the dash screen. This time around, we’ve grown somewhat accustomed to looking at the maps instead of purely relying on our phones and this has proven to have great utility. By zooming in on the map so that it moves along with our driving, we are able to spot small side roads that don’t appear in a wider overview of the route. Seeing those small roads approach, we can move around on the map to see if there’s a connection to our highway further ahead or if we’ll have to turn around. This road pictured is called Wildwood Drive and winds its way along the 101 for about 2 miles. It’s a beautiful little path in the woods south of Reedsport.

The next small road led to Saunders Lake and brought us to a fork in the road that, while a dead end, we decided to drive in any way just to see what was out along it. Houses and cabins were about it.

And this old train track that’s grown over and rusting.

Arriving in North Bend, we are now 188 miles (302 km) south of where we woke this morning and more than halfway down the state of Oregon.

A few minutes later, we seamlessly merge into Coos Bay, the largest city along the coast with a population of 16,415 (I think I shared this last year, too), but we are not sticking around long. The yarn store Caroline wanted to visit is closed, though it’s supposed to be open, and then on the way out of town, she spots a burger spot that she says we’ve enjoyed before. Lunch was had at the Shake N Burger, and sure enough, upon getting home, Google’s timeline showed me that we last visited the place on November 25, 2019. I may not share it a lot here, but Caroline’s memory is impeccable; it’s a trap where nothing escapes, except where she just set something down a few minutes before.

Bandon has one of the greatest rocky coastlines in all of Oregon. It’s no wonder that this place has taken on a kind of luxury vibe akin to Cannon Beach, 231 miles north.

Sure, we’d like to live here in retirement, but you’d have to be a millionaire these days to put roots down in Bandon. In November, the average sale price of a home in this area was $422,000, which, with utilities, insurance, and maintenance, is going to cost about $2,100 a month, while rents are not that much lower. Fortunately for those wealthy enough to call this place home, they have a workforce of nearly 30,000 in the area just north from which they can pull in labor.

Horseback rides at sunset among the monoliths are one of the amenities of life on this corner of the southern end of the coast. I shouldn’t be too whistful as at least Bandon hasn’t turned into the famous 17-mile Drive in Carmel By The Sea that charges people for the right to pass through.

The tide is seriously low today, offering us a great look at rocks we’ve not been able to see before.

More evidence of our mad-dash race to collect more experiences here on our last day on the coast.

By now you should see the attraction of what has drawn so many people to Bandon. Besides the cold, blustery days of winter, there’s the issue of heavy fog in the summer, but by and large, the coast of Oregon is our dream climate. It’s probably a good thing we’ll not be making this home as it can forever remain the fairy tale place where, for a week or two a year, everything is perfect.

I’m pretty certain we’ve seen this witch’s claw of rock before, but I can’t be certain. Maybe part of it broke off in between visits and it is only now this shape? Out of curiosity, I searched Lightroom for all photos that have been tagged “Oregon,” though I can’t be sure I’ve done the best job tagging them, and I see that I have 19,623 images to look through to make an accurate determination if this has already been seen. Well, today, it is one more detail to throw in the grab bag of blogged-about memories, hoping that it might be part of the magic key so that when I look at these images again in some years, the whole picture of where we’ve been and what we’ve done will all snap into focus.

Or maybe it’ll be this reminder from Port Orford, only 62 miles from the exit from Oregon, that will produce the sigh of satisfaction that during our time here, we succeeded in seeing all the major sights during all weather conditions and variations in lighting. There’s a thought of hanging out until sunset right here, but that’s an hour away, which leaves enough time to drive another 35 miles south to capture the sun dipping below the horizon at Meyers Creek Beach near Gold Beach, where our vacation of Remote Self-Isolation began 16 days ago.

The shark tooth towers over the sand. This prehistoric fossil of an ancient predator remains as a reminder of the giants that once ruled the earth.

Denial is a powerful tool for remaining delusional about reality. I look at the two people in this selfie, and I know that one is approaching 60 years old and the other in her mid-50s, but I can’t help but know that their inner children are still looking out, albeit with some sense of maturity and a small amount of knowledge. Someday, we’ll likely feel old and tired; it seems to be the way of people, although there are those who just up and die, forever content that they were living with vigor until they never woke again. By the way, I know I’m an irrational romantic and that life and death are a lot messier than I choose to see them, but with time short for all things indulgent, I believe I can allow myself the opportunities when they arise to seize perfection and go with it.

As we were walking around the base of the shark tooth and the surf pulled way out, Caroline was able to pass between it and another large rock jutting out of the sand. In the golden radiance of our setting sun, her silhouette walking through the temporary passage struck me as one of those moments of perfection where I can see her in a light that will frame her in just this way but once in my lifetime. While this is true regarding every photo I’ve ever taken of her, this adds to those treasured images of her riding the bow of a dory in the Grand Canyon, camping in the wilds of the Yukon, snowshoeing in Yellowstone, and smiling at me in her jammies while knitting a pair of socks for me late one night in a yurt just up the coast.

While the low tide is great for us who find it endearing to walk amongst the sea life that should be underwater, these barnacles might be looking forward to the return of their natural environment that has temporarily disappeared. I try imagining what it would be like if, on occasion, the air was pulled off the earth for a few hours, and we’d have to hold our breath and wait for its return. Come to think about it, I already feel this way about far too many people’s intelligence, it was pulled away and is yet to return.

Linger to see it all. Walk around to capture every angle. The view from one location is not the same as from another.

This small crack consumed the sun. We can attest to the truth of this as we were on hand to witness it fall in. How it will find its way back to us tomorrow is one of life’s mysteries. Without the benefit of our nearby star, we drove south to California finding shelter along the sea, but our hearts still walk in dreams along the beaches of Oregon.