One Beautiful Trip: Where are we? What day of the week is this?

Life is one beautiful trip.

Imagine waking up here.

Thank goodness for Instagram. Otherwise I may not know where I am sometimes. And that’s a good thing. Driving for hours, on sometimes remote roads, it is easy to get caught up in the beauty instead of road signs. When I was traveling alone, through Colorado, I had no clue where I was one afternoon, until I posted to Instagram. When the option for Add Location came up, I discovered, “Oh, I’m in the Rio Grande National Forest.”

Routes 1 and 101 intersect, divide, collide, run parallel, and occasionally overlap along the California Coast, and we zigzagged between them frequently.

For days, every glimpse out our windshield was a post card in motion. When we checked into Fernwood campground in Big Sur, Joelle asked Tracey, at the check-in cabin, “What day is this?” And she replied, “That’s awesome you don’t know! And I’m not tellin’ you.”

Despite three types of GPS on two phones, a road atlas, and a camping guide, Joelle and I looked at each other over the dinner table one night, and pondered, “Where are we?” I immediately tried to post something to Instagram and find out, but oddly, no signal in the restaurant. That was a bit Twilight Zoney.

Does it get any more mellow than that? Not knowing what day it is or where you are? Just enjoying every minute of the journey. Being lost in beautiful nature.

For our final night in Steady Betty, we really wanted to sleep on the beach again. It was my duty as copilot, to keep my eyes peeled for potential places to park/camp/sleep as we drove. Routes 1 and 101 intersect, divide, collide, run parallel, and occasionally overlap along the California Coast, and we continually zigzagged between them.

Just before dusk, I spied a perfect ocean vista with swaying trees, and saw some RVs pulled over. “Let’s check it out.” Joelle is such a willing accomplice; she braked (well in advance) for the nearest exit, and we wound our way through a switchback to find ourselves in a place called Refugio State Beach Park. We got a nice spot under a tree and hit the sack.

And then the winds started. And grew stronger. And never stopped. Betty swayed from side to side, creaking and rattling in somnolent protest. Branches scraped along the top. I peeked out of the curtain to see if other campers were racing around, trying to leave in a hurry and escape to safety. Maybe there would be a man, running through camp, a small toddler, clutched in his arms. Surely, the camp host would be banging on our door any minute now telling us to evacuate because of a typhoon.

Not a soul was stirring.

So I went back to sleep.

We woke up to clear skies and singing birds the next morning. Looking around the campground, not a thing was out of place. No trash blown out of the cans. Camp chairs and coolers were exactly where everyone had left them the night before.