Life is one beautiful trip.
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| 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.
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.
We made our way down to the beach, coffee mugs in hand, and
planted ourselves on a big rock. When we finished our first cup, it was time
for a walk.
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| Photo by Joelle Mann |
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| Photo by Joelle Mann |
Apparently, we meandered all the way to El Capitan Beach.
Thank you Kafka-esque technology.
