I woke up so nice and toasty in my sleeping bag that I didn't want to get up, but the urge to explore this new place quickly overtook my laziness and I enjoyed a quick breakfast while gazing at the silvery pale morning ocean.
I went for a very quick (15 second long) walk down a little path in front of my campsite for another view of the shoreline:
I drove up to Big Sur to visit the Forest Service station and get some hiking maps. The views along the drive were so beautiful, and I couldn't believe how lush the hills were:
I was very worried that I wouldn't be able to stay at the campsite where I slept the night before, since it was pretty crowded and I hadn't made reservations. As I approached the Forest Service station, I finally got cell phone service and called the campground management company. They said it was no problem, just pay every morning before I head off hiking and I'll be all set. A huge weight lifted from my shoulders - I had been hesitant to fall in love with the campsite (though it happened without me trying...), but now that I knew it was really mine for the next 4 days I was filled with joy and gratitude!
The ranger at the station informed me that the Ventana Wilderness east of Rt. 1 was closed to the public due to a big fire in the area this past summer. I was disappointed as there were tons of great hikes in that area, but he told me about 2 wilderness areas just north of it (Garrapata State Park), and to the south (Silver Peaks Wilderness) that were open - hooray! I got some maps and he told me about some good long hikes I could take, both along the coast and in the hills. He even told me about one that I would need to cross a river to reach - that sounded awesome! But for the day, I decided to head to Garrapata State Park, as I was already fairly close to it and was ready for a long hike.
The park, like many parks in the area, was divided into an east and west side by Route 1. I started off on the west side and hiked around the bluffs overlooking the wild ocean.
There was so much poison oak that it prompted me to start making poison oak jokes in the same vein as my "California is so flammable" jokes. (I do recognize that people have lost their lives in these fires, which is obviously not a laughing matter. I attempted to instill in myself an appropriate spirit of reverence, but the jokes kept coming out...). If you remove all the poison oak along the Big Sur coastline, the entire state of California will lose half its weight in plant matter... seriously.... It more than makes up for it in wildflowers though, and I wound through fields of every color: purple, yellow, white, coral, red, blue.... At every turn I was swept away by the beauty of this place.
The path wound around the rocky cliffs, and I found myself yearning to touch the water, even just to put a finger in it.... So I did what any curious person would do and made my way down the cliffs to the ocean, throwing off the voice of "what are you going to do if you fall or break your neck?" inside of me and instead deciding that I just wouldn't fall or break my neck!
That tiny rocky beach offered me the only seashells I found my entire trip. The little tide pools sheltered among the rocks were alive with muscles and barnacles, but not much else. I climbed over the rocks, surrounded by the whirring wings of the sand fleas as they left their meal of giant sea kelp and descended again after I had passed. My face spread into a wide grin as I stuck my hand in the water. It was entirely worth the climb down the cliffs.
I could hear sea lions calling on the rocks just beyond me, but decided to make my way back up the cliffs in favor of disturbing them.
There was a beautiful hillside to climb right near the water, and I stopped to eat an apple and gaze at the ocean while a breeze cooled my skin, warmed by the sunlight washing over me. The hill was about 800 feet high, which was plenty high enough to give me a beautiful view to enjoy.
Having toured the paths on the west side of the road, I crossed Route 1 and headed up into the hills on the east side. I was greeted by a huge field of wildflowers, which set the stage for the rest of my hike:
I felt like I was in Jurassic Park the entire time I was on the coast, but in this park especially. The diversity of plant life was amazing and ranged from enormous cacti populating the hillsides:
...to horsetail ferns, which have been around since the age of dinosaurs:
...to massive redwood trees:
Try to imagine the tallest tree you've ever seen. Now double it. That gives you roughly an idea of how tall these were, unless the tallest tree you've seen is a redwood. Then you know exactly how majestic and humbling an experience it is to see one.
The path, which had run alongside a stream in a little canyon, turned upwards and started climbing the flowery hillsides.
There were lizards all over the place, sunning themselves on rocks or along the path. A couple of them began doing push-ups in what I assume was an attempt to intimidate me. One particularly large lizard did this, prompting me to get down on my hands and knees so that I was eye level with him. The next time he did push-ups, I said "one-two! one-two! one-two!" He stopped and eyed me suspiciously, then started up again. So I called "one-two! one-two!" He stopped and stared again and I looked at him like "wut" and we stayed there eyeing each other for a bit. Then I explained to him that he should move off the path so I wouldn't smush him and gently shooed him away with the shadow of my hand.
At this point, surrounded by all of this overwhelming beauty, I felt overcome by a heavy wave of despair that left me gasping for air as I fought against tears and tried to breathe at the same time. I sat down in the middle of the trail (luckily it was totally deserted), among the sun and beautiful fields of wildflowers, among bees and butterflies hovering around me, and cried. I cried over my ex, over being alone and having nobody to share this amazing experience with, I cried just to shake the sadness that's been suffocating me since the break-up in February. I wished that it was a snake skin so I could rub it off and watch as it was wisked away in the breeze. I cried because I felt sorry for myself... in the middle of paradise, I actually felt sorry for myself. The wave of sadness passed, as such things tend to do, and I dusted myself off to face the rest of the hillside. I decided I didn't want to feel sorry for myself anymore and lost myself once again in the breathtaking beauty of this place.
What I'm looking for isn't a place that I can travel to, or a thing that I can do. It's a melding of hearts, and it's all I want to find.
The view from the summit was beautiful: rolling green hills and bright cheerful flowers leading down in soft v's to the flat blue of the ocean. I met up with a group of elderly hikers and became part of their number for a bit (I was trying to pass them but there were so many!). They joked that this mountain was the mountain of youth, and by the time I got to the bottom I'd be in kindergarten. I was happy to share a laugh with them, and admired their calm dedication to their hike. I hope I'm doing things like that when I'm 60, 70, 80....
California has so much poison oak, the poison oak plants have their own biome.
I hiked about 11 miles that afternoon and was proud of myself for making it. The hillside was so incredibly steep going up! At one point, the journey was more an emotional than physical one, with the greatest challenges lying inside of my own mind and heart. Since the breakup, I have felt like his message to me was that I wasn't "enough" for him: it was about what he perceived I am not, what I am lacking. I really internalized that, but this trip made me realize that I was doing so. And I realized that I was allowing myself to be defined by this negativity, allowing myself to be reduced and restrained by it.
Sometimes 99% of the challenge in solving a problem is defining it. Once you know what you're facing, then facing it is the easy part. As soon as I realized this is what was going on inside of me, that this negativity is what I had internalized, I was able to free myself from it. I felt absolutely triumphant to define myself not by what I'm lacking in another's eyes, but what I AM in an absolute sense. I overcame the sadness that brought me down and became completely present on those beautiful hillsides. This theme of throwing off others' perceptions of what I am not, and finding myself strong in what I am, continued throughout my trip. It felt really, really good.
I returned to my campsite, mulling these thoughts over in my head during the deliciously curvy drive down. The ocean waves and eucalyptus embraced me as I started a fire and made my dinner. My fire made me laugh a little - I used firewood that I brought from Colorado and kindling from my campsite in California. Two of the most flammable states in the country... if I couldn't start a fire using those components, I would write myself off as hopeless!
Since I knew I would be staying at this campsite, I allowed myself to fall in love with it.
I walked up to my car at one point during the sunset and ran into an Australian RV camper who I had chatted with earlier that evening. We talked a bit, and at one point she asked if I was sleeping in a tent and said she and her husband were worried about me. She seemed reassured when I said that I had a tent, and it warmed my heart to know that a kind stranger had actually spent a couple of moments thinking about me. It feels nice to be thought of.
Returning to my campsite, I took in the sight of the waves in the waning twilight glow. My fire crackled next to me, and over its quiet rustlings washed the song of ocean waves breaking over gray shadows of rocks and cliffs in the sea. The moon hung high above the sun, above the sunset wash and over the fog, in a quiet area of the sky that had already settled into night. The stars were amazing and Orion hung tall and proud, the dominant figure of the sky. I lay on my picnic table and sang "Satellite" to a passing satellite weaving slowly between the stars.
* * * *
Day 4: Wednesday, April 1 - Big Sur
I woke up to another morning of dampness, my clothes cold and clammy in the early morning air. Having dampness around me was an odd experience after living in Colorado for almost 2 years, because it's so dry there! I sat for a moment and just touched the thin layer of wet air that had settled onto my clothes, amazed by its presence.
Happy April Fool's Day! I decided to call my sister to tell her that I saw Val Kilmer (har de har) but luckily for her I didn't have cell phone service. I did, however, see a pirate at a gas station - I mean, this guy looked like the real deal. He had a big knife strapped across the chest of his white blouse, a heavy long leather coat that hung to mid-thigh, high leather boots, and a cane.
After the very physical and emotional day that I had the day before, I decided I wanted to be gentle with myself on this day and check out some more "touristy" stuff. I began my drive down the coast until I felt an urge to pull over into what was barely a turnoff area, marked only by a metal gate. I got out of my car, wondering why I felt the need to stop here, and noticed a path crossing the land west of Route 1. It looked like it headed to the ocean, and I hadn't yet visited a soft sandy beach here, so I figured why not? I packed my backpack and headed off.
I walked slowly through a field of bright yellow flowers and came to a massive tree:
Note the presence of my backpack to help give perspective! The underside of the branches was all cleared out, and it felt like a magical shady little place of peace. I thought this was great and couldn't get much better... until I arrived at the beach and saw the driftwood hut:
The hut felt like this massive benevolent presence on the beach, like a big friendly spirit watching over the place. It felt like part of the beach, not just an accessory but more like something made of the very bones of the beach itself. In front of the hut was a "garden" made of driftwood and cairns. I walked to the hut and sat inside of its powerful presence, watching massive plumes of sea spray climb the rocks in front of me as the waves crashed in towards the shore.
It's been a long, long time since I have felt so completely whole, peaceful, and grounded as I did when I was sitting in that hut. The feelings were a wonderful gift, for which I expressed gratitude by adding another cairn to the garden.
After a few hours, I continued down the road towards an elephant seal rookery. I couldn't believe how many seals there were, and how close I was to them!
They were amazing to see. They snorted, trumpeted, and made some interesting sounds that reminded me of Jabba the Hut. The ones who trumpeted were the ones in the water, calling to the others to play with them in the waves. They touched noses with each other, flopped on each other to lay in the sun, flipped sand on their backs and the backs of any seals downwind from them, and inched and rolled across the sand like giant caterpillars. Some adult males began biting at the little ones, and the little ones revolted by starting their own safe little baby colony. The most startling thing I saw them do was use their flippers like little hands to scratch their skin. Their flippers look like they have 5 long bones running through them, just like human hands, and they looked oddly like human hands as they scratched their bellies, under their flippers, and along their chins. Their antics cracked me up more than once, and I gave myself over to silly laughter. I thanked them from the bottom of my heart for sharing their playfulness, then traveled on.
The further south I traveled along the coast, the more flat the land became and the more civilization surrounded me. My next stop was Hearst Castle, which seemed so strangely civilized after just 2 nights of camping that it took me aback. The air on the castle grounds was permeated by the scent of orange blossoms and I filled my lungs with the beautiful smell as much as I could (I'm surprised I didn't hyperventilate...).
There were many pieces of sculpture from ancient civilizations, as well as by renaissance artists. There is a bronze by Donatello perched on top of this fountain in front of the guest house:
Some of the sculptures along the pediment of this temple facade are from ancient temples, including the figure of Neptune:
And here's the castle itself:
I had a fierce craving for pizza so stopped at a little restaurant near Big Sur. The pizza tasted exactly like pizza flavored Goldfish crackers and totally hit the spot.
The ocean along this area of the coast always seems to have a haze of fog over it, and I got the impression that I couldn't see very far out into it. Every evening, the sun would sink into the fog without much of a show of color: there were no clouds to reflect its light, and the fog just sort of absorbed the whole affair. The whole horizon line would turn a washed out and grayed shade of peach, and every sunset was beautiful in its quiet serenity.
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