Week 2-3 in a flash: 2100 miles/ CA: Big Sur, Monterey, Half Moon Bay, Pescadero, San Fran, Marin, Lassen Volcanic Park, Mt. Shasta. Oregon: Crater Lake, Bend/Sisters. WA: Seattle.
Every road has some bumps, right? Days 8-20 had some real peaks and some definite valleys–and not the kind that are filled with mossy beds and pretty flowers, although there were a few of those, too. Let’s start with a high point.
We stayed 3 days in Big Sur, which is a dreamy place. Its redwoods hover over you like a faithful friend, and they make everything seem quiet and dark in a lush, smoky way. Our campground was right on the Big Sur, a shallow play-with-me river– and the kids did. John and the girls took a good long hike to Pfeiffer Falls. It’s just so damn pretty in Big Sur. And then on our way out we stopped at the Big Sur Bakery, which should have a sign that says “Dangerous Curves Ahead” because that’s what you’re in for after sampling their collection of streudels and donuts…. It’s too hard to choose so you gotta pick a bunch and dive in. Eating those sugar bombs while driving along Hwy 1, with its famously steep craggy blues and greens… It’s almost too much for a dough-loving romantic sucker like me.
Next stop, an odd “high end” RV park in Marina, CA, just above Monterey. This was our first stay in a paved RV park, and it wasn’t really our style. We prefer the more primitive kind, or at least John and I do. The kids like the ones with pools and game rooms, etc, but really as long as they can ride their bikes, they’re happy.
This was an ideal place for John to buckle down and start downloading all the random footage we’ve got so far, while the ladies and I hit the town like veritable civilized folks. We had lunch in Cannery Row, watching seals while others cooked for us… Then we hit the Monterey Aquarium, which is fantastic. But while fondling all the starfishes and sea cucumbers and such in the Touch Pools, a footlong pink rockfish attacked Zelda’s finger like it was “fillet” mignon! Lu and I had seen this fish eyeing our finger, but only Z had the guts to keep it there, and sure enough this fish took a gobble at it, drawing blood! She shrieked, and the staff man said, “They don’t bite,” and I’m like, Oh yeah!?!?! I felt a mother’s pang for revenge and started fantasizing about grilling that briny bitch on a stick…. but perhaps this was the fish’s revenge. Or Z’s fingers look like a wormy feast? Anyway, its over, and she recovered enough to join Lulu in an hour of bat ray petting– slimy, sinister-looking and lovely things.
One thing I love about this region? A new character enters the picture– the fog! It breezes in like a bold diva in the visual soap opera of the Cali coast. It’s so cool– you could be driving along, waving hi to a cow, then you hang a left and suddenly you’re swimming in marshmallow mist…. Also, the dunes along the coast are a unique and very sensitive habitat, speckled with pretty plants that make you wanna eat candy: sea rocket, yellow sand verbena, beach bur, salt bush, seaside daisy, coast buckwheat…. Even the words sea grass…. Ahhh… don’t you wanna take a hit?
Next: Half Moon Bay. The drive along the coast to and above Santa Cruz is pretty awesome. This is an area that looks great for living; definitely a cool place to go to college. And there’s a ton of produce growing there: artichokes, strawberries…. John and I keep saying that people seem happy in Central CA.
So another weird RV park, but we were hardly there. We visited the Welch family in Atherton, a great gang that Lulu had gotten to know on her Alaskan adventure with her grandparents last summer. They were the most charming hosts– gorgeous house, great kids, swimming, basketball, dinner and a surprise cupcake celebration for Lulu’s 12th birthday. If our heavy on nature, isolated explorations are peppered with great moments like these, with friends new and old, then this trip will really resonate for years to come. Thanks, Welch’s!!
The job I was on hold for in San Francisco was postponed, so we retraced our steps some, heading south on 1 to a sweet KOA resort near Pescadero beach. That strip of coast is breathtaking– unpeopled, immaculate. And we are new fans of KOA, which both of us had assumed was a cheesy RV trap. But no! It’s got it going on– clean, bright, even downright fancy at this one! We shot some fun play here amongst the grassy dunes and rock castle beaches. Fall was starting to show here, even the rampant poison oak blushing like the happy harlot she is. In fact, she got Lulu, who awoke on her birthday with her cheeks all rouged up with poison oak’s painful kiss. A week later Lu is still enduring the red hell vining across all parts of her body, the poor kid. Even puffed up and itchy, she doesn’t complain, our beautiful Lu…..
The next day we drove to San Fran for some distraction. Aside from the poison oak, Lulu and I both had gnarly headaches from a bad cold that is still tripping us up like shoelaces that refuse to be tied. We walked around downtown then had an Italian dinner with our lovable friends Curt and Justine. But by the time we got back to the KOA, John was tripped up, too– and down for the count. For the next few days, he was simply enveloped by the good ol’ bastard, the FLU. He’s still working his way back. It’s strange watching a rock get flattened like that, but John is tough and knows how to stare something like that in the face.
This was a good opportunity for me to get acquainted with Harvey. By the time I’d driven him through SF and into our next campground in Marin County, we were good friends, Harvey and I. I love him; his long heavy torso, wide turns and all…. Samuel P Taylor is adjacent to cool Bolinas on the ocean side. A pretty park, not that John would know, he was so sick. We were without electrical or H2O hookup, which was a nice change from the previous week’s privileges, and the girls and I biked and hiked around. I made a fire, cooked a mediocre dinner compared to John, who usually helms the fire and food, but I enjoyed stepping in.
Next morning, we moved on for a long haul in and up to Redding, where we spent our first night in a hotel to de-germ and watch some TV. We also gained some new family members: 2 black bear hamsters, which are sweet companions for the girls until we can get a dog. When I tell you that these boys are endowed with the biggest set of nuts you can imagine on something so small, you gotta believe me. Think of a small fuzzy pale peach resting on two tiny legs. Actually you can’t even see the legs, they’re so obscured by those cojones…. Too much information? Sorry, but it’s a feast for the eyes and good for a belly laugh.
Next we visited a new favorite park: Lassen Volcanic Nat’l Park. Outrageous. Even John had to find the strength to get out and hike in to the bubbling mud baths. (As king of fart jokes, maybe he felt hypocritical not paying his dues to the Mecca of sulfuric gasses.) But this park is so damn stunning, changing all the time– patchwork green meadows stitched with narrow snaky streams, high snowy peaks, volcanic rock, armies of treelined mountains…. That night we slept on state park land, waking up to Mt. Shasta staring down at us.
We drove out of CA and settled at another nice KOA in Sisters, Oregon. Oregon is like the Fonz from Happy Days; too sexy and confident in its coolness to have to make a big fuss over itself. It’s all there, all the things for which other states claim fame, and yet it just hangs out in its almost-corner of the country, quietly letting its natural good looks do all the talking.
The girls and I went horseback riding at a nearby ranch. Lu had a real beauty– a Norwegian Fjord and Belgian mix named Cookie– massive, broad and with a thick Mohawk. Z did great on her classy black– her first time riding solo. I was on a grey mustang that had a big scar on its back from being attacked by a cougar when young. We saw a rattlesnake on our ride. The horses weren’t phased at all, even as that sucker rattled as we strode by.
Then we visited a good friend of John’s from college, Deb Smith. Cool woman, teaches middle school, great kids, fish biologist husband… Again, people seem happy there. That night Zelda and I tried to read the skies, but the stars were shy. Z is dedicated to mastering that inky map, and knowing her, she will.
Now we are in Seattle. I have voice over work tomorrow, thankfully. John is feeling much better, and he’s giving us the grand tour of his old college stomping grounds. Lu still has poison oak. The two hamsters (Jesus and Big Junior, King of Balls) are swell. Harvey is hanging in there. After a week of some low valley, we are at a peak again. And loving a good life.