In the morning I made good use of the shower house and as I stepped back out into the chill, a park maintenance worker asked me if anyone else was in the women's side because he had to close things down to work on a water line break. A minute later I heard him answer his cell phone and say impatiently, "If you're not going to come help, then I don't have time right now. Bye." Secretly I hoped he was talking to his boss. Aren't those the words on the tip your tongue your entire working life? Those and the classic "Take this job and shove it."
He and a couple of others spent an hour or so digging and pumping out a hole a little way uphill from my campsite, slogging around in the mud and discussing strategy. All the water ran downhill from the break, but a curb of raised asphalt kept the stream confined to the road surface as it curved around my corner site and down the slope of the road to another section of the grounds.
Across the way from me, a woman in her mid to late 20's had the back hatch of her van open and I recognized a fellow Lost Camper by the stove and sink arrangement. I went over to say hello. It turns out she is English and has been traveling all over the world for the past year. She, too, had rented from the San Francisco location and it was Sebastian who checked the camper out to her. She didn't know that the bed platform could be transformed into table and benches, so he must have been even more speedy with her than he had been with me. I didn't linger in her space, as she was in the middle of cooking something, standing with a ginger root in one hand and rummaging around with the other in search of a grater. I wonder what sort of traveling she'd done for all those months? Camping the whole way? It's a lovely thought, all the possibilities there are when Time is an open river.
One advantage to the van: it's possible to keep everything inside and ready to roll on a moment's notice. This morning when I left for the day's excursions around Monterey, I was also on the road for the next phase of the trip. No tent take-down, no cooler to lug in from the picnic table or sleeping bag to compress and tie up. If I ever return to Monterey, I know a great place to stay.
Navigation via the iPhone maps app was by now my preferred way to go. The TomTom device remained a mystery to me and if I was in good signal territory for the phone it was easier to use the familiar rather than tangle with Señor Tom. Later in the trip when I really needed Tom because my phone was SOL, I discovered that Tom had also lost connection, so there went my only reason for renting the device in the first place. [Save that $60 next time.]
You can still have adventures misinterpreting iPhone directives, however. One such misstep landed me at the gatehouse of a resort town/exhibitionist kingdom called Pebble Beach. For a fee one can drive a loop called 17 Mile Drive to admire how and where the disgustingly affluent live. I declined the opportunity but I did have a chat with the 50-60 year old Latino manning the toll booth. He gave me a brochure and asked if I knew that Pebble Beach was originally founded and developed by Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse Code? He edged past me to allow me to read a blurb on the wall. What I read said that this connection between Pebble Beach and Mr. Morse actually concerned a distant cousin of the famous one, though there's only one middle name to distinguish them: Samuel Finley Brown Morse founded Pebble Beach Company in 1919. Samuel Finley Breese Morse invented the telegraph and the code that goes with it. I tried to point out the difference but he would have none of it. He was used to quoting that bit of glory and wasn't going to make changes that would weaken the tie. I thanked him and got back on my route again, adding the glossy brochure to the pile on the passenger seat. It turns out you can win back your $10 gate fee by spending at least $30 in one of the restaurants within the compound. Woop.
Pacific Grove and the Butterflies: they were there, in singles, fluttering slowly against a bright blue sky or sipping from tree blossoms. We were among eucalyptus and some other trees unfamiliar to me. I saw no massed swags of orange, for it's early in the season. It will take more arrivals to get them to coalesce. While I was there I was mistaken in thinking these guys were just resting up for a longer journey. But the story is more complicated : the eastern ones do travel down to Mexico. These ones just hang here for the winter. I would, too.
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| The best view of these creatures is the sight of them against the wide blue sky, not something I could capture with my equipment. |
At the entrance to the sanctuary I spotted something for my friend the dedicated Denver fan who visits Aspen every year for some event celebrating his music and legacy.
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| A connection to butterflies? To Pacific Grove? Not known. |
After the butterflies I located a laundromat on Lighthouse Ave. and piled together a small load. The soap dispenser stole my 75 cents and I asked others in the place if they knew of some special trick to get either my money returned or my measly box of detergent. One couple told me they had lost $1.50 to it already, and that the nearest place to buy supplies was xxxxxxxxxx, which sounded far away. The man asked how much laundry I had and I showed them my half-full machine and they gave me a glug from their bottle.
This reminded me that I was still on the lookout for a good night jar, and I looked into the nearest trash container once I got my machine going. Sure enough, a large orange Tide bottle was in there, WITH the essential screw-top lid. It was dripping with the blue streaks of its former contents. I waited until my benefactors were loaded up and off to their car --- wouldn't do for them to see me holding a big detergent bottle right after they'd kindly supplied me --- and I reached in. Fortunately this laundromat had a nice big sink and I was able to rinse it out. That's where another idea struck: trash cans could also be a source of leftover detergent. If a sink is available, the rinsings from discarded bottles could come in handy --- something to keep in mind.
Now I was rich. Night jar, soon-to-be clean clothes --- what else did Pacific Grove have to offer? I knew that the used bookstore I'd spotted was far enough away that I would want to finish the laundry first. I wandered along the street, spotted the news dispenser where the headline about the power outage jumped out at me. Further along I came to Spirals, a consignment shop with used clothing. I scored a pair of black Levi's, brand new for $10: perfect memento of a trip that started in San Francisco just as Levi Strauss did back in his day.
Laundry dried and put away, I went off to visit Book Buyers at 600 Lighthouse Ave. It was a nice place, crowded with bookshelves. I described the Mass Observations project to the man at the desk and he went online and found that there are, indeed, more published works arising from the M.O. project. He didn't have any of them, but he took me through a few twists and turns of shelving and showed me the section on WWII history. I had barely started to browse when another customer edged up the narrow aisle and asked me if I had a special interest in WWII, as he'd overheard me talking to the bookseller. I said I wasn't really keen on the war per se, but he handed me a sticky note on which he had already written:
Hans Fallada
Every Man Dies Alone
Excellently written, he explained, this novel is set in wartime Berlin during the reign of terror inflicted by the Nazis in power. The main characters are engaged in anti-Nazi propaganda, trying to encourage badly scared people to resist the regime. The characters are based on real-life counterparts who did the same thing and lost their lives in ultimate consequence. I said I'd keep an eye out for it, and that sticky note stayed for days on the dashboard of the van, a reminder of how enthusiasm for books that one has treasured will spontaneously bubble over if receptive ears come within range.
[Now, as I write this up, I have in front of me a review of the book with the following quote:
"He might be right," she concludes, "No one could risk more than his life. Each according to his strength and abilities, but the main thing was, you fought back."]
I scanned the WWII shelves and moved on empty handed, then went to ask where diaries and journals in general might be found. Again the clerk (owner?) led me around corners until we reached "Biography." I picked out a book by Elizabeth Gilbert called The Last American Man. When I went up to pay, he was interested in what I'd found. I had Elizabeth Gilbert confounded with Cheryl Strayed in my mind, I don't know why, but the bookman set me straight. I said I'd been unable to get through Eat, Pray, Love and he nodded and murmured something that might have been agreement, but I did like the look of this one and wanted to get into it.
[An intriguing read it is, too: the story of an amazing and maybe tragic man living in a century that rarely sees his level of wilderness skills. Gilbert is an engaging writer with a respect for her subject that never fails to show itself even as she describes his flaws. It's a timely tale and Gilbert uses it to talk about what's missing in the way our young are growing up disconnected from the essential skills of survival that have always been part of human life. It's not over yet. Eustace Conway is still alive and kicking and stirring up controversy. Whether he really is who he or Gilbert claims, the problem remains: if the grocery stores we take for granted suddenly disappeared most of us wouldn't know how to keep ourselves alive.]
I made my way south now, heading for Point Lobos State Reserve, skirting the whole Pebble Beach area, which sits smack in the way of a direct route. On arrival, my first sight at the trail head was a large poster offering information on the dusky-footed wood rat, aka packrat. The reserve has some of their nest piles and if I was lucky I might get to see one. I spoke to the nearby docent about packrats and shiny things and nest building, and thought of my father and his Packrat Books self-publishing venture. The docent recommended 2 trail loops in the northern section of the reserve: Cypress Point Trail and Whaler's Cove Trail, so I walked both of these, admiring enormous cypress trees, rocky cliffs and more crashing surf and cormorants.
The rocks of this area are marvelous and geologists flock to this point to study the earth history revealed in them. The brochure took some study to absorb, both that day and then again later, but even without knowing the details a person can see two main types. One is a sandstone with woodgrain-like stains of lovely rust color. Some of this sandstone has areas of conglomerate, rich in rounded pebbles and smaller bits and interesting gaps where pebbles used to be. Its official name is Carmelo Formation. The rocky cliffs of the Cypress Trail are different: they are like the stacked towers I found so appealing near Point Pinos, and I believe are the same: a rock called granodiorite. It's almost a granite and would be so called if the type of feldspar crystals within it were of a slightly different chemical composition. This is the oldest rock present and was formed of molten magma 10 miles deep in the earth that cooled over time and slid up here from around Mexico a few eons ago. Because it's crystalline rather than sedimentary, it has some fascinating fractures. If I am correct in my identification, the photo below shows the granodiorite in the background on the left, with the darker Carmelo Foundation rotting away in the foreground:
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Left of center is a mass of almost cubical shapes and I believe they cleave that way because they are composed of millions of crystals which individually share the same characteristic shape. Again, if I got it right, in the foreground is the other rock of the area, the Carmelo Formation which is sedimentary in type so it is more like a sandstone. |
I could fill this page with rocks, but I won't because there are still the seals and they cannot be left out.
My favorite clip is of this seal working hard to get up from the water to the surface of the rock its friends were resting on. Imagine being cuffed with hands behind your back trying to do the same. Those flippers are strong, but just not designed for rock climbing. It's heave, flump..... heave, flump, landing on the breast/belly each time.
There are signs at numerous seal viewing points along the coast that keep reminding, pleading with people not to approach the seals. Not just for humans' safety, but for the seals' sake. Every ounce of energy spent trying to avoid an approaching human is an ounce not available when they need to escape one of their ocean predators. Watching this seal work and work to get herself landed makes the importance of energy conservation stunningly clear.
I was pleasantly tired when I returned to the van nearing sunset. I headed further south to see if there was a hope of camping at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.
Campground Full
said the sign on the kiosk when I arrived. I went back up Highway 1 about a mile and pulled into a well-appointed RV park called Fernwood Resort and parted with $55 for the privilege of parking and sleeping. One feature was very nice: a lovely outdoor kitchen sink with tiled counter and running hot and cold water. There were hot showers as well.
