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I. Tripping West

Mari and I drove to Davis, California to be with Bill and Jane and their family and friends to celebrate the life and sudden death of their son.  Tim was to be celebrated, even while being mourned, so we left a day or two early, in order to make the trip itself special, too.

The first day, we drove most of the way to Santa Barbara, in order to have a full day driving up the coast of California, to Monterey Bay.  It is a long, winding road, not demanding access to the coastline, but conceding to it, going where a slower time thought to go.

I do not believe in gods and ghosts and ghoulies, (although I have heard things go bump in the night), but when the gods made California, they made something beautiful!  Sun, and sea, and golden grass carpeting the hills is very close to something we first saw when we crawled up out of the surf, eons ago.  We still sweat salt, and echo the heartbeat of the surf.  Still we turn to the sun from where our elements came, and watch the clouds carry water inland.


Not only is San Simeon a silly and glorious passion, it is a determination to watch something elemental.  That seaside sliver of California west of the San Andreas fault, sliding northwest, and the continental side, hanging fast, are creating still.

We stopped for a snack where elephant seals are down on the shore, and where the speed limit is 20 mph, and the price of gasoline in $7.50 a gallon, because the tanker trucks come seldom and slowly, and because it is a long ways to an alternative.
The erosion of the continent at the shore, with high ridges and deep arroyos, made us go carefully, and gladly, to appreciate what glory really is.

I do believe that almost everywhere has beautiful places, but California is not everywhere.


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