Woke up this morning in our tiny cabin over looking the Pacific. Seriously. We’re on a bluff that backs onto the ocean. We watched the sun go down into the ocean last night, and then got up from the rocking chairs and went in to light a fire and go to bed. Yes, fire. No heat. Quite chilly without the fire. Heavy comforters and all … but still. That’s a chilly breeze from Japan.
Looking out the window this morning we saw BUNNIES!!! There were two immature rabbits, who at one point exchanged rabbit-nose-kisses under our sleepy gaze. I mean, seriously. Rabbits? Nose kissing? That’s just crazy talk.
Went over to the Beachcomber Cafe, which was a little snapshot out of hippie-ville. While we were there, a backpacking dulcimer player wandered in and offered to work for his breakfast. The owner put him to work defrosting the chest freezer. We ate the locally cured lox on bagels. It ruled. I had the “epic” coffee blend.
Drove back up to Redwoods National Forest and drove the Coastal Trail. From the high bluff overlook we saw WHALES!!!! Specifically, gray whales too lazy to follow the calendar that says that they need to have started migrating by now. We proceeded around the trail, and then to various sites in Redwood forest – including “Big Tree.” BT is about 1,500 years old and perhaps 280 feet tall. When BT was a sapling, the Ottoman empire was in full swing, prior to the iconoclast period. Muhammad was a couple of hundred years from being born. Yeah. I visited something older than Yoda. Humans are neither as large nor as long-lived as we might imagine.
We then drove out to Fern Canyon, which was a trip. I considered hopping out to photograph the car, knee deep in a national part stream, as the starter picture for my new website: http://screwhertz.org. Thought better of it. We saw ELK, with CALVES!!! Based on the many signs indicating that the mothers are quite territorial, we decided against running up to the calves and hugging them. There were also many humans with their pups trailing after them, making that distinctive barking noise that human pups make.
I dropped redmed off at the cabin, grabbed a cup of coffee and a fresh-out-of-the-oven cookie from the coffee shop, and then went shopping. Bought smoked salmon and scallops, plus fresh cod, from the local smokers. They buy off the day boats and smoke what they can’t sell fresh. I LOVE this town. Also picked up tomatoes, cheese, basil, an onion, and another loaf of bread from the grocery store. We spent the remainder of the evening reading, eating, and trying to identify hummingbirds from the back porch.
The fire is now lit, and is off in search of chocolate.
— EDIT —
An additional amusing story: The owner of this place stopped by this evening to make sure everything was to our liking. He noticed my teach the controversy shirt, we exchanged the secret atheist hand signs to be sure we were cool, and then started talking openly. He’s perhaps 65 years old and clearly made bank back in the days when it was straightforward to do some good engineering work in CA and then buy coastal bluff property.
Cool dude. Wants to sponsor Art Weekend West. Seriously.
Anyway, at one point he said something to the effect that and I are going to have a continuing experience that we’re among the pod people … that we’re physiologically similar – but DIFFERENT from those around us.
We tried to express that we’re already there, and he’s like NO IT GETS WORSE.
Anyway, he also said three or four times that we need to “poke ’em in the eye,” referring to theists, creationists, political partisans, and a variety of other idiots.
I like it here.
