We received this as a postcard a few days ago, saying “Can’t wait to order my copy of Tiny Homes. Thanks for all the hard work.” Can’t make out the signature, it looks something like “Anne.”
On tonight’s walk:
This little SUV looked so tuned in. Maybe it’s a surfer with a tiny home.
Beach was wind-swept and people-less as the storm hovered offshore, except for the lovers hanging out on the groin. Tall dark handsome guy “…from Switzerland,” pretty, good-vibes California girl, a nice couple. I love a deserted beach.
“All the leaves are brown,
And the sky is grey…” – Mamas and Papas on Sirius ’60s radio right now. You know, this is a pretty good song.
I did a bunch of solo backpacking in the ’60s and ’70s — the Sierras, Yosemite, Big Sur, Utah — but not in recent decades.
I’ve decided to get back into it, because the rewards are so great. Also because I’ve quit competitive running.
Thus, I set out with small Sierra Design tent, my new (wonderful) Western Mountaineering made-in-USA sleeping bag, plus various odd assorted items, and spent Saturday night on a remote beach.
Well, I’m a bit out of practice. Too much weight, forgot flashlight, and worst, as I got the fire ready to light, to barbecue one of our small bantam chickens and bake a potato in foil, I had no matches, or lighter. Fuck! It’s an hour and a half walk back to where matches might be obtained, total 3 hours for such stupidity. Oh man, I’m not gonna be able to cook any food, won’t be able to stay warm on this cold night, can’t sit around staring into embers…Wait a minute, I’ve got a tiny Primus stove with self igniter, voila…Got fire started just before moon came up. Chicken roasted over coals, even had butter and salt for potato. Plus, heh heh, a flask of Don Pilar Agave Azul tequila…
Even if for one night, it’s good for me to get away from electricity and all the comforts. No one for me to talk to, or blog to. Ulp! A jolt of solitariness. Refreshing. The fire is my TV, the stars part of my night, Orion in its lovely articulation rising and moving across the ocean horizon…
(And so glad to get back home.)
Last night I traded a building book to fisherman Todd for these 2 beauties. How about that Pacific Ocean?
I was born in San Francisco. One day after a high school swim meet at Fleishacker Pool (out at Ocean Beach) a guy named Jim Fisher* got me to swim out into the surf with him. I was stunned. The blue (cold) water, the waves, it was sunny afternoon, it was paradise. That clinched my attachment to this powerful body of water. I’m so in love with the Pacific Ocean.
I’ve travelled the coast from Vancouver Island down to the tip of Baja California, and found a similar spirit, brothers and sisters of the beach (you know who you are) everywhere along this coastal waterway. We share a lot. There’s a theory that the coast was settled by Indians in canoes. Could be. After all, the First Nations people speared whales from canoes made out of hollowed-out cedar trees.
*A powerful swimmer, Jim went to Hawaii in the ’50s and rode some of the biggest waves ever at Makaha.
I met my friend Louie in Bodega Bay yesterday. We went out in his homemade sailboat to pull up a crab pot. Only one crab. Then north along Hwy 1. The pic below is of the beach at Jenner, the mouth of the Russian River, where it was churning with life of seal and bird persuasion. Then over the next 10 or so miles of winding often-hair-pin cliffside highway to the Timber Cove Inn, where we had (great) hamburgers and dark draft beer and looked out at the ocean, where whales were spouting, on their way from Alaska south to Scammon’s lagoon and other warm water bays for calving. Sun setting just before we got into Pt. Arena. Really a nice day, blue water, a nice swell, surfers out (mostly getting stuffed by straight across 8-foot waves) at Salmon Creek. I feel so lucky, being able to take off for a few days like this, recharging psychic batteries…
Just ran across this photo, a detail of beach art, from a few months ago. I’ve got tons of photos I just can’t get to.
On the radio now: Found Love by Jimmy Reed