Three and a half years after leaving for what was supposed to be a three-month gig in Memphis, Answerjack returned home to Marin County. We celebrated with a week-long road trip because, as I kept telling people because I was so taken with the cleverness of the little joke, celebrating the end of the hellish cross-country commute by boarding an aircraft would be akin to celebrating the end of a long famine by chewing the bark off a tree.
Like every other creature on the planet with opposable thumbs, we rely on GPS devices. I'm perversely attached to old-school paper maps, though. We covered about 18 leisurely, gorgeous inches on our trip, down the coast through Big Sur, onward to San Simeon, through Santa Barbara, then inland to Ojai.
Big Sur sorely tries those who have taken Solemn Vows to avoid taking postcard-y tourist pictures. Perfectly framed vistas muscle their way into one's camera as soon as it's turned on, like it or not. This we liked very much—McWay Falls in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Incredibly, this was once privately owned. It was deeded to the state with the stipulation that the beach, with its 60-foot waterfall and colony of cocky seagulls, remain closed to the public to protect its fragile ecosystem.
This beach, named after another Pfeiffer, you can get to—if you can find it. It's unmarked, apparently a stipulation of whatever long-ago deal was struck to make this majestic slice of coast accessible to at least some of the public. It's worth asking for directions.
Purplish sand, too.
Taking in the twilight at the Big Sur Lodge. It's right in Pfeiffer State Park, with old-fashioned cabins complete with real wood-burning fireplaces that, depending on the skill of the fire-builder, make guests smell like happy campers or smoked hams.
Buzzing along Route 1 with the windows up, we noticed what appeared to be very large, sea-smoothed stones lining the beach. Answer-J wondered if maybe the rocks were really seals or something; I said nah, we'd know it if they were, because seals are really noisy. Then we rolled down the windows. Duh. Here's the sea lion colony at Piedras Blancas, hard to miss—or mistake. Our personal best in oblivious tourism, though, was when we found ourselves in the middle of a massive, rosary-clutching mob on our way to the Vatican Museum, wondering why everyone was chanting Il Papa! Il Papa!—and who was that guy waving his arms about in the window of the palace anyway?
The Hearst Castle at San Simeon is another amazing private treasure deeded over to the state. Everything you've heard about it is true, and then some. For maximum enjoyment, skip the film that attempts to explain William Randoph Hearst's unique obsession through cringe-inducing portrayals of wee Willie in a lace collar, trailing his mummy through a series of European castles while his dad is off consolidating the family's wealth and power by strong-arming hoopleheads out of their claims and busting miner's unions. OK, so the film leaves out this last bit of the narrative. At any rate, we very much appreciate the remarkable generosity of the Hearst decendants in giving us all the castle and ranch to enjoy, but really, it's the least they could do to expiate the sins of their forebears.
Trixie had a good time while we were away, too. Here she is taking the breeze on Jessica and John's boat in San Francisco Bay...
And here she is bar-hopping in the Mission with Natalia. That's her friend Jodie in the background. Paws on the bar, Trixie!
We get to come home to a pretty great place, too. Yet another breathtaking sunrise from the bedroom deck, the day after we returned home.
That night, we found this peculiar object hidden behind a tree on our property. Trixie had been outside, barking like a crazed thing, and when we went out, flashlights in hand, to see why she was so wound up she (more or less) led us to it. That dog has high aesthetic standards, and this craft-y piece of crap clearly did not make the cut. It got us thinking, though: how did it wind up placed behind a tree on a steep section of our fenced property? It was on the table outside as I battened down the hatches the next day, closing the umbrellas on the deck before an approaching storm.
It rained like fury that night. Next morning, I found the remnants of the broken teacup and its weird accoutrements scattered about the lawn, which is up a flight of irregular stone steps from the deck where I had left it. We have a lot of critters in the neighborhood—the damn deer, rapacious raccoons, well-fed wild turkeys, and our own serial killer cat—plus the wilder animals inhabiting the open space beyond our property line: coyotes, feral pigs, and the occasional mountain lion. I tried to imagine a scenario in which any of these quadrupeds could have carried a china teacup, intact, up a flight of stairs before dismantling it outside our bathroom window and came up short. When I noticed that one of the chairs around the table had been moved several feet to face the house I called the village police for a reality check: was I over-reacting? They thought not, and sent out a very personable and helpful cop who couldn't figure out a plausible explanation, either. He did conduct an informal security inspection, and was aghast to find this:
An uncovered shower window. In fairness to our judgment, it does look out onto uninhabited open space, and is not visible from the street or our nearest neighbors' property. It's peeping-tom-only viewing, and there's no way to hang a curtain rod without drilling into the surrounding stone, which is why I'm having the window panes replaced with clouded glass, ASAP.
Immediate crisis over, we chilled out—behind locked doors. Our little low-crime community has its share of harmless loonies, who are apparently very bad at handicrafts. I don't know whether to consult Martha Stewart, or Marie Laveau. In any event, we can rest securely, knowing that Trixie is vigilant against tresspassers.
The Same, Only Different:
Adieu, Memphis. Or Not.
Inside, Looking Out
Portly Passengers, Please Pony Up
