Monterey

Monterey, California

As we leave Crescent City, there is a great distance before our next scheduled stop in Monterey. Leaving Crescent City we begin a two day drive that ends in a little area by San Juan Bautista at the Betabel RV Park.  Here we spend seven days exploring the Monterey coast and the surrounding area of San Juan Bautista.   

 

We are welcomed to Monterey by a little French bakery with an outside garden court.  Refreshed by pastry and tea in the outdoor garden of  a small French bakery nestled on a side street by the USPS we headed into town to explore the coastal walkway.  

The well-known Cannery Row parallels an eight mile walking trail.  We spent our day walking about three miles along the coast.  Cannery Row, formerly the scene of a thriving sardine fishing industry, now houses a long line of tourist shops and the Monterey Aquarium.

Warm, bright sunshine brought out the Pacific’s aquamarine blue as the ocean splashed along the rocky shoreline. 

Families, joggers, and tourists pass one another while taking in the sights of the occasional sailboat, sea lions lounging on nearby rocks, rock sculptures shaped by eons of wave and wind and the occasional surfer riding a sideways wave along the shore.   

  

It was a wonderful way to spend the day after two days of travel.  At the end of the walk we enjoyed a sunset diner and The Beach House at Lover’s Point.  

                      

It’s here at Lover’s Point that we see love in bloom.   

Young couples walking along wrapped in each other’s embrace, families riding bikes with their children or pushing strollers, and older couples simply walking hand in hand.  

Taking in the view from a shoreline rocky bench or splashing in the surf in a shallow, sandy pool couples all seem to pause here for a moment of connecting with one another.

Redwoods

March 10, 2014

 


There are travelling days and staying days.  It took two days to reach our redwood destination, Crescent City.  For three and a half days we toured this region of redwoods.  The coastal redwoods span a range that begins in southern Oregon and end along the coastal region of California known as Big Sur.

In and around Crescent City is a dense area of combined state and national redwood parks.  The sun was shining when we arrived.  By the time we left an accumulated 6” of rain had fallen.  The heavy rain restricted some of our plans.  But, we were able to take a scenic drive which included a short hike as well as taking two very short walks in the rain through small sections of the forest.

 Various firs, hemlock and pine grow in the Washington forests.  These trees exhibit a self-pruning attribute where lower limbs fall to the forest floor while the crowns continue their upward growth.  The California redwoods, however, do not so readily self-prune. Fresh limbs can grow along the full length of the trunk throughout the life of the tree.  Looking up through the branches sunlight filters through the lattice work bringing light to the forest floor.  There’s a wide expanse between the crown of the redwoods and the vegetation of the forest floor.  Although there are multiple layers in the understory, there really seems to be but two layers of vegetation in the redwood forest.  Towering overhead and reaching crowns to the sky are the giant redwoods.  But, little grows in mid-level range of the forest until the forest floor is reached. 
 

Throughout the floor various wildflowers bloom alongside ferns that grow to three feet tall and branching out about three feet.  The streaming sunlight is soft and filtered and is weaves its way through this gap between the understory and the upper canopy.

 There is a sense of higher intelligence and connection to that ‘being’ that is the source of all things in the redwoods.  Being present with an ageless intelligence brings about a natural quiet.  Walking along simple trails we almost hear trees breathing.  Standing still at any point near trees that rise to over 300’ tall and 22’ in diameter you feel your own insignificance in the scheme of time, while at the same time you feel fully part of the moving tapestry of time.  Being out in the natural world can do this to us.  We felt that deep, clean, powerful and powerless connection to all beings in the contrail of time.