Catching Up II

 

I'm sitting in my hotel room in Pacific Grove listening to the bell at the lighthouse tolling off in the distance. I finally made it to the Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS) Annual Meeting at California's Asilomar Conference facility. I'm staying at the Sea Breeze Inn, not at Asilomar. The Sea Breeze is a little downmarket for this area, but its perfect for me. Not really, since I'm typing this with the computer sitting on the bed and me sitting in a rocking chair, there being no actual desk in this room. But whatever. It's cheap. But no wireless.

Anyway, Saturday. I got up early, left the room around 7:30a and headed off to Sunset Beach State Park. I was half considering not going, since I had just been to two beaches further south at Elkhorn Slough, and I figured that Sunset would just be more of the same. I'm glad I toughed it out because Sunset was completely different. First off, it's a pay site. That's actually a good thing, since that means someone is paying a modicum of attention to the facilities and such. I got there around 8:00a. You pay at the booth and then drive a good distance south, parallel to the ocean, past the campgrounds and the little community of homes on top of the ridge. The road finally turns toward the ocean and you realize that you are a good what 200-300 feet above the water. There's a great view as you descend to the shore. Park and then climb over the little beach ridge and you have a huge beach in front of you. What appears to be miles in either direction, and maybe a hundred yards from the big ocean dunes/cliffs to the water at high tide. Very different from Elkhorn. The beach is pretty flat, like you might see in Florida or maybe like Huntington Beach in Los Angeles. Since I was there kind of early it was still pretty empty. It was quite dramatic, with the ocean washing the beach and the sun starting to bun off the fog so the coastal sage scrub, with the giant yellow lupines on the cliffs starting to light up. With no people visible in front of me, I could feel like I had the whole beach to myself. Me and the gulls and shorebirds. I have no idea what I was seeing, but I know I didn't recognize what they were. By the time I turned around and headed back to the car, people were starting to fill up the beach, including surfcasting fishermen. On the way out I stopped at a parking area at the top of the ridge and got out to check out the view. You walk a short way through the aromatic scrub and come to a fenced-in open area that I realized was a hang-gliding launch pad. It gave a fantastic view. More different birds I didn't know.

I drove back to the Red Roof, finished off my previous post, packed up and decided that I would go into the Monterey area and look for a hotel room. I took a slight detour through Watsonville and then got on Highway 1 and headed south. This road takes you past Elkorn area, then through the artichoke growing region, then on towards the Monterey (MRY) metroplex. Most of the geographic area of metro MRY is in the towns of Sand City and Seaside. After stopping at a few hotels to check rates and availability, I finally found a hotel where I could mooch off their wireless (Thanks Travelodge!) and found a Travelocity listing for a hotel in Seaside (the Blue Lagoon Inn) that had a great rate and decent reviews on TripAdvisor. I stopped there, it seemed on the up-and-up. It was run by an Indian family and they gave me Room 0, next to the office. Did I mention that they had free high-speed wireless? It was around 1:00p by this time, so I dropped off my suitcase and headed back out.

It's just short of an hour drive to the Big Sur region from MRY. The drive is along the coast most of the way, and it's got to be one of the most scenic routes in the world. The route is curvy and the road is narrow, but you can't avoid seeing the dramatic vistas of the epic coastline. There are viewing pullouts and parking for beach access along the way, but I pressed on like Lee nails until I got to Pfeiffer Burns State Park. There are a variety of private campgrounds in the area, but PBSP has the most developed trails, etc. I paid at the booth, parked at the trailhead spot and set out to see the Waterfall and the Valley Vista trails. In terms of site develoment, the trails aren't that much different from say Hocking Hills State Park. Obviously heavily used. You start out walking up the valley along the stream through a grove of some Redwood sprouts, the big one only maybe 4 or 5 feet in diameter. After a 20 minute walk to the falls, the trail then turns uphill and you walk though the dry oak scrub forest that is actually more characteristic of the area. Another 30 minutes and some bitter recriminations over leaving the water in the car later, you come out on the top of a ridge that offers views of the valley that Highway 1 runs through, and of the 1000+ foot chapparell covered mountain next to this wee ridge.

After the hike back down to the car and stopping at the Big Sur Lodge to check out the facilites, I headed off to find the JPBSP beach. This beach is listed in every guide of Big Sur. I had to see it. You drive a little way down Highway 1 then turn off onto a county road. The county road soon becomes a two-mile-long single lane road. Slightly curvy but mostly flat with just dirt and woods along the roadside. There were some periods of negotiations with oncoming drivers, but nothing too serious, and eventually I got to the booth where I paid the lady and parked the car. During one of the oncoming car negotiations, one of the drivers shouted something as he passed that I didn't quite understand. It sounded something like "storm" but I wasn't sure until I started down the trail to the beach. He said something about "sandstorm." There was a tremendous wind blowing off the ocean, the force of which I've never seen. It was so strong I'm sure it would have stripped the leaves off trees and maybe uprooted them. As a result, walking on the beach meant that you were sandblasted. It was hard and unrelenting. Sand was everywhere. I managed to sneak my way along the cliffs, sticking to various nooks and crannies along the way to stay out of the blowing sand. The whole visit was awesome and gorgeous. The cliff were dramatic, the solid rocks out from the shore were dramatic, the color of the ocean was dramatic, the freaking sandstorm was dramatic. After a while, though, I started to think about developing hypothermia from standing in non-stop, gale-force winds blowing off maybe 50 degree water. So I headed back to the car. I saw a sign I had missed on the way in about how last summer, a family from the midwest lost a little girl who got sucked out by a rip current and her mother and her mother who tried to save the little girl. I completely understand. The ocean doesn't care, and the display I had just seen had demonstrated just a little of its power.

It was getting late and I didn't want to be driving along Highway 1 in the dark (see above re: curvy, cliffs, etc.) So I headed back to The Blue Lagoon. I got some frozen dinner from the Safeway next door, heated it up in the room's microwave and turned in.

I got up early this morning, returned the rental to the airport, took a cab to Asilomar, checked my suitcase, and took a stroll along the beach. It was just after 8:00a and the fog was still covering the beach and the adjacent golf course. There were some local people out walking their Labradors, with the dogs stopping to smell the large clumps of kelp and barking at things only they could see in the ocean. I headed back to the lodge, and spent the next 8 hours in a GIS class. 7, actually, because we took an hour for lunch at the dining hall. I had pasta with tomato sauce and tempeh (!) (one of the great things about California...) and probably the best mixed greens salad I've ever had. I think I had 3 servings. The various lettuces had tooth and texture and flavor like I've never had before. I heard a story of MarketPlace about farmers in California trying to develop markets for small scale (10 acres) organic local produce, and the chef from Asilomar was quoted saying how they try to buy as much of the local produce as they can. Keep it up, I say.

The watch just beeped to tell me it's midnight. The guy in the room next door has been snoring steadily for an hour now, and I suppose I should follow his example. It's a 25 minute walk through what has to be one of the most desirable collections of modest suburban homes I've ever seen to get to Asilomar from here. The show starts at 9:00a. I'll probably leave here between 7:30 and 8:00 so I can have time to try to post this over the wireless available in the main hall at Asilomar. (They boast about how they want the facility to be a site of calming lack of distractions, going so far as to not have phones or TVs in the rooms, but I guess they had to make some concessions.)

Hopefully I won't have to make such a marathon post next time.