Photos: US West Coast, Day 2, Part 2 (Big Sur to Santa Cruz)
In retrospect, perhaps I was too hard on Hearst Castle. Really, had I been allowed to explore the grounds alone--where I could freely but respectfully wander through the beautiful estate and have my own experience, rather than the one the Hearst Estate wanted me to have--my experience and subsequent report might have been very different indeed. The ideal experiences on this trip have been the ones with just the right balance of direction and freedom.
Really, that balance is at the heart of why I'm doing all this in the first place. But it's far from a simple exploration, as there are many obstacles in the way. Not the least of which being myself. I've been spending much of the time pushing myself into doing things I wouldn't normally do, battling with excuses ("Ten bucks? To visit Sea Lion caves? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh...") and often times just falling back on that most meaningless of all excuses: the schedule. Gotta keep to the schedule.
It's bullshit, of course. My "schedule" is a half-assed collection of things that might be worth seeing on my way North. Because for me, it always been the destination, not the journey. And I'm trying to change that. I'm trying to open my eyes and throw myself into a bigger world with better experiences.
But I'm rambling. I keep trying to sort out these thoughts, but it's like... shit, the closest metaphor I can come up with is that fake spider-web cottony stuff with the little plastic spiders embedded in it. You know, those Halloween decorations? Yeah, like that, only my life right now.
I didn't take a ton of pictures of Big Sur pretty much because my camera just wasn't big enough. For nearly the entire drive, I was filled with the same dumbstruck awe as I was when I visited the Grand Canyon, but this time, imagine being inside half of the Canyon, with the Pacific Ocean on the other side.
I can only imagine what it all must have looked like during sunny weather. Alas, a blanket of gray was suspended overhead for 95% of my entire journey, which did not help my percolating angst but at least the wet and cloud-licked cliffsides reminded me of England, so that was a nice bonus.
Just as with the Grand Canyon, and just as I know I'll feel when I post photos of the Avenue of the Giants (the Redwood forest), I feel like these pictures do absolutely zero justice to the sheer magnitude of these places. I'm tempted to post the original huge pictures in their full internet-shattering resolution in the hopes that maybe I could somehow bring that experience to you, but that'd be fruitless.
These places are more than awe-inspiring. Beyond even overwhelming. It's damn well incomprehensible to see these places and try to take them all in with pitiful human eyes, much less the 2D lens of a camera. Three whole dimensions are barely enough to take it in.
And at times like those, I'd wonder if I wanted someone else there to appreciate such a thing with me. The old John Hefner would absolutely have said yes. For the longest time, I never wanted to do anything alone, because if someone else wasn't there to share the experience--someone else to validate my memories, to say, "Yes, that really happened"--then it might as well never have happened at all.
But I dunno, maybe it was Dad dying, or maybe it was his health going downhill before that, or maybe it was how I've drifted further and further apart from the Rude Mechanicals and my college buddies and any semblance of a real social life while getting deeper and deeper into my internet social life, replete with more comic geeks and Girlfriends in Canada... but I've been turning into a hermit. A hermit with internet.
In a way, this is good in that I had no compunctions about hitting the road alone. As long as I had internet, it wouldn't have been that different in terms of loneliness. And at times like this, seeing the sights of Big Sur, I actually felt a strange kind of lonely peace. This was truly my experience, mine alone. The feeling was neither wholly positive nor really negative. It was what it was, and I'm still trying to figure out what it means.
As so much of this stretch is preserved, near-untouched wilderness, there were tons of state parks along the way. I only made it a point to stop at one: the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, which features the only waterfall in California to directly feed into the Pacific Ocean.
As you can see, it's a strangely narrow, shrimpy, pee-like waterfall, splattering right into the sand several feet away from the actual tide (when I was there, anyway). But the cove itself...
Man, I could have sat there for hours, just watching the waves crash, the foam spreading and tearing into spiderwebs as the tide sucked it back in. Absolutely mesmerizing. I took multiple pictures in the vain hope of trying to capture the moment.
And here's the famous Nepenthe cafe, sitting on the hilltop where Orson Welles once bought a cabin for his wife, Rita Hayworth, in 1944. I didn't actually eat there, but I thought its 60's-tastic retro style was worth a picture at least.
Not long after that, I drove past two dirty hippies holding up a handmade "HUNGRY!" sign. I thought about the cups of ramen noodles going uneaten in my backseat, since I never was able to find a car-powered tea kettle (apparently they're fire hazards now! Who knew?), and drove back to give them a couple. As I pulled in, they literally jumped for joy that somebody actually stopped. Turns out the two hippies were actually five or six, and they thanked me profusely, asking if I had anything else, and could I give them a ride to Carmel. I felt bad for turning them down. I should at least have given them the rest of my ramen, I had six more in the car.
I drove on without stopping much until I made it to Santa Cruz, where THE LOST BOYS was filmed. That's a town I could easily have spent another day in, just exploring the wharf and boardwalk. And I might have too, had it been the weekend.
As it was a weekday in the off-season, the awesome boardwalk was closed, denying me what it reputed to be one of the greatest wooden roller coasters in the world: the Giant Dipper.
Sadness abounds. But at least I was able to drown my sorrows with skee-ball.
Really, that balance is at the heart of why I'm doing all this in the first place. But it's far from a simple exploration, as there are many obstacles in the way. Not the least of which being myself. I've been spending much of the time pushing myself into doing things I wouldn't normally do, battling with excuses ("Ten bucks? To visit Sea Lion caves? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh...") and often times just falling back on that most meaningless of all excuses: the schedule. Gotta keep to the schedule.
It's bullshit, of course. My "schedule" is a half-assed collection of things that might be worth seeing on my way North. Because for me, it always been the destination, not the journey. And I'm trying to change that. I'm trying to open my eyes and throw myself into a bigger world with better experiences.
But I'm rambling. I keep trying to sort out these thoughts, but it's like... shit, the closest metaphor I can come up with is that fake spider-web cottony stuff with the little plastic spiders embedded in it. You know, those Halloween decorations? Yeah, like that, only my life right now.
I didn't take a ton of pictures of Big Sur pretty much because my camera just wasn't big enough. For nearly the entire drive, I was filled with the same dumbstruck awe as I was when I visited the Grand Canyon, but this time, imagine being inside half of the Canyon, with the Pacific Ocean on the other side.
I can only imagine what it all must have looked like during sunny weather. Alas, a blanket of gray was suspended overhead for 95% of my entire journey, which did not help my percolating angst but at least the wet and cloud-licked cliffsides reminded me of England, so that was a nice bonus.
Just as with the Grand Canyon, and just as I know I'll feel when I post photos of the Avenue of the Giants (the Redwood forest), I feel like these pictures do absolutely zero justice to the sheer magnitude of these places. I'm tempted to post the original huge pictures in their full internet-shattering resolution in the hopes that maybe I could somehow bring that experience to you, but that'd be fruitless.
These places are more than awe-inspiring. Beyond even overwhelming. It's damn well incomprehensible to see these places and try to take them all in with pitiful human eyes, much less the 2D lens of a camera. Three whole dimensions are barely enough to take it in.
And at times like those, I'd wonder if I wanted someone else there to appreciate such a thing with me. The old John Hefner would absolutely have said yes. For the longest time, I never wanted to do anything alone, because if someone else wasn't there to share the experience--someone else to validate my memories, to say, "Yes, that really happened"--then it might as well never have happened at all.
But I dunno, maybe it was Dad dying, or maybe it was his health going downhill before that, or maybe it was how I've drifted further and further apart from the Rude Mechanicals and my college buddies and any semblance of a real social life while getting deeper and deeper into my internet social life, replete with more comic geeks and Girlfriends in Canada... but I've been turning into a hermit. A hermit with internet.
In a way, this is good in that I had no compunctions about hitting the road alone. As long as I had internet, it wouldn't have been that different in terms of loneliness. And at times like this, seeing the sights of Big Sur, I actually felt a strange kind of lonely peace. This was truly my experience, mine alone. The feeling was neither wholly positive nor really negative. It was what it was, and I'm still trying to figure out what it means.
As so much of this stretch is preserved, near-untouched wilderness, there were tons of state parks along the way. I only made it a point to stop at one: the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, which features the only waterfall in California to directly feed into the Pacific Ocean.
As you can see, it's a strangely narrow, shrimpy, pee-like waterfall, splattering right into the sand several feet away from the actual tide (when I was there, anyway). But the cove itself...
Man, I could have sat there for hours, just watching the waves crash, the foam spreading and tearing into spiderwebs as the tide sucked it back in. Absolutely mesmerizing. I took multiple pictures in the vain hope of trying to capture the moment.
And here's the famous Nepenthe cafe, sitting on the hilltop where Orson Welles once bought a cabin for his wife, Rita Hayworth, in 1944. I didn't actually eat there, but I thought its 60's-tastic retro style was worth a picture at least.
Not long after that, I drove past two dirty hippies holding up a handmade "HUNGRY!" sign. I thought about the cups of ramen noodles going uneaten in my backseat, since I never was able to find a car-powered tea kettle (apparently they're fire hazards now! Who knew?), and drove back to give them a couple. As I pulled in, they literally jumped for joy that somebody actually stopped. Turns out the two hippies were actually five or six, and they thanked me profusely, asking if I had anything else, and could I give them a ride to Carmel. I felt bad for turning them down. I should at least have given them the rest of my ramen, I had six more in the car.
I drove on without stopping much until I made it to Santa Cruz, where THE LOST BOYS was filmed. That's a town I could easily have spent another day in, just exploring the wharf and boardwalk. And I might have too, had it been the weekend.
As it was a weekday in the off-season, the awesome boardwalk was closed, denying me what it reputed to be one of the greatest wooden roller coasters in the world: the Giant Dipper.
Sadness abounds. But at least I was able to drown my sorrows with skee-ball.