Heading out from San Francisco, I stopped by the Golden Gate bridge bright and early, got a spot in the parking lot, and got to walk the bridge. The bridge has been a thing for me for some time. There is a great documentary about The Bridge that I’ve watched countless times. Everyone gets that concerned tone when I mention I’m going out there. Fear not, I’m on a vision quest and I have no time for that. I’ve been on the bridge before, and it’s a great windy and wonderful place. Got to watch an ocean freighter go under the bridge, though I had to scramble to go close before it went under. Those things move fast!
Leaving San Francisco I headed down the cost, passing many beaches along the way. There were many surfers out and I couldn’t figure out how all these people could be skipping work to surf. And then I remembered it was Sunday. Traffic was a little busy on the way down, but nothing horrible. Stopped at Mavericks, a beach known as one of the best surfing spots in the world – but there were no surfers today. I suspect I was too late in the morning. Passed through Santa Cruz and stopped at their Target only to find new cable knit sweaters! Score!
San Francisco brought up a lot of thoughts and memories. Monterey is sure to as well. Monterey is where I grew up in a sense, during language school. It was like college in many ways though it was just over a year. I have a lot of things I want to say but need to figure out how to tell the stories. And to process them. I feel like I’ll be dropping in parts of these in posts for days.
Headed down to Monterey from Santa Cruz among fair traffic that gave way to worse traffic. By the time I passed Seaside it was stop and go. Eventually it cleared enough and I wandered down to Pacific Grove, then Asilomar, and finally back to Monterey proper to check in at the hotel.
Asilomar is a beach and a state marine reserve on the westernmost wide of the Monterey peninsula. When I was in language school in Monterey I would go to Asilomar on my motorcycle, park it all alone in the turnout by the road. I’d sit on the cycle and unknowingly do a mindfulness exercise. I would smell the smell of the ocean and the pine and the eucalyptus. I would hear the ticking of the motorcycle engine cooling and the roar and silence of the surf. I would taste the tobacco of a cigarette and I would see the ocean surf. More importantly I would look out at the horizon. Seeing the vast ocean and knowing that it held my future, I would wonder about things to come. After language school (if I passed!) I was either going to Korea or Hawaii, both of which were thousands of miles west across the ocean. I could just stare at my future and consider. Consider where my life might take me. I was young and knew I had a lot of future ahead of me, and I was not at all sure I knew where or how well it would take me through life. Asilomar was there for me on good days, and more importantly on bad days. It’s where I would learn the cycles of the surf and ponder the depths of that water. There were a lot of known and unknown things in the ocean, and I found that interesting and exciting more than scary. So Asilomar is where I well in love with the Ocean. A relationship that had been love at first site on that beach while I was in boot camp blossomed into a respect and awe. That’s why Asilomar is so important to me.
Fog is common on the peninsula. We would walk to school a block from the barracks and the clouds would be rolling over the top of the hill. The cloud would obscure the road just yards from our barracks view. It was part of the charm of Monterey. It would usually burn off quickly and we could enjoy the cool seaside weather. I always felt like I could depend on Asilomar to be clear.
And that’s why it was so disturbing to me today to come to Asilomar – in the afternoon even – and find that view of my future was of fog. See this entry for more info on that.
Deets
- License Plates: None!
- States: CA
- Departed: 7:30 am PDT, 62 degrees
- Original ETA 10:25 pm PDT
- Arrival: 2:00 pm PDT
- Weather: Warm, blue skies! Then hot and blue skies, then fog and warm, then warm and blue skies.
- Budget: Food way below, Hotel way below
- Food: Carl’s Jr for nostalgia, Chinese takeout
- Music: Silence for a long time, then Thomas Dolby – A Map of the Floating City, Thomas Dolby, Astronauts and Heretics, Spotify mix based on those.
Observations
- Saw a ton of Mini Coopers in San Francisco. Makes sense, they’re great for a crowded city.
- Part of the reason I’m not getting so many license plates is because I’m paying attention to driving.
- Went to Mavericks, a famous surfing spot, didn’t see any surfers.
- I found two new Cable sweaters at Target! Got a baby blue one!
- I was not prepared to be actual summer hot
- The “smell of California” I’ve always wondered about is actually Eucalyptus
- I found what I used to call the “Batman” road, because in a certain section it looks like where the batcave would spit out the batmobile. It’s a great shortcut across the peninsula.
Pictures
The Windmill Posts 
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