 |
| Monterey Docks, Steve Brown 2022 |
The first
time I’d ever been as far south along the coast as Big Sur, I was shocked to
find groves of redwoods. I knew they
were there. Ever since I was a little
kid, I’ve been a student of maps. I’d seen
the groves marked on various road atlases.
But there is a difference between knowing something abstractly and
having real knowledge that something is true.
The
redwoods aren’t hard to conceive in northern California. Everything is so wet and verdant, life
springing up everywhere, even under the harsh winds blowing off the coast— ferns,
moss, wildflowers, big sweeping strokes of black trees on high bluffs leaning
inward—giant trees a few miles inland seem inevitable. As awed as one is by the enormous, spongy
hush one feels walking along a trail along the Avenue of the Giants, one isn’t
necessarily surprised to see those magnificent trees.
However, the coast south of San Francisco is different. Though by no means a desert, things dry out quite a bit. Hills are windswept, and outside the rainy season, pale green to golden yellow. Oaks have replaced most confers. Mist, though present, comes in short waves, broken by periods of intense sunlight. Wildflowers, other than the California poppies that seasonally blanket the hillsides, are more scattered. The landscape simply does not look like it would support trees the size of skyscrapers. And along the coast, it doesn’t.
But then
the road will curve in, and tucked in behind a big, round sloping ridge, sheltered from the wind, will be
a grove of magnificent redwoods along a clear creek. It’s so surprising, so breathtaking.
These
scattered groves of giants around Big Sur were perhaps my favorite part of our
honeymoon trip in September 1997. It was the thing I looked forward to most on our return trip. I’d planned on stopping to eat at this restaurant we’d had breakfast at on our honeymoon. It had a back patio that overlooked
a sparkling river and a grove of redwoods beyond that. We watched birds and took in the
sunshine. It was glorious.
However, this time, the flat tire changed everything. It was getting late in the afternoon, and we were riding on a donut spare. Monterey would be about the maximum recommended travel distance on it. We needed to get to a tire shop before it closed.
So, all
those stops—that amazing lunch—had to be scrapped. All that I would see of the redwood groves of
Big Sur were the ones I could see out my window as we quickly drove by. And some of those had burned. It was still pretty, of course. It just didn't match my expectations.
Another
day, another trip, I would probably let that sour my mood. But because I
had been diagnosed with kidney disease and was told it could be serious, I was mentally prepared for this to perhaps
be our last road trip together. So, nothing
was going to infringe on that sacred time--especially not my mood.
Perhaps
this is why something as simple as standing together outside a tire shop near the docks of Monterey in
a cold wind is so imbedded in my memory.
It was a few blocks of small, industrial buildings, rusted chain-link
fences, stacks of tires, cinderblocks, and long metal poles. Yet, in that afternoon sun, next
to my woman and the finite time I imagined we had left together, we might as
well have been eating on the back patio of a fine restaurant overlooking a
river in the redwoods. It was simply a profoundly
stunning experience.
That didn’t change afterwords when we drove down to the Monterey Docks and walked along the choppy bay in a bitter wind to Old Fisherman's Warf, the big, beautiful purple-blue flowering heads of Pride of Madeira contrasting against the white sailboats and deep blue sky.
All was
glorious, simply glorious.
No comments:
Post a Comment