PETE DOESN’T FLY.
So we drove to find the SUN on the southern California beaches.
I’m the chauffeur. Dad’s the chef. Mom the gofer.
Pete most enjoys hotel living. And restaurant eating.
Sadly fears of a California superstorm made Pete decide we’d best head home to Parksville, B.C. a couple of weeks early.
Motel 6 Newport Beach <strong>#4460
Modern, minimalist look. Faux bamboo flooring. Hot tub. Great laundry room.
WOW. … I’m not worthy.
by Peter Matthiessen (1972)
A perfect moment. …
Sitting in the outdoor hot tub looking out over Pismo Beach. Listening to classic Matthiessen as an audio book.
Africa in the 1960s
On the great East African plain it is the human who feels himself the intruder. Here, and perhaps only here, the world is that of the animals. It is they who belong, as humans do not. In the more sensitive traveler this evokes a feeling of being privileged to observe ancient forms, settings and behavior that have survived intact from pre-history.
“Matthiessen has the language to express this feeling of awe…Matthiessen also goes into the relationships between humans past and present in East Africa’s great fauna with many a flash of insight into the instincts each has bred in the other…This is the Africa book par excellence.”
Here’s where Matthiessen first met famed field biologist George Schaller, the man he’d join in the Himalayan adventures documented in The Snow Leopard, one of my very favourite books.
Both Schaller and Matthiessen are still alive. In fact Matthiessen in 2008, at age 81, received his second National Book Award for Shadow Country, an 890-page revision of a trilogy of novels he released in the 1990s. (41hrs audio)
Please have Revenue Canada send my tax rebate to the Sandcastle Inn, Pismo Beach, California.
Look for me in the hot tub.
I’ve only seen a few of the terrifying videos from Japan. We’ve been in transit, driving the coast of California.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
There were warnings. But we were little affected.
There was one detour (HIGHWAY CLOSED) near Half Moon Bay.
… Mom and I were turned away from walking one beach at 5pm (many hours after the tidal wave) by a sheepish Parks Ranger. They were being extra cautious.
(via io9)
Since departing Parksville it’s been either cloudy or rainy.
One highlight was driving Avenue of the Giants in the rain with almost no other gawkers. (It’s packed during summer.)
I’d forgotten how windy and undeveloped is coastal California Highway 1
We finally got some sun as we approached San Fran.
Like last March, I’m off with my parents driving south until we hit sunny warm weather, likely coastal California.
Rick McCharles 