The beach is full of Boy Scouts and pelicans. I have to pee.
The prehistoric birds cover the rocks completely, their dorky profiles against the newly born again sky make me smile. I realize I’ve had to pee since before I opened my eyes in this shallow cave, our bedroom du jour. Cousin Debby is still sleeping. The sound of the waves have worked on me all night. I really have to pee.
Inside my sleeping bag, I wriggle into my bathing suit, stealthily unzip my sleeping bag, and walk with my towel over my shoulder to the water’s edge. Dropping my towel, I wade in.
Upturned sedimentary layers is the name for this type of rock formation. Mark Gordon was a GREAT geology teacher at Los Angeles City College. We used to say, “He’s got ROCKS in his head!” His enthusiasm for earth’s formations was contagious and it still gets me excited to recognize in the field things he taught us in the classroom.
Only half feigning total absorption in the pelicans which truly COVER these flesh-colored, eroded by salt waves, stair-step rocks at Shell Beach, I feel as if I’m in a Michelangelo Antonioni movie. Red Desert has a dream sequence with fleshy looking rocks.
I wade right into the water - pretty much ignoring the testosterone driven rock-skipping contests which the scouts are engaging in on the nearly flat-lined surface of this quiet bay. Bless my own warm salt water mixing with cold ocean water. I shudder involuntarily and hope they won’t know what I’m doing in the water.
By the time I get back to the cave, Debby is just awakening to the sounds of boisterous Scouts. Their leader seems more interested in us up-turned nineteen year old young women who appear to be camping on the beach, than he is interested in pelicans and up-turned sedimentary layers.
We gather our stuff and head for a restaurant bathroom in the small town of Ávila, to wash-up before heading north. We’ve set our compass to explore Big Sur, where we spent so much time in our youth (under the age of ten).
My dad and Deb’s dad, brothers, and both good photographers in their own right, were friends of photographers Edward, Brett, and Cole Weston who lived in Garapata Creek just outside Big Sur, in the 1950’s and ’60’s. Edward featured big in my early childhood.
His house was always aswarm with cats. Open windows let cats constantly come and go, spraying their eucalyptus scented male cat smell everywhere they could. Edward didn’t seem to mind. He smiled and shook his head. My dad called it Parkinson’s and brought Edward all sorts of stuff - including his very first television set - rabbit ears and all, groceries, cigarettes, and magazines. My dad and Edward both called the TV “the idiot box.”
I played with the cats and gathered watercress in the ice-cold creek. I liked how it stung my tongue with its peppery taste.
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We sleep in a forest this second night out from L.A., spreading our sleeping bags in the dark on the spongey, peat moss floor. Morning light wakens us in time to see a Naval Officer inspecting my ‘54 Chevy, and to see that we’ve spread our bags on top of an ant hill. Startled and batting our hair to release the ants, we must be a sight for this twenty something fellow. We had no idea we were on government land - Monterey’s naval base to be precise. Only when the officer asks to see my registration, do I realize that I’ve locked my keys IN the car. And I have to pee.
In the past, under duress, I’ve done some strange things. This is one of those times.
I pick up a rock and try to smash the little triangle shaped wind wing, in order to unlock the driver’s side door and get my registration out of the glove box. It goes well until I discover that there’s a piece plastic imbedded in the glass - by way of making it safety glass. I end up using my pocket knife to cut the tough plastic, so I can get my arm through the hole in the wind wing. At this point, I think the Officer is more embarrassed for us than he wants to harass us. With a wagging finger, he cautions us to look before we set up camp. We think it would be a good idea to bring flashlights next time. Relieved when he drives off, we both relieve ourselves and get on the road to Garapata Creek.
The Ventana Wilderness speaks my language. Hawk speak, water laughing over stones, and cow bells on the fog zap me back to being four years old and in love with this wild place. Debby and I drive over the criss-crossing creek four times before coming to what used to be the Weston land. Brett’s place above - white-washed concrete and adobe - on the hill looks pretty much the same, though he moved out of it in the late ’50’s. Cole’s red barn and house are gone, razed, only the floor is left, where we played so many games of marbles, Monopoly, and lie-on-the-floor-while-Ivar-uses-us-for-target-practice, as he throws down stuffed animals from the edge of the loft where all three kids sleep.
It was magical then. It is magical now in my memory. Only... where’s the bathroom?
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