Washed Out

If I were to compile a list of all the great reasons to live in California or why living in California is--at least for me--the greatest locale in the contiguous 48, it would run on and on and on. But it's true: living here is a dream piled on top of a fantasy. This is true for all three of California's major cities (okay, maybe not Los Angeles, which feels somehow inverted and hollow, but roll with me here) but I don't think you fully experience the broad range of all California has to offer in the southernmost two. One of my particularly favorite aspects of living in San Francisco is that while you are indeed deeply embedded in a dense, locomotive city and one of the major urban centers through the world, you're only a half hour away from some of the most serene and peaceful and majestic sights of wilderness and oceanic dreamscapes, where at the drop of a dime (or in this case a flip of the wind) a gritty, steely city is the farthest thing from your mind.

Some friends and I took a trip out to Stinson Beach, which is just a little north of the city, across the Golden Gate, and northwest of Sauselito. Snuck in at the westernmost edge of Muir Woods and Mount Tamalpais State park, Stinson Beach is riddled with curving hills and mountains, snake-like roads that finally burst you out into the open cliff-side coastline. Stinson Beach reminded me very much of the small beach towns you find on the east coast, somewhere along Maine or New Hampshire, except, of course, the food and the culture here is still heavily influenced by all that California is known for. 

On Tuesday, we're heading south to camp out for a couple nights at Big Sur; given the predicted weather and what I've already seen of Big Sur in the past, my expectations are towering. Driving down California Highway 1 is one of the most striking experiences ever; the sheer natural beauty is almost overwhelming. What I love the most, though, is the truly undisturbed feeling of the Old West: the wood-paneled shanties, the slowed down movement, the dirt paths, all contribute to removing you from whatever ridiculous sense of hurry, self-importance, and life-is-so-fucking-serious dreariness you left behind. If I'm never heard from again after this, it's safe to assume I was at the center of one of those grisly campground tragedies where a wandering psychopath stumbles upon a group of campers and throttles their lives short; in that case, may this blog live on! One more picture of Stinson, assuming it may also be my last: