A perfect last day of the year will lead us into a perfect tomorrow. A beautiful sky over a gorgeous landscape was the road we traveled on our way up the central California coast. Stops took us to beaches, cliffside overhangs offering panoramas of the Pacific, and tide pools where plenty of rocks and marine life are found. Should you find yourself meandering along at fifteen miles per hour where the posted speed is thirty-five, forty-five, and sometimes fifty-five, but you are occupied to near distraction craning your neck and pulling over every five hundred feet for a closer look, well then you must be in one of a few places; Hawaii, Yellowstone, or the Pacific Coast Highway. For Caroline and me this New Year’s weekend, it was the latter, although we have plenty of rubbernecking experience in the other locations, too. Treebones Resort is the destination we are aiming to take up our perch for welcoming in 2011 later today.
From Santa Barbara, we got underway on Highway 101 north towards San Luis Obispo and then Morro Bay, where we would hug the coast for the rest of our long weekend. The next sixty miles will take something close to forever to traverse; how is anyone supposed to drive this road and not want to stop everywhere to look at everything?
We’ve seen this section of the coast countless times by now. Still, it holds endless fascination. We pass through the beautiful little village of Cambria, where we’ll live in some future reincarnated life, but keep driving to make our check-in with Treebones before 4:00 pm. We spot great-view number who-knows-which and decide this must be our next stop as memory can’t be sure if we have actually been to this particular 1000-foot stretch of coast before. Seems familiar but I don’t recognize any of these birds.
Just the other side of San Simeon, we miss taking the tour of Hearst Castle yet again, but that’s fine with us because we spot some Elephant Seals on a beach where we hadn’t seen them before, anyway; we can guess with this being a holiday weekend there will be hundreds of people crowding the boardwalk at the designated observation point. From this beach, we have a fantastic view of the Piedras Blancas lighthouse and know we are nearing the now-closed old blue-and-white motel we spent New Year’s Eve at back in 2002 – fond memories indeed.
At the mothballed, crumbling motel, we walk over the property remembering the first time we stopped here with Caroline’s mother during Jutta’s first visit to America back in 1997. In the gift shop, someone asked if we had stopped at the beach about a mile or two behind us and checked out the Elephant Seals; we had not. Back then, there was no boardwalk and fenced area, which in turn let us approach probably too close for what was safe but we still tried to be calm and unobtrusive. Today, we have the opportunity to be respectful, quiet, and alone with a large male who is napping on the beach we are visiting.
The further north we travel, the more the weather tells us to be prepared. We knew when leaving Arizona that we were facing a good chance of having it rain on us, but we weren’t going to stay home and lose the money we paid in advance for our “room.”
A giant bird’s nest with a commanding view of the ocean would be how a real estate listing might start for where we are staying. But it’s not for sale, although it is available to rent for a night or two. The folks at Treebones in the far south of Big Sur have elevated the idea of roughing it into a luxury yurt resort. Well, yurts are mighty fine. We have stayed in more than one on many an occasion in Oregon’s state parks, but we have never, and I doubt you have either, climbed a ladder, passing through a circular entrance to enter a human nest. If birds stood six feet tall and had sixteen-foot wingspans, maybe this would be the kind of place they would weave and call home, minus the futon.
A night in Kokopelli’s Cave, another in a Hogan at Monument Valley, the house Herman Melville stayed at in New Bedford, camping next to the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, and now a bird nest built for people next to the Pacific, this surely fits in as one of the more unique lodgings we have found ourselves in. Hey, Cedar Creek Treehouse near Mt. Rainier, we have you in our focus.
Yes, we tweeted and chirped upon our arrival at the nest; no, we didn’t soil it. I failed to convince my ladybird to try the morsel I wanted to regurgitate for her. After getting comfy up here, we found it difficult to leave the nest, pathetic for two people in their forties, although not totally out of the ordinary during these difficult economic times.
This was our view from the portal of the nest to the bigger world outside. I would guess that some of you might understand why Treebones Resort will now be on our permanent list of places we must return to frequently. I’m thinking April would be nice, or after the summer fog in the early fall.
After setting up our tent inside the nest, as the forecast called for a ten percent chance of rain, we went up the road to Willow Creek to scour some tide pools and examine rocks and waves. We crawled over boulders to the water’s edge and took a good long time to linger, searching for whatever might catch our eye. Small crabs crawled about, anemones withered where the water level had exposed them, and not a single starfish was to be seen, although Caroline scored a sea urchin shell.
Two guys also determined to spend the last day of the year doing something rather than sitting at home were sealed up tight in their wetsuits before paddling out for some surfing. The waves seemed a bit small to us for good surfing, but luck was with these intrepid dudes who, once in a while, had a good swell pop-up for both of them to get a few good rides in.
Leaving this first signed vista point north of Gorda, the way back to the car took us past a small creek flowing into the ocean. With the storms of late, we would notice that all the creeks and waterfalls along the coast were running with a goodly amount of runoff. While the weather wasn’t cooperating with snapping off any magnificent dramatically lit landscapes, it was possible to grab a few intimate shots that didn’t rely on direct sunlight or sweeping skies.
Then, it was time to fly up the coast for an overlook of Pacific Valley. Over the fence, we ventured down a trail through a thicket to a cliffside to enjoy the late-day views. This was one of those rare spots we had never stopped at before. With little roadside parking, it would be an easy location to drive right by. Lucky for us, we opted to make this pullout or final roadside stop for the day.
The sky was dull, cold, and gray but with a character and charm that kept us happy to have given our time to explore this outcropping. As beautiful as it is here, I may never understand why we aren’t sharing this trail with thousands of others, but for whatever reason it is, I suppose we can thank our lucky stars that the majority of humanity is watching the New Year happen on television. This fine rock and ocean view is all the TV I need.
Below us, with their backs to the wind on a giant sheltering rock, a couple of dozen birds have taken up a roost on some near-vertical rock ledges, defying our idea of just how they may be glued to such a precarious perch. We scan the horizon as we have all day for those migrating whales of winter but spot not a one, and try as we might this weekend, not a sign of them will be found.
Like many birds, we weren’t about to be caught flying about after dark and pointed our beaks in the direction of our nest. Jacuzzi, pool, jacuzzi, pool, jacuzzi, pool, and then a final warming dip in the jacuzzi before heading back to our perch high above the ocean for some stargazing. Dinner came late, this being New Year’s Eve, no need to rush things when trying to stay up late after a long day of fun. Treebones Resort was having a small party for us guests and anyone else who wanted to join the festivities in their restaurant at the center of the yurt village. On the buffet menu, we were offered all-you-can-eat sushi, frog legs, filet mignon sliders, cheese plate, bruschetta, tapenade, blackberries, raspberries, dried apricots, and a dessert of either apple or pecan pie. We spent the hours before the old year turned over to the new one near the fireplace, listening to Darren Delmore sing, play guitar, and his harmonica.
Not this nor any other of these travels, hobbies, concerts, festivals, good meals, or the many opportunities we enjoy are taken for granted. We pinch ourselves at the good fortune of it all and are grateful that we have the wherewithal to follow through and do what we have planned to do. There is no sense of entitlement, and so often, we feel a tad out of place, standing in awe that we have ended up where we are. But that’s ok, we’d rather be excited, thrilled, and tickled that each new adventure and journey is like the first of everything all wrapped up in one. As midnight approached, a Happy New Year and Welcome to 2011 cheer went up with a toast of champagne and a kiss shared between Caroline and me.
