It's is now three days that Misty and I have been cycling Hwy 1 that hugs the coastline. Although cycling these hills demands a constant amount of focus, once I have a moment, I marvel at just how beautiful this land is.
It's hard to convey how a place can be beautiful. Beauty in people or in an object can be easier to define but for a place it's the sum total of the impressions that come from all five of the senses. Over the course of the last three days that I've been cycling the Shoreline Highway (as the 1 is known here), I see, smell, feel and hear things that are all pleasing. I'm not even sure where to start, except that I can see why people would pay large sums of money to build their dream house on a piece of this land. I feel pretty lucky to spend hours outdoors just noticing things about this area of California.
Since we usually hit the road by 8 or 9 am and settle into a campsite by 6 or 7 pm, I watch the land change over the day. I have the ocean on my right hand side, hills on my left hand side and the road always ahead of me. Unlike Washington and northern Oregon, the trees are smaller here and the grasslands dominate. When we set out in the morning, the water is a dark and lazy blue, the shadows from the trees are long and grey-green. It's quiet and the smells are most pronounced in the morning. As I cycle, whiffs of the ocean, of cows, of sweet grasses, eucalyptus, dead animals, or exhaust can greet me in any order. As the sun rises, the wildflowers and the grasses start to light up red, orange, white, pale lilac, deep purple and yellow and so do the trees and the water, which start to catch my eye with bright deep greens and turquoises. I can't help but stop on teeny patches of shoulder to catch these bright pure colours through my camera lens, even though there's the possibility that I might be holding up traffic. By late afternoon, the light changes and the long grasses literally glow golden next to an ocean that is similarly shimmering silver as if it was made of mercury not water. Sometimes the fog or the clouds start to roll in by early afternoon. If it's cloudy, the sunlight peeks through and casts shadows of clouds that move beside me on the highway. If it's fog, I see it rolling in like smoke from a fire, first little wisps that eventually thicken into a grey blanket that usually signals the end of a day for us.
To all this add the sensation of heat and cold and the force of the wind, changing constantly. Up hills I feel the sun so keenly, especially on those parts of my face where the sunscreen is being washed off by the sweat, then on the downhill, the air chills me except when I pass through one small patch of warm air then pass back into the cool air. In the morning the winds are quiet, but by two o'clock they start to whip up. Completely capricious, I can both hate it and love it within the same 15 minute period. I can feel the wind push against me as I'm struggling up a hill then as I round a bend it happens to push me up the last little bit of a hill. I can feel it cool me down as I overheat under the sun, then it can chill me as I stop to grab just a couple pictures.
Understandably in this place, the human presence appears to be humble. Towns and homesteads are small but crafted with care, and seem to have a history that I unfortunately don't have time to listen to. Little touches like random peace signs, or seashells plastered into walls, hint at a close relationship that the people who have chosen to live here have developed with this completely enchanting place.
