Sunset approach to the Valley

Joyful reunion. Amy cooks Elk steaks for dinner. New snow.

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New Year’s morning the rising sun kindled pea vines that grasped the bent bamboo stakes over the vegetable bed.

At 8:45, my teaching partner Jim and student activist friend Eric arrived to join Jan and me for a ride to the Guadalupe Dunes, site of the 25th annual New Years Day hike originated by Bill Denneen and this year organized in his honor by Kara B., San Luis Obispo’s first lady of Land Conservancy.

More than 40 people showed up including 85 year old Bill, son and grandchildren.  The further south we went, the more pristine and dramatic the landscape, low dunes giving way to taller ones sloping steeply down to the ocean, gradually revealing longer stretches of coast and Coast Mountains, the small human settlements in appropriate proportion to the immense land, sea and sky.

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For the last six years Jan and I have flown to Idaho on December 25 in order to celebrate the holiday with both the San Luis Obispo branch of the family on Christmas Eve and with the Ketchum children and grandchildren on Christmas Day.  This year, back in September, we decided not to make the trip until after the first week in January, to allow ourselves some down-time at home and save money on air fare.  This meant that both of us would be absent when our colleagues were getting back to work.  I had to schedule the first meeting of the Sustainability Faculty Colloquium at Cal Poly the Friday before the first meeting of classes, and Jan has to miss a community workshop on budget priorities”though no City Council meetings.

I felt a duty to use the time as intended–for contact with friends and family”but neglected to plan for that. Nevertheless it so happened. Claire started a full-time job at the beginning of December and I became the primary daycare provider for twenty month old Lucas.

We went on hikes along up Stenner road to gather rocks for the border of a new vegetable bed and pine cones for the fireplace. We went to see the calves at the Dairy and the aqueduct excavations and the sheep at Cheda Ranch. We took a birding expedition with Johanna at Oso Flaco lake.  His long midday naps and the morning hours before his arrival gave me time for work. Even up and around in the house he made few demands.

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I’ve taken on a real project: to organize a panel for Focus the Nation II on this topic, getting together some people from the College of Liberal Arts to contribute to the effort that’s moving forward elsewhere in the University.  I’m committed to make my own presentation–a definition of what this grandiose term means, a survey of what the Humanities have to offer.

I’ve started gathering ideas and assembling links from the AASHE website, but I’m having trouble continuing, even though I woke up at 4 AM with the need to get going.  How to stay on track, keep up the momentum, when first the economic crisis, and as of two days ago, the mayhem in India suddenly intrude?  I’d thought the election would get us back on track, but now the right of way seems to have been blown up.

I’ll take a walk in the dark.

Went up Buena Vista and then cut over past the water tank to a game trail on the east end of Poly Mountain. Huffed to the top as as day dawned, less breathless than expected.  Light and vegetation both unexciting. But as I looked for a trail to descend through the two year old burn, I saw movement in the brown grass.  A coyote loping silently on one path, and then another following and then doubling back, accelerating to a soft silent gallop.

Then between them a good sized doe bouncing up from the chapparal to the grassland directly below me.  For a short while I could see all three animals from above: the dance of predation.  Then the second coyote was lost in the oak woodland, and soon after the deer headed off in the same direction and disappeared into chapparal to my left, and the first animal that had come into view took off toward the west.

I took many pictures, but without the telephoto knew that they wouldnt show much. You can see the coyotes only in the larger versions found by clicking on these.

As I came back down the game trail, the clay neither hard dry nor sticky wet, just moist enough to be springy, the sun topped East Cuesta Ridge.

I’m sitting in Reddy (our red Prius, which says “READY” on the control panel before you can start moving) in Steve Caldwell’s driveway, waiting for Ellen to complete the three hour bowel protocol she performs on him three mornings a week.

I’ve just spent two hours in the Starbucks around the corner drinking coffee, using their wireless to read the news, answer email from Nepal, Canada, Lund, San Luis Obispo and L.A., and upload a set of pictures of the hike with Ian’s school I led through the “Grand Canyon of San Luis Creek” just before leaving on this adventure.

My glimpse of him lying on the bed on his side naked below the waist reading a paperback while she carried a basin of foamy liquid with an unmistakeable whiff  toward the bathroom was all it took to make me say, “I’ll wait outside and let you finish your business.”  I don’t mind undressing under a towel at the beach or changing the baby’s diapers, but Steve has repeatedly exposed my true squeamishness.  His written descriptions of the miracle of sex and masturbation he experienced as a quadiplegic in his unpublished books pushed my head aside, and even though we’ve corresponded at length about the books, this is a theme I try to avoid.  He asked me to proofread his forthcoming review of “Private Dicks,” an HBO documentary about men talking about their sexuality.  It’s a terrific piece of writing, but I have trouble uttering its apt title, “Speaking of my Penis.”  This, despite the fact that the topic has been no less primary a concern in my life than in his, or than in the lives of the film’s many subjects.

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I needed a day off from Jan’s City Council campaign and from websurfing about the national election.  I kept remembering my Yom Kippur retreat in the woods, longing to return from the life of action to the ways of pleasure and contemplation.  So, on another “impulse from a vernal wood,” I decided to head for the coast with camera, journal, and a new book that just arrived from Amazon, Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist.

The inland morning fog was lifting as I left San Luis Obispo, the first time in a week that the unseasonable Santa Ana heat has abated.  I looked forward to moving in and out of the marine layer during my walk through the intertidal zone of the air and to watching tricks played by the Autumn light.

At 9:00, I start from the parking lot and head up the Coon Creek trail.  It meanders around crazy sandstone formations at the canyon’s mouth and tunnels through thick vegetation stuffing the watercourse. (more…)

Jan and Steven and Ian travel to Idaho to visit Joe and Amy and Ethan and Abel. They drive Reddy and stop at Yosemite Valley, sleep over in Tuolumne Meadows, and pass bomb disposal site in Hawthorne NV. On the way back home they stop for lunch in Sacramento. Slideshow

May 27

Chute Lake’s placid surface mirrored clear skies on Tuesday morning. Behr and Robert drove off and the five men remaining headed down the trail whose surface was hard packed after days of rain. For the whole of the 30 km descent the slope remained steeper than anywhere on the ascent, increasing speed and ease of pedaling. Bleak burnt and logged-over landscape gave way to mature second growth forest carpeted with grass and wildflowers. A rushing stream crisscrossed the trail.

We stopped to explore Rock Ovens in the woods built to bake bread for the railroad work crews. The nurses whizzed past shouting instructions for us to bake bread for them. Lionel replied that their place was in the kitchen. Flush with downhill speed, we overtook the women slowed by their bike trailers, and stopped at an opening in the forest cover to take pictures of the sand cliffs, endlessly stretching lake, orchards, vineyards and small settlements in the Okanagon valley below. As soon as Andy broke out three beers remaining from yesterday, the nurses came barreling down behind us and screetched to a halt when we held out the bottles. After a shared toast, they passed around a mickey of powerful cinnamon liqueur, and we agreed to meet for lunch at a vineyard once we reached Naramata.

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May 26

The morning remained rainy and foggy, the prospect of more pie and pool playing and of getting a tour of Doreen’s husband Gary’s museum made most of us want to lay over for a day, but Behr was eager to return to Vancouver and look after his mother. After extensive discussion a vote was taken and Behr decided to head back on his own. Murray didnt like the idea.

The remaining crew of five agreed to rent one of Doreen’s cabins, a log house fitted out with beds, kitchen, bathroom, and red curtains, none of which was unappealing after four nights in tents. Steven and Murray dove into the cold lake. Doreen joined us for Murray’s morning Pome reading.

Gary reminisced about his history as a lineman and union official during the violent conflicts with BC Hydro in the ˜50’s and then led us through his extensive museum of local antiquities, including his locked collection of electric line insulators, one of which he had sold for $11,000. Among thousands of intriguing items was a portent of the future: an electric lamp whose current flowed through a meter informing the user of real time energy cost.

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May 25

John left on his mission early.

The diminished band of six packed leisurely and pedaled through the parking lot at the approach to Myra Canyon. At the end of curved cut in the rock a vast panorama unfolded. A huge gulf dropping to Lake level was scooped out of the high plateau to which we’d ascended for three days. A dozen or so side canyons covered with the charred remains of a burnt forest and numberless rockslides, opened into it. At the top of the canyon rose a single, wide, snow-covered peak. Volcanic eruption, landslide, holocaust: a display of nature’s power, demonic and sublime.

Next into view came a fine level line threading its way from where we stood, in and out of the side canyons, heading off towards the snowy summit and then back toward us on the other side of the abyss, supported across gaps narrow and wide by a delicate latticework of trestles.

After a lengthy stop to gaze, we crossed the first trestle on a surface of new planking that produced a clean hum from the tires.

It was a smooth thrill of a ride, created by a double human triumph over nature. The first was the original construction of the railroad, motivated by the desire to extract her wealth. The second was the recent reconstruction of the trail and trestles after decay and fire, motivated by the desire to provide pleasure to visitors. As we stopped again at the end of the first trestle, two kids and their parents on bikes came up behind us. “It’s just like Disneyland,” said one.

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