Weekend Exploration in Central & Northern California Part I

Many days later, with time to process and understand, there's more peace. A weekend behind us to reflect, rest and energize to continue speaking up for what's right. Perhaps if we all worked together for our best neighborhood or community through listening to one another's concerns, ideas, fears and hopes, all of our actions could roll together into an extraordinary place to live and be free. We already are free, we already have access to some of the most basic and best human rights in the world, we already are so privileged to live in a democracy, let's make it even better. We could show each other that we care about others, that we accept and listen to one another in our own nation and around the world, that we're willing to work together no matter our differences. Before beginning the post below about a recent weekend, a quote I've long loved and have had on my mind this week:

"One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple by the relief office I saw my people. As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if this land was made for you and me." 

-- Woody Guthrie

Two weekends ago, one of my best friends, Allison, who I met while we were both studying in Scotland four years ago, visited me in California. She flew down from Portland, Oregon and we had a marvelous four days of exploration and fun. In visuals and substance, it was beautiful. There were a few too many words and images to include it all in just one post, I'll split the adventure into two posts.

We began at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a favorite of many visitors. With my membership and the ability to grab a guest pass through my work, I'm always eager to experience it again with friends! These jellyfish, appropriately called "egg yolk jellyfish" were incredibly tangled.

This Indian Ocean octopus was also on a definite exercise break when we stopped by. It was extraordinary to see all of his or her tentacles moving at different speeds and how it seemed to float through the water. The photobomb by a shrimp in this image makes me laugh.

Big Sur is a destination I could travel to everyday. The full experience of the gorgeous views and landscape includes driving only an hour and a half or so round trip along the coast and it typically feels like ten minutes.

Even the smallest amount of rain and sea mist made the region look a bit more like Ireland than drought-stricken California!

The next day, we explored San Francisco. I've only been to the city two or three times and it was great to accomplish a few more tourist-y things in that fun city. We began at the Flower Conservatory, a beautiful building dating to the 1890s that survived the devastating 1906 earthquake. It looks like an enormous Victorian greenhouse, a blend of glass panes and wood painted white. There were so many orchids and tropical plants and a giant lily pond, but unfortunately the lighting on the images I captured just weren't great. Here's one close-up of an orchid in the conservatory that isn't too dark.

Afterwards, we explored the Ferry building near the piers and the long Bay Bridge which stretches to the East Bay where Oakland and Berkeley lie (along with the rest of the state and country if you continue traveling east). The outdoor Saturday farmers market was extremely busy and the specialty food and home goods shops indoors were just as bustling. It was wonderful to see the mixture of every type of cuisine possible, local food and farms represented and tourists and locals shopping. Lines for every type of food were long, but in splitting up and weighing the differences in line length, we both found something tasty. I loved the steamed pork bun and Italian nutella doughnut I tried.

Free museums are always welcome. If engineering or transportation interests you, I'd recommend the free cable car museum! 

I can't say On the Road grabbed me like other literature has, and I can't say I know a ton about the Beatniks, but I do love Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poetry. I knew so little about him that I was quite surprised when I learned he was a beatnik a little while ago. Around that same time, I was thrilled to  learn that at 97, he still owns San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore, an independent book store that has an excellent selection of poetry, novels, and everything you'd find in a book store. It was so exciting to be there and I particularly liked this door in the basement. 

My favorite Ferlinghetti poem is below. This trip to be continued in the next post!

Wild Dreams of a New Beginning

There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight

Beyond the ledges of concrete

restaurants fall into dreams

with candlelight couples

Lost Alexandria still burns

in a billion lightbulbs

Lives cross lives

idling at stoplights

Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs

'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'

A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window

A yogi speaks at Ojai

'It's all taking pace in one mind'

On the lawn among the trees

lovers are listening

for the master to tell them they are one

with the universe

Eyes smell flowers and become them

There's a deathless hush

on the freeway tonight

as a Pacific tidal wave a mile high

sweeps in

Los Angeles breathes its last gas

and sinks into the sea like the Titanic all lights lit

Nine minutes later Willa Cather's Nebraska

sinks with it

The sea comes over in Utah

Mormon tabernacles washed away like barnacles

Coyotes are confounded & swim nowhere

An orchestra onstage in Omaha

keeps on playing Handel's Water Music

Horns fill with water

ans bass players float away on their instruments

clutching them like lovers horizontal

Chicago's Loop becomes a rollercoaster

Skyscrapers filled like water glasses

Great Lakes mixed with Buddhist brine

Great Books watered down in Evanston

Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam

Beau Fleuve of Buffalo suddenly become salt

Manhatten Island swept clean in sixteen seconds

buried masts of Amsterdam arise

as the great wave sweeps on Eastward

to wash away over-age Camembert Europe

manhatta steaming in sea-vines

the washed land awakes again to wilderness

the only sound a vast thrumming of crickets

a cry of seabirds high over

in empty eternity

as the Hudson retakes its thickets

and Indians reclaim their canoes