101 and 1962

Cory and I needed out of the city. Traveling is taking the invisible weights off your body. Decongesting everything, it is the Vick's Vapor Rub for the soul. We ventured north on the 101 gliding with the up and down and side to side curvatures of highway in his bug while admiring the smells and sights it offered. I stuck my head out the window many times with my eyes shut with only the sensation of the crisp wind pushing against my face and the delicious smell of the Earth filling my nostrils to feed my experience. Another smell experienced was that of dog breath which resembled the scent of a fish market. Roxy, Cory's dog, was most comfortable stationed right behind me breathing heavily on my neck. The stench, skillful, agile and aimed at my nose, slingshotted around my neck and struck with great accuracy. It was like Luke Skywalker's navigating to destroy the Death Star in episode IV of Star Wars. For the most part of the three days, Roxy breathed behind me, I breathed out the window, and Cory drove.

No tent means you're sleeping out in the open, and that's what I did for the first night. We arrived delirious at our campsite at around maybe 3 in the morning after stingily passing up "other" campgrounds. I slept on the forest floor with only a thin one inch air cushion separating me from the Earth. It was Earthy? My mummy bag rated to 0 degrees Farenheit left me comfortably snoozing below the stars with only trees to shadow my view. The second night, it rained. Cory and I were miserable, so was Roxy. Why? We compressed and contorted ourselves to sleep inside a Volkswagen Bug. But the morning was rather spectacular, to wake up surrounded by thousands year old and hundreds feet tall Redwood trees.

What drove Cory, was a search for mud. Fitted with off-roading tires, his 1962 Volkswagen Bug can climb and descend off-road trails, slide through mud and crawl slowly and annoyingly up highway grades. The rewarding and Berlin's "Take my breath away" moment came when we followed through with Hippy Tim's advice and veered right at mile marker 90.88 on the road out to the 1 from the 101. What we encountered and navigated was an off-roader's fantasy mountain that led to a private beach, accessible only by off-roading your way there.

(The photographs are large so click on them)


This is me looking like a squatter.