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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 22, 2018)
14 // COASTWEEKEND.COM Continued from Page 4 I travel south along Big Sur, my heart in my mouth as the highway lunges over precipices and around death-defying corners. And now, the Redwoods (Sequoioideae), the first on this long, winding road. Here, they are “only” 6-feet in diameter, rising 250-feet, arrow-straight into pockets of creamy cerulean sky, statue-ing (new verb), in this case, in the front yard of the Henry Miller Memo- rial Library, a hippie pocket of respite in an ostentatious world of box stores, fast food and homogeneous per- sonality disorders, enabled by constantly-in-your-face cellphone dysfunction. These trees, titans with thick, shaggy bark like bear hide, leave me flummoxed as to who and what they are. Are they sentient? Are they wise? Do they project fear, or hope, or dignity to different creatures? Cer- tainly they are persistent, as are the Western cedars in our lush Pacific Northwest. The few, the proud — they may live 1,500 years and beyond, those lucky enough to survive the onslaught of FREE DAVID CAMPICHE PHOTOS Otters at Monterey Bay Aquarium Weyerhaeuser or MacMil- lan Bloedel and the chain- saw clear-cut massacres, all stained with human finger- prints. But let us not depart into heartache. Let us, if only for today, praise frond and fern, surf and ocean, needle, limb and soaring trunks of heartwood. Aspiring, inspiring, often tongue-tied, we transcend into the transcendental. CONCERT! Lighthouse Christian Church presents IN CONCERT Come join us in a night of music to benefit the Manna House Food Pantry SATURDAY, MARCH 24 • 6PM For more info: Roger Tele 208-659-1347 or email millriver1@ymail.com Lighthouse Christian Church A Lighthouse of Hope 88786 Dellmoor Loop • Warrenton, OR • 503.738.5182 www.LighthouseChristianChurchOregon.com And, forfeiting my infernal yakking, I might instead indulge my eyes and wits, set aside the pen and marvel at the yin and yang of my heart’s desire: the wilder- ness of our ancestors. INTERLUDE Carmel-By-The-Sea A sleepy, clean, tree-lad- en, exclusive, expensive town. Charming and very, very pretty with ocean views and fairy-soft air. Attended an innkeepers’ meeting with old friends with old inns and old sto- ries. We ate and drank far too much. The Cypress Inn was charming, the hospi- tality remarkable. This is Doris Day’s hotel, hangout and museum. Her movies are shown in the bar. The Innkeepers’ consensus was that, throughout the city, the quality of food was overmatched by the tariff, though I did fine at the Cypress. Best meal A Japanese restaurant called Ginger Café in Gilroy, the garlic capital of America. The best dumplings I ever ate. One, shaped like a sting- ray with a crab claw stinger, radiated on my palate with tender morsels of lobster and salmon. Left me lilting in near-ecstasy. And all this in a strip mall. Be ready to be surprised on the long, winding road. Jellyfish at Monterey Bay Aquarium 17-mile drive Voila! For seven of the 17 miles, sea and sandy coves, and sculpted rocks, and a thousand blue, gray and silver hues overwhelmed the senses. (No, I did not play golf at Pebble Beach.) Monterey What an aquarium. What a lovely bay. The town is pasted over with John Steinbeck history. “Cannery Row.” (Please read this nov- el!) It all happened here. Where there are sardines, one finds Italians. This was their town. Authentic. Few tourists. I miss the small, colorful fishing boats. I fell in love with the jellyfish floating listlessly in saltwater tanks at the aquarium. They remind- ed me of Frank Herbert’s fantastical novel “The Jesus Incident,” in which jellyfish float like gas-inflated bags as their tendrils drape onto the landscape of Pandora, held in place by large boulders. I preferred the Monterey variety with dangling day- Cyprus on the 17-mile loop close to Carmel-By-The-Sea glow sticky fingers swaying ballet-like in an aqua bath. One couldn’t help notic- ing the aquarium’s commit- ment to an ecological model, dedicated to the preservation of Mother Earth and her ocean creatures. And on a wonderful after- noon with dear friends, we float like butterflies on the CW four Siouxan winds.