Pacifica

We lived in Pacifica for ten years and visited for a week. We left eight years ago and now found the city remains much the same: comfortable, alive, home.

Public spaces have continued to expand and improve, the more run-down housing is slowly being improved and more new upscale housing is available. The demographics are both similar and different: the average age is about the same (a good range from young to older, established) while the diversity is slowly increasing. Businesses are much the same with some nice additions, like a fish market a couple blocks from where we had been living. The Devil's Slide Tunnel bypass is open, as is the Devil's Slide Trail. Both are upgrades but I do miss the moments of white knuckle adrenalin from driving along the old Devil's Slide 800 foot plunge to the ocean (when we first moved to Pacifica, people regularly drove off the Slide to their deaths, sometimes with apparent intention, but stronger barriers stopped that around 2002).

We found our two favorite Japanese restaurants: the ageless Mitsu was unchanged and felt like coming home; Kamameshi House had moved, further hiding itself in the most unlikely of spots but was as good as ever and Cyndi finally got her long anticipated and desired Hawaiian roll.

The biggest change was the fog: it disappeared. While our one week of observation is too small a sample for a conclusion, locals confirm that the fog has decreased in the last several years. So for those of you in the Bay Area, your last excuse for not visiting or living in Pacifica is gone.

And the friends were the highlight of the visit. Great to see them and the hugs were big, warm and plentiful. As time goes on, the hugs get bigger and increasingly satisfying,

The only problem with the visit is that now we want to move back.

Pacifica, with the fishing pier and Pedro Point visible. It wasn't foggy but, as expected, it was cloudy most of the time.

From the same spot looking northward. The point of land ends in Mussel Rock and is where the San Andreas Fault plunges into the sea. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake epicenter was 2 miles to the left of this photo. Mt Tam in the distance.

Cyndi on the Sharp Park seawall. I have probably walked along this more than 5,000 times. This is approximately where the witch disappeared.

The crows gathered to greet us.

One of many reasons Cyndi loves Pacifica: Death Lillies.

We lived in the townhouses just to the south of the pier (middle of the photo). This was taken at dawn and you can see the missing fog. 

When we moved to Pacifica, there were four houses along here. We almost bought one. Beautiful view and a really cute little beach side cottage. But it fell into the ocean before we could make an offer. Our common sense might be limited but something is looking out for us.

Here is a rarity: affordable housing in the Bay Area. Great views, too.

Well, you get what you pay for. A coat of paint, a couple nails and you'll be good to go.

In fact, you may go further than you expected.

But I'm sure these rocks will prevent further erosion.
Of course, that is what the people with the house that fell into the ocean said, too.

Hwy 1 used to run along Devil's Slide before it was diverted to a tunnel a mile inland. This is now a pleasant talking trail.

I had to include another pic of Devil's Slide with traces of the old rail line. 

And I couldn't resist including a picture of rocks. Folded rocks on the north end of Devil's Slide. You can imagine that rocks this tortured will crumbled and therefore "Slide".

And I had to include another picture of pretty flowers.

And the last two inanimate objects: Cyndi and myself in front of our RV.

Carrizo Plains

We re-visited the Carizzo Plains, this time when the flowers were in bloom.

A few years ago during our visit an irritated aging hippie homesteader complained for some time about the ugly, environment killing solar panel arrays that were planned for installation in what he felt was his personal beautiful valley. Now the panels were installed. There were a surprising large number of arrays installed by a large number of companies in a few short years. The environment seems unharmed and we thought the arrays were attractive … well, more attractive than a coal fired power plant.

The drought kept the number of flowers to a minimum yet made for a cheerful ride. If it ever rains again in some future winter, take a pleasant weekend road trip in March to visit the Plains and central California in general. It's a refreshing trip.

As we approach from Central Valley, we first see these soft hills in front of the Temblor Range. 

As we crossed the Temblor Range, we stopped for a bit before dropping into the Carrizo Plains.

We crossed the San Andreas Fault Zone.

Here are a of the flowers that carpet the Plain.
Note the solar panels slicing thru the center of the photo.
No, really. Look closely. That thin black line is a solar panel array.

Here is a close up of a typical soalr array. It's not really this blue but they do look like lakes from a distance.

An overview of the Plain. You can see 4 solar arrays and one salt lake. Can you tell which is which?

For reference, here is a typical coal fired power plant as we found in Arizona
I had to steal this photo from Wikipedia as Cyndi wouldn't let me stop to take a picture while we passed by. She thought we'd be shot as terrorists.
Cholla Power Plant, from Wikipeida by PDTillman, Creative Commons.

A selfie with a 5' tumbleweed.

As we left for Atascadero, we drove through more lovely scenery in the Caliente Range.

And we ended up near Paso Robles, where we spent the night.

The Witch of Sharp Park

The fog snagged briefly on the wind twisted Cyprus trees before the trees reluctantly let the fog drift in-land across Sharp Park and disolve into the hills. Two waking ravens landed on the trees and in the brightening dark of the dawn, they watched me walking along the berm watching the waves reach up, claw at the berm and relax again into the sea. The breeze was light, the air clean, fresh, refreshing. It was quiet, monochrome, solitary and I was happy. Then I turned and I saw a shadow in the fog and I saw the shadow resolve itself into a dark figure impassively, implacably nearing me.

It was the Witch of Sharp Park.

I had encountered the Witch many times and she always left me unsettled and upset for the day. Out of habit or self-protection, I turned to watch another wave grab at the berm, avoiding her eyes as she passed. In a few seconds I dared a glance to assure we would pass untouched and she was gone, disappeared. Where she should have been was a raven. The raven glared at me with his yellow unblinking eyes and then he flew with the breeze into the fog and disappeared heading for the hills. I noticed the two ravens in the trees were still watching me.

Where was the Witch? I turned and she wasn't behind me. I looked into the park and she was not to be seen. I walked over to the inland edge of the berm and peered over. She wasn't there. I looked back to the ocean and she wasn't there. She had not had the time to disappear into the fog, to turn away from me or to pass me.

She must have shape-shifted and, as a raven, she flew away from me. Well, I didn't really believe that but I could think of no other explanation. And I was to find out that this was the last time I was to see her.

For almost two years the Witch had occasionally appeared at dawn in the fog approaching me from the bottom of the bare hills at Mori Point. And she appeared only at dawn, only in the fog, only in that part of the berm. And while she came from the direction of Mori Point, she seemed to come from nowhere.

The first time I saw her, short and sturdy, with a gray tunic … or was it black … her head hidden in a cowl, I said good morning. She continued past me silently, as if I wasn't there, staring with unblinking eyes. Eyes that seemed not to see anything … or maybe saw through objects. An old woman, mouth turned downward, not angry, just cold, worn but not tired, emotionless. As if dead but determined. I imagined she had no one, nothing but the fog. No where to go but no reason to delay getting there. I sensed she had a message but the message wasn't for me. I doubt if it was for anyone.

I was creeped out and I laughingly told myself she must be a witch. For a couple subsequent encounters I again tried to make friendly eye contact but not only did she not respond but I began to feel physically turned back by her.

She was probably just homeless, harmless. But after weeks and months of her passing me silently, unseeing, as if I did not exist, she became a real witch in my mind. I did not want to see her and every time I did, I felt increasingly unsettled. And then, in front of me, as I watched, she shape shifted and disappeared from my life.

For the next couple of weeks I would stop where she had disappeared, puzzled. I looked for a possible route that could have quickly hidden her from my sight, but it wasn't possible for her to disappear from that spot. There was no where to go, nowhere to hide. Yet she had disappeared. As the weeks became months and I realized she was gone, my unlikely shape shifting possibility became my reality.

Then a few years later on another foggy dawn, I encountered a dog walking deliberately along the berm in the same place the Witch had disappeared. Of course, I had seen many dogs on the berm but they were always leashed or accompanied by a person. This was the first and only dog I ever saw running loose on the berm. Without stopping, the dog looked over at me briefly and disappeared.

Like that. In one step the dog had gone over the edge of the berm. In the same place the Witch had disappeared. I walked over and to my shock, I saw a faint path leading downward. A path but not the dog. There are many paths down the berm but I had never seen this path before. The dog knew of this path. And this was how the Witch had disappeared. I now knew she hadn't shape shifted. She had just walked down the path, just walked away. She might not even have been a witch. I felt better.

At least until the next day when I stopped to examine that path again. I could not find it. It had been faint, but I knew exactly where it was. Or had been. And now I couldn't find it. Over the next couple of years I looked for that faint path again and again, under all lighting conditions, all weather conditions. I could not find it and I never saw anyone, any dog, any animal use any path in that area. That path did not exist.

Had the Witch shaped shifted again? As a dog, had she shown me how she had disappeared? If she had used the path to disappear, why did she shape shift into the raven? How did the dog, or the Witch, make that path appear? And disappear? Was she … the raven, the dog … gone for good?

I needed an explanation. I decided that I needed to do fewer drugs. But then, I hadn't used any hallucinogens for about 25 years.

So I'm left with a shape shifting witch who maybe has left me.