Old Age Day by Day April 2, 2012

We had a nice three days away, with a lot of driving, but on roads where we had not ventured before, and we saw things not seen before, such as two lighthouses, a guest house museum, a botanical gardens that exceeded all expectations, beaches, tiny towns, windy roads through foothills.  We stayed in a town with one hotel (6 rooms) with a pub and a small grocery store next door.  But crossing the road, we could take wooden stairs down to a black sand beach.  The coast was stormy with huge waves and many rocks.  The little towns were fun to see, and imagine how it would be to live in one.  We saw a pgmy forest of pines and cypress.  The signs said some trees had eighty life rings but stood only 2 feet high.  I have 66 life rings and stand five feet high, so I identified mightily with this forest.  I guess it's the acid in the soil that inhibits growth.  Strange.

We saw monuments to the destruction of the redwoods through the decimating forestry, and tried to imagine what the coast looked like before the lumbermen.  For 11,000 years the Pomo lived up and down the coast, without altering the look, but in less than 100 years, the lumberman transformed the land, muddied up the rivers, blocked streams and built their ugly wooden structures.  The resulting towns have nothing to recommend them but the ocean and beaches, which they could not alter, much as they probably would have liked to.  We were fascinated by the two lighthouses we saw, one a tall, classic pillar of white and the other small, like a church with a lens instead of a steeple.  They still need these lighthouses, with such dangerous rocks and coastline, and imagining the lives of the lighthouse keepers, seeing their photos and family pictures, was deeply interesting.  The lens are like huge jewels, multifaceted.  One lighthouse had taken the lens down and we could see it up close.  The other was still functional and we could see the light searching and beaconing.  I saw a book about women lighthouse keepers and regret not buying it. 

So our three day weekend was a great getaway.  We even stopped by to see my Buddhist teacher and her husband, and stroll through their gardens and watch the birds, especially yellow finches, red winged blackbirds and banded pigeons.