Car parked across from the General Store in Tomales with a happy new year sign in the window.
Evelyn and I decided to bring in the new year by going to two of our favorite places, Tomales and Dillon Beach. We’re not far from the Pacific Coast Hwy. (Hwy. 1) so it only takes about 20 minutes to get out to Tomales. You drive through rolling green hills (because it’s the rainy season here now) spotted with white lumps… which upon closer examination you realize are freshly trimmed sheep. First stop is the Tomales Bakery. (Yes, that’s rain droplets on my jacket.)
Then on to dog-friendly Dillon Beach, which is a short, gorgeous drive from Tomales.
Olive and Andy (wiener dogs formerly mentioned on this blog) would have been along with us except that they abhor rain… so they stayed home, all cozy by the heater.
Evelyn snapped a few beach shots.
I’m still on my Cormac McCarthy kick. After “The Road,” I started reading “Blood Meridian,” a western story, which is sort of like if “High Plains Drifter” and the “Outlaw Josey Wales” had been combined into an epic novel with less justice and really terrific prose.
This photo above is of birds, not horses, standing in the surf, but this quote near the end of “Blood Meridian” seems a good fit for the end of this post. One of the main characters of the book, after days in the southern California desert, near death, climbs the dunes after sunset to see the ocean near present day San Diego:
“Downshore the dull surf boomed. There was a horse standing there staring out upon the darkening waters and a young colt that cavorted and trotted off and came back.
He sat watching while the sun dipped hissing in the swells. The horse stood darkly against the sky. The surf boomed in the dark and the sea’s black hide heaved in the cobbled starlight and the long pale combers loped out of the night and broke along the beach.
Passing through the salt grass he looked back. The horse had not moved. A ship’s light winked in the swells. The colt stood against the horse with its head down and the horse was watching, out there past men’s knowing, where the stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea.”
The photographs of the beach and the stretch of rolling green above are just so beautiful. You’re so lucky to live close to such natural splendor.
The sad thing is that I don’t drive out to the ocean more often. Life gets in the way and I forget that this natural wonder is only a half hour away.
“Life get’s in the way” I wonder why that sounds so familiar – ah, because it does for me too, all too often, I completely emphatize. I’m guessing this beach may have inspired the scene where Jane and Dorie are sent to do a report on beaches and Jane thinks back to a intimate scene between her and Chelle.
OMG, a ‘66 Peugot 404 station wagon – the first car I ever owned! (Though mine was dark green.) I worked the entire summer of ‘69 to earn the $600 I paid for her. Talk about driving to the ocean – I converted her into a mini-camper and spent the summer of ‘70 slowly driving the Pacific Coast Highway from LA to San Francisco & back, camping at beach rest stops (you could do that back then) and just enjoying being young and on my first adventure. Paige, please – do NOT let life get in the way of living. Thank you for the lovely photos, but more for the even lovelier memories!
Can you tell you struck a chord here?
Joseph… thanks for sharing that memory… very cool.