Thinking about What We Wonder At

Pacific coast

“Men go forth to wonder at the heights of mountains,
the huge waves of the sea,
the broad flow of the rivers,
the vast compass of the ocean,
the courses of the stars,
and they pass by themselves without wondering.”
— Saint Augustine

What are we passing by?

All That Vast Blue Panorama of Seas

” . . . and there they are, thousands and thousands of tourists driving by slowly on the high curves all oo ing and aa ing at all that vast blue panorama of seas washing and raiding the coast of California . . .”
— Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

View of the coastline from the lighthouse at Point Reyes National Seashore

I have a dream of someday driving every mile of the U.S. lower 48 coastline.  Starting with Neah Bay in Washington State and driving south along the Pacific coast to the Mexican border.  Then starting again in Brownsville, Texas and going along the Gulf of Mexico to the Florida Keys, and then north along the Atlantic coast to the tip of Maine.  I don’t mind doing this journey piecemeal, and I’ve already driven much of the Washington and Oregon coasts.  This trip was an opportunity to cover some of the California coast from Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco to Big Sur.

While the weather was sunny in San Francisco, we encountered pockets of low lying fog along parts of the coast.  This is a wild coastline, with pounding surf and inaccessible shorelines at the bases of cliffs and bluffs.  The pockets of accessible beach occur every so often — many are state park lands — and the popular ones were busy with people picnicking and playing in the sand.  Few people were in the water or wading in the treacherous surf.  We saw surfers on the beaches of Santa Cruz. It was easy to park roadside at the more remote beaches — remarkable that you could have these great stretches of beach almost to yourself.

The gray whales were migrating south to their birthing grounds, and we were lucky to have spotted evidence of their passing — three spouts above the water.  No actual sightings of the whales themselves.

Watching for gray whales

The California coast is extraordinarily beautiful.  Here are some photos:

South Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore

South Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore

Marina at Pillar Point

Monterey Bay

Monterey Bay

Point Lobos State Reserve

Point Lobos State Reserve

Point Lobos State Reserve

Seagulls resting on Bird Island, Point Lobos

Off Highway 1 on the way to Big Sur

Big Sur

Our lunchtime view of the Big Sur coastline from the deck of the Nepenthe Restaurant

Pacific Ocean

Road Trip to Olympic National Park (Part 3): Rialto Beach

“There was no end to the joyful exaltation on this edge of oscillations.”
— Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds

The Pacific Ocean at Rialto Beach, Olympic National Park

The last half of our Olympic National Park road trip took us to several Pacific coast beaches.  We stopped at Mora Campground on the way to Rialto Beach to pitch our tent, as we planned to have a picnic supper at the beach and stay until sunset.  We didn’t want to have to set up our tent in the dark.

Our campsite at Mora Campground

The beach was two miles from the campground.  We passed the Quillayute River as we neared the end of the road.  Straight ahead was the endless ocean, the mighty Pacific.

Quillayute River

Sea stacks at Rialto Beach

Fourteen shades of gray

“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.”
— Henry Beston

This was my first time at Rialto Beach.  It’s a wild coast, with waves crashing and casting up sea foam onto the pebbly beach.  Sea stacks added interest to the horizon line.  Weathered driftwood lined the upper beach.  The water was cold, but irresistible to children (and adults).

Rialto beach

The wild shores at Rialto Beach

Our beach chairs

Driftwood

The sky

Waiting for sunset

“There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.”
— Victor Hugo

Removing the Day’s Wrinkles

Costa Rican beach, 2008

“The beach is a good spot for spending that transitional hour between day and night as the waves roll up and slide back, tugging out some of a busy day’s wrinkles.”
— Sonny Brewer, A Sound Like Thunder

 

Intimations of Eternity

Inexhaustible, overlapping waves in the ocean's surf

“I sit listening
To the surf as it falls.
The power and inexhaustible freshness of the sea,
The suck and inner boom
As a wave tears free and cradles back
In overlapping thunders going down the beach.
It is the most we know of time,
And it is our undermusic of eternity.”
— Galway Kinnell, from “Spindrift”

 

The Seashore of the Mind

Pacific beach near Kalaloch

“Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.”
     — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“O madly the sea pushes upon the land,
With love, with love . . .”
     — Walt Whitman

“Like the long waves on a sea-beach,
Where the sand as silver shines,
With a soft, monotonous cadence,
Flow its unrhymed lyric line. . .”
     — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Secret of the Sea”

 

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Ocean Waves

Waves at Westhaven State Park, Westport

“The waves were continually pulled up along the beach and pulled back as though someone were making a bed and couldn’t get the sheet to lie properly.”
     —  Graham Greene, Travels with My Aunt

My husband and I drove to Ocean Shores in part to satisfy my yearning to walk barefoot along a sandy beach.  We left sunny skies in Seattle, but drove into a cloud bank about 5 miles from the ocean.  It was cold and windy, too.  My barefoot fantasy was a bust.  Still I love the ocean and the sound of the waves landing on the shore — worthwhile in any weather.