Our Idyll with a Seal on a Californian Shore
Isn’t it strange how, when you go on a sightseeing holiday abroad, the big attractions that you’ve placed at the top of your ‘must-see’ list sometimes turn out to be disappointing, whilst small, unexpected places can prove to be delightful?
Thus it was when my wife and I took a three week trip around California (we are from England).
Of course, some of the star billings did live up to expectations; but it’s those moments of surprising serendipity that one remembers with most pleasure.
It was the wrong time of year for the big national parks. When I phoned a ranger station from England to ask what kind of clothes to bring, a friendly chap told me with a chuckle that the trees and bears were under 20 feet of snow – come back in summer.
So it was mainly a coastal trip for us. Also, having been forewarned by fellow-Brits that if you try to take in the full length of that very long state in three weeks, you’re going to spend much of your time staring at the car in front, we had to choose a section. We opted for San Francisco to Los Angeles.
San Francisco struck me as a city I could feel okay living in, if only it had the warmer climate of Los Angeles; whereas the City of Angels would be all right if only it were as laid-back, tolerant and environmentally aware as the City on the Bay.
But it was a little place about half-way between those two metropoles that left us with a hauntingly lasting impression.
It’s called Cambria, and it’s the nearest place to stay overnight if you’re visiting Hearst Castle – a bizarre excrescence of excessive wealth. And it was in little Cambria that a crowning moment of our trip occurred.
After wandering through some quiet residential streets, we found ourselves scrambling down a steep, narrow pathway on to a shoreline of rocks and crashing waves; and there we sat on a rock, just watching and listening.
And sat. And sat. And sat; becoming aware during our idyll that we had been joined a short distance away by a seal that had heaved his or her self on to the beach to bask.
That was the moment when I felt I was truly in California. It was as if a fantasy notion of the state that I had been carrying around in the back of my mind had become reality.
Ever since, whenever somebody back here in good old England starts talking about California, the first image that pops into my head isn’t one of Hollywood (lawks! how tacky that place was!) or of an impossibly steep San Francisco street (they always remind me of Barbara Streisand in ‘What’s Up Doc?), or even, God forbid, of Disneyland (dammit, I’ve already used the word ‘tacky’).
Nope, it’s that rocky shore in Cambria where I shared precious moments of breezy, cloudy-bright Pacific Ocean tranquillity with my lovely wife Fazilet. And with an elephant seal who, at least for that afternoon, also seemed to have got life sorted out.
Thus it was when my wife and I took a three week trip around California (we are from England).
Of course, some of the star billings did live up to expectations; but it’s those moments of surprising serendipity that one remembers with most pleasure.
It was the wrong time of year for the big national parks. When I phoned a ranger station from England to ask what kind of clothes to bring, a friendly chap told me with a chuckle that the trees and bears were under 20 feet of snow – come back in summer.
So it was mainly a coastal trip for us. Also, having been forewarned by fellow-Brits that if you try to take in the full length of that very long state in three weeks, you’re going to spend much of your time staring at the car in front, we had to choose a section. We opted for San Francisco to Los Angeles.
San Francisco struck me as a city I could feel okay living in, if only it had the warmer climate of Los Angeles; whereas the City of Angels would be all right if only it were as laid-back, tolerant and environmentally aware as the City on the Bay.
But it was a little place about half-way between those two metropoles that left us with a hauntingly lasting impression.
It’s called Cambria, and it’s the nearest place to stay overnight if you’re visiting Hearst Castle – a bizarre excrescence of excessive wealth. And it was in little Cambria that a crowning moment of our trip occurred.
After wandering through some quiet residential streets, we found ourselves scrambling down a steep, narrow pathway on to a shoreline of rocks and crashing waves; and there we sat on a rock, just watching and listening.
And sat. And sat. And sat; becoming aware during our idyll that we had been joined a short distance away by a seal that had heaved his or her self on to the beach to bask.
That was the moment when I felt I was truly in California. It was as if a fantasy notion of the state that I had been carrying around in the back of my mind had become reality.
Ever since, whenever somebody back here in good old England starts talking about California, the first image that pops into my head isn’t one of Hollywood (lawks! how tacky that place was!) or of an impossibly steep San Francisco street (they always remind me of Barbara Streisand in ‘What’s Up Doc?), or even, God forbid, of Disneyland (dammit, I’ve already used the word ‘tacky’).
Nope, it’s that rocky shore in Cambria where I shared precious moments of breezy, cloudy-bright Pacific Ocean tranquillity with my lovely wife Fazilet. And with an elephant seal who, at least for that afternoon, also seemed to have got life sorted out.
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