Today I Built A Temple
Back in the time before Mohammed, tales were told of the tribes of the Arabian desert who worshipped rocks. This was a misinterpretation. Each evening when they had set up camp, the nomads would find three stones and carefully set them atop one another. This represented their desert gods, and, thus, they could build a temple wherever they could find three stones
I rode the full forty miles today, without too much trouble. I was tired towards the end, of course, but that vanished as soon as I saw where I'd be setting up camp: in a towering forest of pines, the thick, persistent and gnarled sort of pines that, when knocked down, will thrust another tree forth from the ruins of the old, creating the impression of a calloused wooden fist clutching the earth with massive mossy fingers. From my chosen spot, I could see the waves crashing against the hidden shore. When I laid down on the ground on top of my tent's ground sheet - I always test the sleepability of a spot before pitching the tent - I stared up into a fractal chaos of tree trunks, out-thrust branches, needles, and sky.
The rides themselves are quickly becoming the least parts of my days...it's about getting to the next place, now, and being with the sea, and watching the sun set as often as possible. Route 101 is sometimes unremarkable as it winds down the coast...today, for example, I spent a lot of time with traffic, and when I was near mountains they were often piebald, with regular square patches of gray clear-cut areas, leaving their forested profiles uneven and disheveled.
When I finally cruised back down to sea level after a modest three hundred foot climb, things improved: salt flats along the bay, flat riding, and, finally, the stony beaches of Cape Lookout. This is a beach that vanishes at high tide, as the ocean rushes in to continue its work of turning boulders into stones and stones into sand. Mist shrouded the bluffs towards the south, and the beach to the north eventually vanished into an impenetrable cloud.
It's very hot inland this weekend, so the park is full of campers in cars and RVs who have fled to the coast. A large crowd gathered for the sunset, something I always enjoy. There's an ancient sense of community there: a bunch of humans, gathered together to watch the sun do its thing. On an impulse, I stopped by the registration station and got myself a bundle of firewood.
So, this is where I am writing to you from, right now. In the middle of an evening forest, by a campfire, listening to the waves crash against a beach made from a hundred million potential temples.
