From my notes:
"Here Comes the Sun coffee shop, stopped at post office and mailed home extra set of clothes, covered in poison oak anyway. First mountain section, misty, beautiful. Running at night tripped and hit elbow, passed out. Made it to SF, but no hotels with vacancy. Slept for an hour or two on bed of succulents on dunes near beach."
Waking up in the camp -- I had pitched my bivy under a tree near other tents, not able to pinpoint the hiker/biker spot exactly. I was grateful I had purchased the extra bivy and emergency blanket as a light rain fell as I drifted off to sleep and greeted me again as I awoke. The night before I had taken a chance and left my external battery to charge in the bathroom. The homeless man I met on Day 2 had told me he regularly left his cell phone plugged in overnight in the bathroom area and never had problems. The next morning the door appeared to be locked. Luckily it was just jammed and I once I got it open I found my battery there, fully charged. I noticed someone else had copied my technique and had left their phone to charge in another stall. I wasn't so bold as to leave my phone there, I figured I could risk the external battery and get another one if I needed to. I brought everything into the bathroom and charged the phone for a few minutes while I got organized.
Leaving the camp the trail was marked with CCT signs. Half Moon Bay in general was well marked, there were lots of turns through town but the markers pointed the way. After a short run I made it to a coffee shop, where I parked to top off my cell phone and get breakfast. I noticed a rash all over my legs that I assumed was from the poison oak I had run through. I posted online and received a deluge of messages and comments on how to get rid of it -- everything they suggested seemed to take way too much time and energy -- getting a prescription, buying an arcane brand of soap, etc., and I might just re-infect myself the next day from my clothes or new patches of the plant through which I would have to walk. This rash really wasn't that bad --it was the least of my worries! I couldn't say that online though, I'd receive another deluge of inquiries and suggestions. The rash wasn't blistering or weeping like poison oak -- and it never did. Perhaps it wasn't really poison oak, or perhaps my body had given up reacting to it. Maybe it was an immune response to the change in my diet, I had been low-carb before the trip and with my vegan resolution had allowed processed food and carbohydrates again. The rash would persist and spread throughout the trip. When I got home to Riverside some twenty days later it was still there, but two applications of hydrocortisone cream knocked it out in 48 hours. Maybe it would have been worth procuring a tube and carrying a small amount along.
The trail cut inland a little, through the town, and I decided to leave behind one of my pins in a restroom on the route, it said "less judgement, more curiosity." I didn't like that it seemed to be telling the reader what to do. I get uncomfortable when people give me their unsolicited opinions on what to do.
The CCT signs led to a set of streets named after the Ivy League schools, I found myself at the intersection of Harvard and West Point, with Stanford up ahead. Princeton, Cornell, and Yale are also were also in the group.
I ran through a park with towering trees -- I wasn't in San Diego anymore. I stopped at the restroom but made sure to return to the same point on the trail. At the end of the segment was a small grocery store and I stopped to buy some produce. The trail wound around bluffs covered with red ice plants, in front of a long row of homes. I thought of my friend Bob Hearn who had said he lived somewhere nearby since he ran on the trails by the Ritz. I ran past the Point Montara Lighthouse Hostel, multiple people had told me it was a great place to stay. Unfortunately the timing hadn't worked out. If a hiker were to plan well he/she could stay in hostels right along the route every 25-30 miles for a 100+ mile stretch in this area.
A little while further on I came to the Here Comes the Sun coffee shop. The owner was friendly and introduced me to "Mocha Mark," one of her regulars. He worked at the airport nearby he said, and came in every afternoon for a mocha, it used to be something else, but mochas were was he ordered nowadays. I had overheard them talking, Mark had said he shouldn't have grown up, and the owner said he should have stayed young forever, like Peter Pan.
Mocha Mark did some yoga-like moves and mimed drinking tea, "guess what I'm doing?" he asked. I got it. Doing Tai Chi while drinking Chai Tea! And then said, "if at first you don't succeed, chai, chai again!" I told the owner and mark that the shop was right on the CCT. Mark drew his hand across the floor, "it goes right through the store..." well, right next to the CCT.
The owner was inspired my by journey and said that it made her want to travel and do something similar. When I set out I had thought of this as a kind of selfish endeavor, but now I could see there was a meaning beyond myself. I had no idea it would inspire people the way it did and I was grateful every time that happened. Some treated my trek with religious reverence and I began to treat it that way too.
Afterward I stopped by the post office to mail home my extra set of shorts and shirt, now covered in poison oak. They took up an inordinate amount of space in my pack too. I also parted with another pin, Big Sur with a rainbow, and sent it to Jennifer.
The route followed a hidden little single track path through the town, paralleling the city streets. Then rejoined sidewalks and dove down to the beach. Afterwards the CCT began its first mountain segment, involving Devil's Slide Trail. It was misty and cold, and I put on my jacket, which was water resistant. I saw a few other intrepid hikers and we smiled at each other knowingly, we were both other here weathering the elements. Occasionally a mountain biker would ride past. I used my phone's GPS, Google Maps, and the CCT maps to navigate turns on the trails. I was surprised to find a plastic port-o-potty at the top of the first hill. It had a wooden sign that read "restroom." I found it interesting that someone had gone to the trouble of making such a sign, but it was nice to know the toilet was public, and the sign integrated it with the wilderness just a little bit better.
I grew philosophical walking through the mountain trails, "if a tree falls and no one hears it... my posts on Facebook feel like coming up for air, then I dive back into the magical dreamscape." I mused that people can be in the same physical space, but light years apart in mental spaces, I'm on this journey, choosing not to have any help. My friend Bob is somewhere nearby, going about his daily routine.
I wondered if I was doing something to attract the creepy men. I wrote, "Is my body oder what's attracting all the weirdos?!" Luckily it was mostly just Santa Cruz. I recalled cringing at the brussels sprouts on the menu in Davenport, after my run-in with the farm worker. And rememered passing a boat on my way from Wilder Park to Davenport that was named "Master Baiter" and painted with a man suggestively holding a fish. I thought about drawing up a map with cartoons of the trials I endured, something like what I imagined Odysseus would have followed. Instead of Medusa there would be a group of men with arms outstretched, fingers curled drawn around at Santa Cruz, land of the creeps.
I thought of the collection of Grimm's Fairytales I had downloaded a month before the trip and how the narrator had said that naivete, youth, and innocence always won. I hoped I would make it through the rest of the trip safely.
The chance encounters I had along the trail reminded me of a reflection paper I had written in my final semester of grad school, in a cognitive science elective that would turn out to be one of my favorites in my three years in the computer science program. The paper was, "The importance of chance and interactivity in creativity," by David Kirsh. I had saved a few excerpts, "The position supported here is that randomness and chance can serve as a stimulus to broaden thinking, to overcome cognitive set and functional fixedness – an approach underlying many modern creativity techniques," and, "as the saying goes, 'If you can't walk in the right direction, sometimes it's enough to walk randomly.'"
It reminded me of simulated annealing, a computational technique that simulates the chemical process of annealing, or slow cooling, that injects randomness to allow the program to find a function's global minimum, and avoid getting stuck in local minima. If you're stuck -- try a little randomness.
A few people had expressed jealousy over my trip, some of them were California natives and I could see why they might be jealous of someone who had only lived in the state for five years doing the state's coastal trail before they did. It reminded me of my jealousy of a friend from college who had remained in Iowa after graduation, making a life for himself there as a local artist. That had been my dream, or one of them. Later I would listen to an interview with Gretchen Rubin, who said something revolutionary. We are often blind to ourselves, to find out what you really want, look for what makes you jealous. That's what you should pursue. As a lawyer she had found herself jealous of her friends who had become writers. She changed careers, had immense success, and never looked back.
The forrest had an earthy smell from the rain, I noticed as I descended to the next town. I was looking forward to the Starbucks there. The post-rain earthiness could be interpreted as pure and natural or as the smell of decay. I spotted a deserted bike parked near the trail. My lack of sleep was making me worry. And I was dizzy from carrying my pack over the hills. I decided to focus on the goodness of nature.
At last I arrived at my trusted Starbucks, ordering a vegan salad, then tried to find another flashlight at the neighboring gas station, no luck. I set off into the night on a path along the beach. I looked up to see the number 27 on a restaurant sign, at the coffee shop that morning the plastic number they had given me for my table was 27. 27 was my house number growing up, and the age at which a number of music legends died: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club.
The bike path turned to sidewalk and wound through town. I tried to follow the trail map but the path was blocked by a fence, it looked like a private trailer park had taken over that segment. I detoured around it, then through more city streets on the route. I stopped at a liquor store, the only store open at that time of night, to grab some sunflower seeds and caffeine to keep me awake. The two owners were in a jolly mood and I told them about my trek as I checked out. They looked at each other amazed and started singing and clapping! They said all my snacks were on the house. They were from Iran and they encouraged me to come to their country for hiking one day.
I headed back out into the night, smiling now. I probably had a couple of my caffeine pills, hoping to make it to the city of San Francisco and get a hotel. The guys at the liquor store had warned me to be careful running in that area at night and had implied I might have trouble finding a hotel in the city.
I ran on through the town's streets, now on the highway again.
From my notes:
"Tripped on embankment didn't see on the dark while running on the highway. Hit elbow and hand hard, really hurt. Could feel myself about to faint, crawled to the side of the road and laid back on some cushy succulents. Heard water running in the drain next to me, then the next thing I remember - thoughts, feelings, and words flitting unintelligibly across my consciousness. I tried to form a thought, I couldn't. I remember thinking the words "God" and "mom," but could not make them make sense, they ran away from me, other words, thoughts, and feelings flooded in but I was lost, nothing made sense. It was a scary place I've never been before. I didn't hit my head, it must have been a result of the blackout from the pain.
Actually an interesting, albeit terrifying, experience. As I was coming out of the blackout could not hold onto a thought or word, I tried to associate meaning with words but couldn't, nothing made sense, very weird, didn't hit my head.
Luckily there was a nook I tucked into on the roadside. Nobody stopped, I don't think anyone saw me. I could tell I was about to faint so laid back in a bed of succulents. Listened to the water flowing in the drain nearby."
After the pain of passing out subsided I continued running.
I made it to Mussel Rock Park, but there was a large sign posted that read, "Recent Slide Activity, Hazardous Conditions, Enter at Your Own Risk." I took the alternate route instead.
I wrote that, "I had to do this trail, like an artist has to paint." And then, "like a bad relationship over halfway through -- ready to be done." I had heard that relationships that end were really over at the halfway point, and I mused this was approximately the halfway point of my journey. I didn't really want it to be over, but I was tired.
In the dark I ran through a piece of trail on what appeared to be a military installation, or a monument to an old one. Navigating was difficult and I lost the trail. Suddenly I was standing in front of a sign warning of unstable cliffs. It looked like the only way through was on those cliffs. I backtracked. Luckily I found the trail, some thirty feet east. I made it to the end of the secluded segment, a streetlight greeted me down below the trail. There appeared to be a wooden fence blocking the trail I was supposed to take. I started down toward the streetlight, in the opposite direction, but realized this would be a big detour. I decided to try the single track trail behind the fence instead. It was a simple two-rung wooden fence, easy to climb around or over but I didn't want to violate any park rules. I followed the thin trail, it was taking me in the right direction. I made it to a group of large dunes and started on my way to the beach, but realized I was getting farther from the route I was supposed to take. The correct way was up above the dunes, and luckily I was able to climb there.
At the top, a street, which I followed with gusto. A half mile later though, I saw the street crumbling off to my left -- in my quest to avoid traffic I had run on the construction side of a barrier. I now realized I must get back on the road. After a little while the road became a bike path and I ran happily, though drowsily. I passed a homeless person sleeping on a bench sheltered by dunes. I paused to locate nearby hotels, now in the city of San Francisco. Unfortunately, all the nearby hotels were sold out. I started looking for a place to crash. The dunes looked inviting with their nooks and crannies shielded from the wind and from onlookers. Walking around one dune I saw a technical-looking bivy bag, zipped up, housing someone sleeping. I paused and almost set up here, but decided to go on and try scoping out a group of businesses I saw on the map, up ahead, in case any of them happened to be hotels with vacancies. Finally, I made it there, and took a short detour inland to inquire at what looked like a hotel. Unfortunately nothing. The gas station on the corner was closed too.
I walked back to the beach and was greeted by a homeless-looking person with big eyes wearing a large pointed hat. He stammered as he pointed to my SPOT device, "is, is that supposed to look like what Archangel Michael gave to her?" I wasn't sure what to say and looked at him quizzically, he wondered off.
Morning was only a couple of hours away now and I decided to crash on the ice plants growing in the dunes, my favorite plants by now. They were comfortable and I slept soundly for an hour or two.
Trail notes:
-Took alternate route around Mussel Rock City Park, sign saying "Recent Slide Activity, Hazardous Conditions, Enter at Your Own Risk."
Not sure what girls did, no data for that section, next point they did was on highway 1 near Kirkham street, reason I mailed my headlamp and solar charger there, but actually off the route.
-Bike path gate near RV Park/Avalon, took streets to get around
-Wooden fence near end of park section of trail, have to climb over or around to get to rest of trail
-Tried to descend John Daly Blvd but did not see a clear trail, locals confirmed no trail marked, so continued on skyline
The succulents, actually a homeless man told me the proper name -- "ice plants," saved me again. I've fainted from pain before and knew it was going to happen. Note: I did not hit my head, only my elbow! I rolled off to the side of the road and laid back into a bed of ice plants. Waking up was terrifying, I couldn't make sense of anything. I couldn't even formulate sentences in my mind and wondered if I was in some kind of purgatory. Was glad when I knew where I was and everything made sense again.
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