Journal to a Muse

Tourist or Pilgrim?

DH was unfortunate enough (from his point of view) to be asked to troubleshoot out of town... for a week. There is some sort of high-pressure SNAFU that the higher-ups hope he can whip into shape. HE ASKED ME TO COME WITH HIM.

So, now I confess that I am on the central California Coast. I think I have levitated and been deposited in an annex of heaven. The weather is beautiful. It is sunny with breezes and cool temperatures.

This is definitely where I belong more than the Texas prairie/desert. Because of heavy rains this year, even the usually tan California mountains are GREEN. And the plants-- when I was young, I didn't appreciate the lush variety. Same goes for birds!

We visited a town settled by Danes (and populated by bakers and tourists, mostly). We fell off our dietary wagon immediately at the first bakery we saw. Eclairs!! There was what DH calls a "stuff store"--souveniers and stuff that also had yarn... but it was upstairs... And although it got good recommendations, I confess that my feet hurt enough that adding to my stash when I was ALREADY over packed seemed like a really dumb idea.





Then we went to a town settled by gold-seekers (famous at first for rowdy bar-fights, from what I could tell), and which now packages the majority of flower seeds in the country. It is a bit early for the flower fields to be in bloom but there were several fields full of stripes of snap dragons. It reminded me of Koigu yarn in garter stitch. They also rampede up civic pride by painting murals on many of the walls adjacent to public parking areas. I am disappointed in this photograph.. but it shows a woman with a hatchet trying to keep men away from a long (beautiful) wooden bar and liquor and proclaims the value of morals and intellect.

We also walked along a beach or two. Not this one below the railroad trestle. It was TOO steep for an unbalanced person like me! There was a family of three who made it down to the sand and back. They were justifiably proud that their 10 year old daughter had made it.
Later at Refugio, we saw whales swimming north and jumping completely out of the water every once in a while.. I'd post my photographic evidence... but the whale is just a teensy speck because my camera doesn't zoom all that much.

Today we visited the local zoo. Small, but uncrowded and with such small habitats I was only a few feet from each animal we saw. The Giraffes smelled the worse close up... but there were some turtles that were a CLOSE second!

The flamingoes were very odd. Sleeping on one leg. Sleeping while kneeling. Making conversation with each other... one would curl its neck so its head was upside down, and the other would tower over it. Sometimes one would stand on the back of the other. We thought there might be hanky-panky to follow, but... no.

I have also knit past the sleeve shaping on the back of baby-hope-chest sweater #1. I have frogged several repeats of the pattern due to stop and start knitting and THINKING I know the pattern. Apparently not. At least once I frogged unnecessarily because I mis-read the pattern.

D'oh.
More soon. Will add photos as soon as I've cropped them just a wee bit! Oops, that's not going to happen. DH's laptop doesn't have or allow photoshop to be updated and verified... so you'll be seeing photos au naturel.

Now, I must contemplate how to be a pilgrim rather than a tourist:

Only the walker who sets out toward ultimate things is a pilgrim. In this lies the terrible difference between tourist and pilgrim. The tourist travels just as far, sometimes with great zeal and courage, gathering up acquisitions (a string of adventures, a wondrous tale or two) and returns the same person as the one who departed. There is something inexpressibly sad in the clutter of belongings the tourist unpacks back at home. The pilgrim is different. The pilgrim resolves that the one who returns will not be the same person as the one who set out. Pilgrimage is a passage for the reckless and subtle. The pilgrim--and the metaphor comes to us from distant times--must be prepared to shed the husk of personality or even the body like a worn out coat. A Buddhist dictum has it that "the Way exists but not the traveler on it." For the pilgrim the road is home; reaching your destination seems nearly inconsequential. --Andrew Schelling, Meeting the Buddha, edited by Molly Emma Aitken