Choose a Friday evening in any season. Work’s loose ends are tied but a busy weekend lies ahead: a family birthday; a gym class; volunteering; dinner with friends. But there’s still time for an adventure.
The car is packed: two people, a tent, sleeping bags and dinner already made. Take the Eight East. In twenty minutes the suburbs are gone. Mountains rise to the north and valleys slope south into Mexico. The grade steepens. The chaparral thickens. Tall sycamores shade creeks below. Hilltops are elfin woodlands of miniature oaks.
Let it sink in: the Kumeyaay trail entombed beneath this road is ten thousand years old. They used this route to trade with tribes of the desert southwest and to migrate with the seasons. They walked it each year from the desert to the coast and back again.
Exit and make a left. Behold: at desert’s edge, a valley filled with pines.
Turn away from the quiet town at the library. The road winds past ranches and then cabins. Cross the narrow bridge and stop. Roll down the windows. The air is sweet with sap.
Don’t bottom out. The car’s electric engine hums sweetly unaware of the potholes and ruts. Let the passenger walk ahead to clear the rocks.
The national parks are heaving but here we’re alone. There’s a flat spot for the tent across the stream and enough remaining light to explore a new tributary. We’ll make a loop – we’ll follow the dry creek then turn up the hillside before finding an old trail to take us back down. In the creek, succulents and ferns grow side by side, protected by rocks. How can a drought adapted species and a plant that needs water to reproduce share the same soil?
Night falls in an array of colours that match the lupins all around us. Peel away the rain fly so we can fall asleep with the stars. The Kumeyaay say the Milkyway is the trail the spirit walks after death.
Listen: something is hooting. Eyelids open a sliver. It’s barely dawn; still dark. The moon is high in the sky. There’s an owl in the sycamore in the meadow. And beneath the tree there’s a person, silhouetted, looking up. It’s Eric.
Eyelids blink away wisps of dreams some hours later. The sun is warming the mountaintops. Birds take their turn to announce the day. There’s the raven. Now the woodpecker.
Pour steaming coffee into cups and set up the chairs. Sink teeth into pastries from paper bags. Binoculars are slung over each chair to be drawn at any moment.
The bird list is long and there’s still the creek to walk before leaving. In the spring, water flows past bunches of alliums. It’s already warm; why not undress and take a dip?
In the fall, after rainless months, just two small pools remain to quench every wild being in this valley.
Surprise a flock of mountain quails. They burst into noisy flight in all directions. One would like to see them closely. The day ahead is busy but there is still time. Cross the creek and settle under an overhanging rock in the shade. Wait.
The thrashers that were also flushed filter back first. Wait a bit longer. A quail calls, then another. There, on that granite boulder, see a plump little bird with a boisterous plume like an exclamation mark.
Stars, like salt. 