The California Redwoods

We crossed the border from Oregon into California in the dark. I made a playlist of every song about California I could think of and we zoomed down into the Redwoods singing the old songs of promise and sunshine. Two hours later we were still driving through the endless city of trees, sitting in silence and searching in vain for a campsite we could afford. Finally we parked the car and slept curled up among our pots and pans. When we woke the steam rising from forest in the morning sun had rolled into our car like fog and we had to wipe our hands over the window to see.

We spent the day walking around, feeling small and full of wonder. We hiked out to the shore where we scanned the horizon for whales and watched seabirds fly in and out. I stuffed my pockets with bits of discarded plastic and on the way out we stopped for the yellow banana slugs that were everywhere, crossing the path in the late afternoon sun. That night we drove miles down a rutted road to camp at Gold Bluff Beach. The sun sunk down through the fog into the ocean. Over the fuming towers of waves the crescent moon rose and pushed its way through an opening in the clouds. Soon, the whole canopy of fog pulled back to reveal a huge expanse of stars. After dinner, we searched for constellations. We sat, pointed, waited for shooting stars. The longer we looked, the more we found— planets, constellations, and the many paths that lead away from the beach and out into the universe of the sky.