California Appreciation Week

It's no secret that I've been hating on California this year. Well, mostly LA, but my itch to leave has me gazing east, passively insulting the rest of the state. Last week, I remembered that Southern California has its moments. This week, I reminded myself that LA is not California, and that the Central California coast might actually be the most beautiful place I've ever seen.

So I was lucky enough to be blessed with a wonderful finals schedule - my hard exam was on Thursday, and my easy exam on the following Wednesday. After months of homesickness, you can imagine my disappointment when I learned I would have to stick around LA for an extra six days for a test that will probably take my forty-five minutes. Until I realized I don't have to stay in LA. If I'm going to have six extra days to spend on the west coast, you can bet your bottom dollar I'm not going to sit around LA. I have a car so I can use it. Seemed like a good opportunity.

Agenda: Drag travel buddy from hungover-still drunk?-Saturday-morning-slumber. Load tent and sleeping bags into the '99 Accord, affectionately dubbed "Gladys" by my dad. 101 North.

I love my family, but I'm pretty sure we're not normal. Most of my friends would maybe go to the beach if they had an extra week, or go home to a friend's house, or maybe even fly up to the Bay to spend a few days in San Francisco. Only my mom would excitedly suggest that I catch the peak monarch butterfly season in Pismo Beach. And I wouldn't want it any other way. Lately, I've been using the "someday at a dinner party..." reason for lots of things I do. Someday at a dinner party, someone who doesn't know me will talk about triathlons and I will be able to say I did an Ironman. Someday at a dinner party, someone will mention the monarch butterfly migration on the Central California coast and I will be able to be a participant in that conversation. It's the same reason you would want to go see the Aurora Borealis or the geysers in Yellowstone - there's something so cool about things that people don't control.

Vineyards on the 101

So Pismo Beach it was, and after three hours of sickeningly beautiful scenery on the 101, we arrived. It was exactly as I remembered from the last time I had stopped there for lunch on the way up to Big Sur.  Everything is so charmingly tacky. There are these giant clam statues set up at a couple of landmarks in the downtown, and for the holiday season they had been painted like Rudolph, complete with antlers and a creepy grin. One of these locations was conveniently outside the visitor center. I went in to ask where the best place to see the butterflies was - I assumed there were lots of places - and the woman working there showed me a map and told me to drive until I saw cars parked on both sides of the road and then get out and go to the right. She said you can't miss it.

She was right. For a Saturday afternoon in the dead of this sunny California winter, there were cars lining both sides of PCH, everyone flocking over to a grove of eucalyptus trees on the side closest to the water.  As we walked in, we saw a few monarchs flutter around, then a few more, then a few more. When we finally got to the trees, I looked up through a set of binoculars. The monarchs were clinging to the branches, lining the tree like leaves.

It was the most spectacular sight. These butterflies flew all the way down to the Central California coast from various locations in Canada - from Vancouver to Saskatchewan. That's right, these tiny, half-gram bugs fly up to fifteen-hundred miles with those little paper-thin wings. The warm temperatures (and probably beautiful scenery and friendly people) draw them to Central California, and they flock to Pismo Beach in particularly large numbers because of the unique protected grove of eucalyptus trees. It could be any species of tree that they come and cling to, it just so happens that these protected trees are eucalyptus. During this winter season, they mate, and once they have laid eggs, their incredible five-month lives come to a close. The next generation is not so lucky, they make the first leg of the journey back to Canada, but only live a few short weeks before they stop and give life to the next generation. It takes five generations for the butterflies to get back to where they came from. And after a summer in Canada, the cycles starts again.

Life on Earth really is nothing short of amazing, and I'm glad I didn't live my whole life without knowing this tiny animal's story.

Still in a zen state of mind from the butterfly watching, we walked from the grove down to the beach. Pismo Beach is definitely beautiful, with breathtaking views of cliffs to the North and a sort of ethereal mist hanging over the hills to the South. The one drawback is that cars are allowed on the beach during the day. It's kind of disconcerting to see speed limit signs in the sand. Anyway, it was a gorgeous day, warm even for California at nearly 80 degrees. I was perfectly content sitting on a dune watching the water.

After checking into a campground and pitching the tent, we drove down to the town for dinner. Splash Cafe's "World Famous Clam Chowder" looked too good to pass up, so we took our classically cheap styrofoam bowls down to the pier and joined the rest of the town in watching the sun sink down over the Pacific. Okay, I'll give California some credit here - there is nothing like a sunset on a beach on the West Coast. Especially in December. The whole sky faded to a deep purple color before it eventually became dark.

The night ended as any good night camping should - with s'mores, star-gazing on the beach, and a 9 o'clock bedtime.

Before heading home, I was talked into a new adventure. I wouldn't say I'm afraid of horses, but I was never one of those girls with the horse sweater and posters on my walls. Despite some initial nervousness, it was definitely worth it to see the coast on horseback. My trusty, if borderline obese, steed Sheila and I rode along beautiful equestrian trails from the ranch out to the beach, trotted along in the sand, and crossed through water to get back to the dunes.  The contrast of the gold sand against the pure blue sky was so remarkable that I felt like I was in a dream. Back through strikingly green woods along a little brook, and we were back at the ranch, where, in any good competitor's style, Sheila decided to sprint that last 200, while I nearly had a heart attack on her saddle.

A stop in Solvang on the way back to LA reminded me of the charming quirkiness of California, and the trip was complete. I knew it was a success not only because I had seen what I went to see - the butterflies - but because I was driving back to LA with a different attitude. Even as we hit that bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 101 in Silver Lake, I knew that outside these city limits existed a world with an infinite number of little miracles and stories.

California, I'm sorry if I have insulted you. North of Sherman Oaks, you are really quite nice.