On the Road…again.
Turns out, it’s good medicine.
I’m a homebody. When your practice is to want to be exactly where you are, why would you want to be anywhere else?
This is Zen:
Q: Where in the world would you want to be right now?
A: Right here, right now. Fully.
If you can do that, you’ve gained the world, by losing the world, by making nothing else matter in the world. THAT is considered True Nature; that is considered complete equanimity: the attainment of “Be Here Now.”
How can there be suffering if you are already in paradise?
The practice of a lifetime.
But it’s also fun to go places. It might be fun over time to share a little bit about the places I’ve been fortunate enough to visit; but, you see, I’m on the road right now and don’t have the time since I’m doing the driving.
🚗🚗🚗
When I was actively teaching or principaling, the only time over the course of the year where I could let everything go to go fully on vacation was during the month of July. As students left for their summer vacays in early June, the rest of that month was typically spent putting the year to rest by completing necessary budget, paperwork, documentation, state reports, and staffing requests if not even interviewing. Once August started, so did admin retreats, meetings, and workshops as the work would begin for starting up the next year. That left July—and July happens to be the time when both the weather and the beauty of the surroundings really pop in the Great Pacific Northwest. Now, I think every day is a perfect weather day; but even so, July is truly a special kind of beautiful.
When our kids were younger, July was our month to take them places. One of those places happened to be Southern California. More specifically, the desert of Southern California (even if Disneyland was a part of the plan). And most specifically, the Palm Springs of Southern California.
And THAT’s where we are headed now. By car, from our house in Washington state…on the road. Again. Yes, we can now travel at different parts of the year, and we have—we just seem to be used to going somewhere during July.
We’ve done this drive before. And we wanted to do it again. Cuz it’s not just any drive; and it’s not just any road. With all due respect to all the rest of you who might believe you know of a drive that is THE most beautiful, unless you are talking about the Pacific Coast highway, you’re just wrong.
After a stop in Portland for a couple of vegan doughnuts at Voodoo Doughnuts, and two large iced oatmilk lattes from Dutch Bros, we cut over to Highway 101, the PCH, from just south of Eugene.
Highway 101 runs adjacent to the Pacific ocean and through some amazing landscapes. From Crescent City, we wanted to get to Santa Cruz California as Highway 101 merges with the famed Hwy 1.
But, we wanted to do something we didn’t take the time to do the last time we were in this neighborhood—stop to say hello to the Redwoods!
We drove the 31+ mile length of the famous Avenue of the Giants and stopped to hug a few trees—some as old as 1500 years and over 300 ft tall! At home, we have the Western Red Cedar and Douglas Fir, some that could be a couple hundred years old and a couple hundred feet tall.
Trees speak an ancient language. And they are worth stopping for, and talking with, and hugging. They are also very generous with their energy and their silence.
Oh, and we saw the big guy. One of them anyway. He didn’t say much.
Road trips are great medicine, especially when you love to drive. And I love to drive. The news this past month (well, since 2016!) has had a definite impact upon my health—I can feel the anguish in my body so I’ve made the decision to pare WAY back my news media intake and my “doomscrolling” from my iPad. You can’t do either when you are driving down a beautiful highway—the first leg of the trip was 13 hours. Thirteen AWESOME hours. We listened to a history podcasts and music from one of our favorite SiriusXM stations (The Pulse, if you are wondering! No Shoes Radio, HitsONE!, and The Bridge are right up there too!).
This post gets sent Friday morning and we’ll still be on the road as we plan to drive from Santa Cruz down to north LA in time to be at a special tour that I’ll write about soon. Along the way, we plan to stop into Carmel By the Sea and we’ll see how far we can drive into Big Sur on Hwy 1 before we have to head east to southbound 101. Beautiful places off of a beautiful drive.
The whole point of the trip, though, is to be exactly where we are, no matter where we are. And to get there safely. But to that point:
I heard the magician, Penn Jillette, say something once that has always stuck with me. You know how when people part following a visit, and one of the parties faces a long drive, the parting goes something like “Drive safe,” Right? Penn Jillette, instead, says: “Drive fast; take risks.”
I don’t interpret this as him saying to be reckless—in fact, this is a Zen koan! “Drive fast, take risks” is his way of saying stay focused, live fully with clear eyes and full hearts, experience it all, and most importantly, BE IN THE MOMENT, BE WHERE YOU ARE, NOW.
Live, Laugh, and Love—and drive fast, take risks!
Always and Ubuntu,
~ kert
And with Ahimsa!
🙏🏼
I have no doubt the Pacific Coast Highway is beautiful. It is certainly featured in many movies. Yet, the Beartooth Mountain Highway between Red Lodge and Cooke City, Montana, give it a run for the money. And if you rent a cabin near Fishtail, you could visit the Tippet Rise Art Center and maybe catch a concert in the open air of the mountains.
Yes, a beautiful trip for sure! Connecting again with favorite, beautiful places puts us in touch with both nature and ourselves. As former RV'ers with hundreds of thousands of road miles, we learned to skip the Interstates and take the "blue highways" through the small towns and countryside often missed by the road warriors in a hurry. Yes, it took more time and willing to give it, we received much more in return. Thanks for taking us along as stowaways on this trip!