sleeping bag is rolled and ready. Abattery powered lanternis stowed in a compartment along with a pup tent, mask andsnorkel and assorted gear I’ve been too lazy to unload. Agood book is always stuffed under the sleeping bag in caseI spend the night in some scenic turn out along the road.Naturally a bottle opener and a cork screw are in the glovebox at all times. I’d rather not drink twist off beer or screwtop wine.Each of these trips adds to the growing collage, the ongo-ing coastal trip. Slowly, I was starting to fathom that thesetrips were more than isolated experiences, unrelated islandsof joy. They were signposts, stepping stones, a trail of crumbs through the forest of my life. They were all per-sonal miracles, as numerous as stars in the night sky. Somewere as big and dramatic as the sun, while others were likethe glow of a nebula in a distant corner of the universe.Each one, whether my first art sale, reaching the almostmythical waves I’d dreamed of, or watching a fall leaf silently drop into a calm and dappled forest pool, were infi-nitely valuable events on the path my life was taking. I wason the road to discovering the full measure of what it meansto be alive and aware, a road that may take lifetimes totravel.I remember a night two years earlier when I went downto the San Simeon area for a long weekend. It was the yearwhen almost all the year’s rain fell in March. Big Sur wasso green that it was probably, at that moment, the most per-fect stretch of coast on the planet, and the usually tinycreeks were raging torrents, with Yosemite-like waterfallsdropping from the narrow, vertical, redwood-chokedcanyons. I passed through Big Sur to check out Pico creek at San Simeon and Moonstone Beach in Cambria.Sunset found me on the San Luis Obispo coast. I think of this as the gentle coast, with its wide turn-outs beside
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