With a long journal entry today there will be no camping tips.
Day 13—Friday, June 1, 2018
We woke 10 hours late having been lulled in our dreams by the mountain brook and the fresh sea air. The old air of the Redwoods refreshed us in our sleep.
After we broke camp we walked back to the beach and climbed on the rocks in the mouth of a stream while watching the crashing waves. Jagged rocks framed each side of the dark sandy beach as the sun shone down on us from behind.
We then went back to the van and began our drive up the Big Sur Coast. Words cannot describe the beauty of the blue-green water and foaming waves crashing against the black-grey rocks of the coast. We wound our way alongside a cliff with the ocean on the right. At every pull off cars were stopped as people got out to feel the view. We stopped to feel the wind, hear the waves, and soak in the beauty. The blue-green and bright blue water crashed into white foam against the rocks as we looked down from the rocky overlook.
At noon we stopped to take a short trail to the overlook of a waterfall. It fell from 50 feet up gracefully onto the sandy beach oblivious to the craggy ocean rocks beside it. The trees crowded up to the edge of the cliff, and little black birds with a white marking on each wing played in the water below. With great effort we pulled the professor from the scenc.
The road curved to the “town” of Big Sur where we stopped at Fiffer-Big-Sur State Park and hiked amongst the Redwood trees. They towered up into the sky with their rich woody-pine smell below. We later passed the Point Sur Lighthouse which sits out on a cliff of its own on a round hill with a road winding up it. We stopped down the coast from the lighthouse to look at the rocky shore again, and prayed together the canticle from Daniel:
As we reached Carmel we stopped at Point Lobos and looked out over the ocean. Seals and sea lions were sunning themselves and barking as waves crashed about them against the rocks they were laying on.
We then met my friend Bobbie at the Carmel Mission where St. Juniper Serrra is buried. We lit a candle—F lit it—to Our Lady of Perpetual Help for our family. There was a side chapel to Our Lady of Bethlehem that Pope St. John Paul II visited in 1987 with an inscription from the address he gave:
“Much to be envied are those who can give their lives for something greater than themselves in loving service to others. This, more than words and deeds along, is what draws people to Christ.”
The courtyard there was particularly beautiful. The kids really liked the museum which shared the living and dining quarters of St. Juniper Serra. We camped that night at Henry Cowell Redwoods outside Santa Cruz.
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