Road Trip!
Starting on the left in the bullion dunes of Guadalupe Beach, here are places David and the children visited as they became a family, with links and quotes from This is US.
An
old lady wearing rags ran by and told us to be at the bell tower at noon, “The
pirates are coming.”
Flag Is Up Farms - Solvang, CA
We
drove alone down the lane and parked next to a building with a big barn near
it. The lot was empty. There were no people. We may have trespassed, but we
trespassed as a family.
Ostrich Land - Solvang, CA
A
fist-sized head topped a neck longer than my arm attached to a body of feather
covered racing wheels. Ostriches did not survive 15 million years on smarts.
They survived on speed. Natural selection couldn’t catch them.
On
the beach south of Hearst Castle we stood quietly in the area marked “Colored
People” and watched elephant seals in the sand below the hard, rising dune.
River Inn - Big Sur, CA
We
walked in the river and found the benches in the river we wanted. The water was
so clear it was like seeing stones and fish in slanted air.
Monterey Bay Aquarium - Monterey, CA
They
put their hands in the water, rubbing the backs of the manta rays in the
shallow sand bottom pool.
We
stood and watched waves from Japan blend with sand. We inhaled the sweet salt
and watched pelicans flying in formation ten inches off the water and this is
why you adopted three children even if you didn’t know what you were doing.
Cal Poly Dairy Science - SLO, CA
They
didn’t call it farming anymore, they called it Dairy Science. I took two little
hands in mine...
CircleBarB Ranch - Goleta, CA
Since
meeting Maribel at McDonald’s we’ve returned to Santa Barbara every year to
celebrate a birthday, sail, or ride horses in the hills.
Photo credits: Except for the dunes photo, taken by the author,
all photos are lifted from the respective web links and used without permission.