A Road Less Visited, Mid-California
Pastoral wilds, a Spanish mission, and an Iraqi village present a startling mix in a relatively empty area of the Golden State.
The oak tree was tired of being ignored. So, it threw down the gauntlet, a huge fat limb, bam, right into the middle of the Desert Survivors’ huddle. That oak tree got our attention. Mighty oaks from little acorns grow and this oak was mighty as they come. We were just beyond the halfway mark of our five-mile hike through Merle Ranch in Los Padres National Forest. Following that frightful interruption, we chanted our heartfelt thanks that the heavy, solid limb did not land on one of our heads, causing death or serious injury. There was one minor casualty, a hiker whose hand sustained a scratch from the falling branch, handily attended to by a doctor in our group with his emergency kit.
Moments before the oak’s splashy entrance, I had been standing barefoot in the cold stream where the limb would land. Though it missed my noggin, it baptized me with a big splash, wilderness style. I had just rejoined the Desert Survivors after a twenty-year hiatus. So in my personal mythology the…
