(written on the 10th and 11th from notes)
I think I might have gotten something like 11 hours of sleep last night. 🥳
It was glorious. 😊
I don’t think I got up until somewhere around 10 or 11 o’clock, but I didn’t miss much, as the morning fog off the ocean was so thick there wasn’t much to see of the ocean below.
I ate breakfast, and then I spent a couple hours talking to someone who was having a really hard time.
Life… sometimes it’s part heaven… sometimes it’s… part hell.
😅
Either way, and everywhere between, it’s quite the journey.
After the long conversation, I began driving north along the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping periodically to take pictures of beautiful scenery.
I did some online shopping research, wasting far too much time on my phone today.
More driving, more shopping research online, trying to get some things figured out and ordered, so they’ll be ready for me at my sister’s place when I get there. Stuff for my power station, stuff for my solar panels, a capo for my guitar, etc.
Anyway, there’s lots of construction going on at different sections of the highway, so lots of portable stop lights when two-way traffic has been reduced to one lane.
But I’m in no rush, so… it’s no biggie.
I’m grateful to not be in a rush. 🙂
I spent some time downloading my scripture memorization audio files from my Google account to my phone, so I could have access to the files offline. I want to find an audio player app to organize them in.
Let’s see, I spent some time chatting with my sister Heather. Always nice. 🙂
As the evening drew closer to sundown, and as I approached the section of the PCH that goes inland for quite a ways before coming back to the coast around the Eureka area, I parked Rover on the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean to watch the sun go down, hoping for a colorful sunset.
Though it’s still a little awkward. Since I have yet to recover from the shock of realizing how badly Sun damaged my skin is, I find myself not even wanting to let my skin touch the sun light. 🙃
Oh, the fear of being unattractive. 😅
It’s one thing to grow old and less attractive with your companion. It’s another thing attracting a companion when you’ve lost the physically attractive features. 😅
Biologically (and maybe even culturally a bit?), I’m on the lucky end, as women tend to be physically attracted to men well into their older years, while men… 😅 tend to not be attracted to women in those same years.
I certainly feel for the women who got the short end of that stick.
And despite being the luckier sex, I still fight the fear myself. 😅
[sigh]
Anyway, so I haven’t really enjoyed the beach like I might otherwise have because I’m afraid of the sun. 🙃
I’ll get over it.
Just another battle with superficiality when the real concern should be for my physical health, not physical attractiveness.
Bring it on.
😅
One thing at a time, one day at a time.
Anyway, Northern coastal California is just gorgeous. I’m enjoying the scenery immensely. 😊
Once the sun was down enough for me to recognize that super colorful sunset was going to happen, I decided to go ahead and take the Road North through the inland portion of the PCH that runs through the forested hills.
Northern California I guess must be considered part of the Pacific northwest, as it looks pretty much like the Oregon and Washington coast. Massive evergreen trees with moss on them and whatnot.
So beautiful.
As I was driving along, the sun having gone down, and darkness having mostly settled in, as I rounded a gentle bend in the highway, i think it was, I saw a person sitting on the ground in a gravel pull out just hanging out on the side of the road with a backpack.
We were far from anywhere, and I thought the person was a woman at first.
There was nothing for miles and miles and miles. No place to go. No place to get food or water. Just… nothing.
So I pumped to the brakes a couple times, hemmed and hawed internally for a second or five, and then did a u-turn, heading back up the road, crossing the oncoming lane and pulling into the gravel parking lot next to the person I had seen.
I rolled my window down and asked if he was okay, turned out to be a gentleman, with a couple of bags and a bundle of wood.
Really nice guy, homeless, and suffering from some mental health challenges. He had been living in the Santa Cruz area for the last few years, I think it was, not much older than I, and he was heading north to Seattle to visit some friends.
I offered to give him a ride for a little ways, so we threw my guitar which normally sits on the passenger front seat onto my bed, and we threw his packs and bundle of wood in the back of my van as well.
Apparently, the bicycle that he had found at the bottom of a river or lake or whatever it was had blown a tire, and he had no idea that he had ridden himself into the middle of nowhere.
😬
He and I just chatted and chatted. Interesting gentleman. His name is Keith, if I didn’t already mention that. We talked a lot about his life and things he’s learned and things that he’s into.
We probably drove for an hour or an hour and a half together before I dropped him off. I tried dropping him off at what I thought was a little town, but there was nothing there but a handful of houses, so that wasn’t going to work; So we headed on down the road further, eventually arriving at the town of Fortuna which had grocery stores and fast food places and all sorts of stuff that an actual town would have.
Definitely a place where he could get what he needed.
I gave him a can of chile and an apple and bid him farewell, heading north again up the PCH, bedding down for the night at the rest area just north of Trinidad.
Good day. 😊
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful for such a wonderful night’s sleep.
- I’m grateful to have been able to have that great conversation this morning that I felt like I was able to contribute meaningfully to.
- I’m grateful that despite having the online connection issues that I have because of failing electrical components, that I still managed to get cell reception here and there to do the things that I need to do, such as by new equipment to replace broken stuff. 🙃
- I’m grateful for the beauty of this Earth that I get to enjoy so much of. I have had the privilege of seeing so many different kinds of beauty, such a wide variety of terrains and whatnot.
- I’m grateful to be able to have close relationships with family and friends.
- I’m grateful I was able to get all those audio files downloaded.
- I’m grateful I was able to get a bunch of stuff ordered to be ready at my sister’s place when I get there, and I’m grateful that she doesn’t mind being a package delivery hub for me. 🙃
- I’m grateful to have so much flexibility of life right now. What a gift. 🙏
- I’m grateful that the makers of my inverter have been willing to send me a replacement inverter for free. All they asked was for me to send them a brief video of it malfunctioning, which I did, and they said they would send me a replacement, which will also show up at my sister’s place. 🥳 Kudos to Bestek for doing that. Wahl… wouldn’t. Even though my clippers are still under warranty, I have to pay for the shipping to ship the Clippers to them for them to fix them and send them back. Shipping the Clippers would cost nearly as much as buying brand new Clippers, so… Companies that have warranties like that where they don’t pay for the shipping, in my opinion, basically don’t have warranties at all because they know it’s not worth it for you to send the product back at your expense. So, thank you to Bestek for treating your customers well.
- I’m grateful to have been able to give Keith a ride. I’ve been on the receiving end of others’ generosity many times in my life when I have sought for rides. I’ve hitchhiked in Utah, Nevada, California, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Israel, New Zealand, and more, I think… Fun stories, fun experiences, and gratitude to people willing to take a chance on me.
Success:
- I’m bouncing back pretty well from my crash of a couple days ago. 🥳
Improvement:
- Let’s overcome that vanity, eh? 🙃
Love you all. 💚
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 