Stinky crabs, mindblowing shoreline, and quiet neighborhoods.

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All parts of the US coast have their signature seafood that one would have to pay an arm and a leg for anywhere else. Lobster in Maine, Stone Crabs in Florida, Crayfish in Louisiana, King Crabs in Alaska, and Dungeness Crab in the Bay Area.

I got mine at Costco, fully cooked. Here I was, sitting in my car prying apart whole cooked Dungeness while parked at Costco. It was quite good, but I was bummed to find out that the crab season had been pretty bad and that the prices were at $6-7 / lb instead of the usual $3. Still, it made for some good eating. I ate nearly everything in the crab except the gills and shell. I'm not sure if I ingested some things I shouldn't have. My car smells.

Driving down Highway 1 towards Monterey can be a harrowing ordeal, partly because of the crazy wind threatening to blow you off the road, down a cliff, and into the depths, but also because all your attention is taken by the mesmerizing scenery of the ocean. Now, I've been to Lake Erie where water was as far as the eye could see, and I found myself wondering why this ocean seemed BIGGER, despite the fact that in both cases my simple eyes were not enough to truly perceive each body's entire breadth. I came to the conclusion that it was a combination of the sky, the shore, and the waves. This is big sky country, with big shores and sheer cliffs, and the endless waves make the whole entire body of water look like a living, breathing entity about to swallow you up. Just like huge cities, this place can make you feel utterly insignificant, even to the point of believing you're just a pawn in the whole scheme of things, that you don't have control over ANYTHING. At any time the ocean could just swallow you up. You, your car, the entire stretch of shoreline you're driving on, the whole entire county, and there would be nothing you could do about it. Thank goodness for the stability of physics.

I stopped in a quiet town called La Selva to make my lunch and to wait for the library to open. It was wonderful walking down the quiet streets, streets with no movement other than the occasional elderly man walking his equally elderly dog. This was a place of close community and stable times. Every week there's a nice little neighborhood meeting in the community room next to the library. The library is closed two days out of the week and is only open half days for two others. Everyone knows everyone here. There are ads tacked onto the community bulletin board advertising petsitting and motorbikes too old for their owners. Having lived in a slightly bigger, but still small, town in northeastern Ohio, I loved this peaceful place. A place where children can run around the streets with no danger of being hit by a car, a place where people can appreciate life at its intended pace - miserly, allowing you to feel every cent of this priceless currency.

The library didn't have WiFi, so I left.

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