Equipped with a 4-digit gate code and printable parking passes, I made my way to the Marin-side of the 101 and parked at the end of a surprisingly steep dirt road nestled between the Golden Gate Bridge and Point Bonita Lighthouse.
Set above and closer to the ocean than the other sites in the campground, Campsite 1 is sheltered from the wind, boasts panoramic views of the Bay, and stands alone as the choicest campground within a half hour drive from my office. As a result, it’s available only, if ever, on school nights. So when a routine check of recreation.gov during an idle workday in June showed it available on September 12, I wasted no time in securing it for myself and whatever handful of friends would eventually be spontaneous enough to answer the call of duty when the day arrived.
After taking some time to appreciate our accommodations for the evening and unwinding over conversation and campfire cooked sausages, one friend and I opted to use the campsite picnic tables as sleeping platforms and in lieu of pitching the tents we brought. After all, it was a clear night, and our surroundings were staggering: towering redwoods, decommissioned military structures, unobstructed views of the city and the long stretch of surf breaking on Ocean Beach, a steady stream of cargo ships setting out on long Pacific voyages – you get the idea…
I never set an alarm when I go camping. As a rule, I try not to make too many plans before dawn and can typically rely on the sun to wake me up. On this morning in September, however, the tinny sound of little claws scraping on the metal frame of the picnic table and pitter patter of paws on the ground beneath me was just loud and irregular enough to interrupt my sleep. Now the din of a family of raccoons scurrying about underneath the table on which you are sleeping is not a stock iPhone alarm tone, but in my limited experience it makes for a really effective wake up call.
Uninterested in rabies, and even less interested in medical attention following a raccoon bite, I scrambled for ways to escape my situation. I resolved to quickly shimmy out of my sleeping bag, jump to my feet on top of the picnic table, and in an effort to scare the creatures away, whirl it around over my head like a cowboy lassoing cattle. Just shimmying was violent enough on its own to startle the racoons away, allowing me to stand up normally and starting my day just a bit before intended, with some unplanned time to enjoy the sunrise over the Golden Gate from the beach.
It did not require a tremendous amount of courage to accept a job offer in California while I was sitting in the dim stacks of a college library in upstate New York in February. That it was a job at a winery made the decision even easier. I had seen The Parent Trap dozens of times growing up, and living like Dennis Quaid was a tremendously compelling proposition. Spending one’s days on a peaceful vineyard in the temperate weather of the Pacific coast is aspirational even for retirement, so it was settled. Upon graduation I packed up my car and went off to start my life in the rolling hills of Wine Country. Next stop: the Golden State – Modesto, California baby!
Standing on top of a half-million gallon tank in the Central Valley, straining my eyes against the rippling layer of heat on the horizon to make out the shapes of an allegedly massive group of granite landforms called “Yosemite”, I realized my runner up performance in the 7th grade Geography Bee was not adequate preparation for unexpected complications in my imagined Wine Country career. The study guide brushed over most of the specifics of Northern California. Little details like the distance from Modesto to coastal hills and the prices of fertile real estate parcels in Napa County placed a few unfavorable potholes on the roadmap. Somewhere in the distance the ghost of 7th-grade me cried out from his unearthly English class prison something about even “the best-laid plans” in California going awry.
I moved to San Francisco by eventually tagging along to the steady stream of millennial prospectors flowing into the Bay Area. Pacific living in the birthplace of Rice-a-Roni provided a gateway to exactly the kind of days I wanted to have. According to the rules of seasons and being outside almost everywhere else, Northern California was an outlaw; there were powder days in April, warm bluebird days in December, crabbing and oyster shucking for dinner, and (apparently) a green light on open containers in parks.
Un-landlocked for the first time in my life, however, I met the ocean with a healthy dose of skepticism. Although I found the surfers carving green waves off Ocean Beach and being pulled by kites in the waters of the San Francisco Bay thrilling to watch, it struck me as just a bit out of reach. After all, there are a lot of animals with large teeth in the water – all of them are much better swimmers than I. But after a chance encounter on a group trip to Yosemite that eventually led to falling in love in an Adirondack chair in the Big Sur river didn’t work out entirely like I had drawn it up, it suddenly made a lot more sense to get in the water.
More than just the site of the annual World Dog Surfing Championships, Pacifica-Linda Mar is home to the most scenic fast food restaurant in the world and a wide, slow beach break perfect for learners to practice. As luck would have it, I was fortunate to have a friend who likes surfing and Taco Bell: a kind of tidal preceptor. Like taking up Flemish for fun, progress was frustratingly slow. And not always up for the drive down the 101 on the weekend, we eventually added the occasional sunrise session at Ocean Beach in the mornings before work to the training schedule.
After being pummeled by enough waves more than a little too big to be advisable for me I was nearly ready to put the borrowed Wavestorm away for good. Maybe this whole “surfing” thing and I weren’t meant for each other. But on what could have been a last outing ever, I distinctly remember a rounded trapezoid of water approaching on the morning horizon. Channeling my innermost Kelly Slater and trying to position myself in front of the tallest portion of the wave, I furiously paddled towards the right side of the beach. Just as I began to move with some speed and feel the tail of the board lift up, I heard my friend shout, “Wait, don’t! Too big!”
Not too big!
After an experience better recommended than described, I stepped off the surfboard and into the shallow water near the beach, riding the wave until it turned from green to white and quietly lost all its momentum in the sand. Over revelrous breakfast sandwiches afterwards, I learned from my friend I had been standing quite upright on the surfboard during my ride: “Santa Cruz style.” I think it was a compliment.
Go outside in Northern California and you’re wont to find yourself anywhere from “This is the life!” and “(Insert synonym for ‘uh oh’)! How do I get out of this in one piece?”. Go surfing and you can feel both at the same time. When you purposefully try to stand on a floating board being pushed around by the force of the sea, you might succeed and have to figure out how to navigate that situation. “Surfers” probably have an idea of what they want to do up there, whereas I get up there and improvise, what I’ve always had to do in California.
I arrived in the state with a clear idea of what I wanted to make of myself, and it would only be a matter of time and milestones reached before my final form would be realized. After all, the grass was greener on the other side. Along the way however, various levels of plans complicated or thrown askew redirected progress and recalibrated the definition of greener grass. Somewhere in the process of moving from one pasture to the other, I eventually realized the color of the grass really is not worth worrying about. Instead of looking for greener grass, the hunt is really for quality grass on which to graze. And lucky are we to have some of the greenest grass in the world, the golden carpet covering the Marin Headlands across the Golden Gate.
// Keep reading the Big Outdoor Guide here.
