Pine Mountain to Rincon Beach

They predicted a heat wave for this weekend and since the road and campgrounds at Pine Mountain summit in the Los Padres National Forest CA just opened for the season, Friday night we climbed up from the coast up and up and up highway 33 past the Ojai Valley and up and up and up past Rose Valley and up and up along Sespe creek and up and up and up to Pine Mtn Summit at 6,000 and then up the rough but periodically paved Pine Mountain road and up past snow patches and up to 6 site Pine Mtn campground and 6 site Reyes Peak Campground to nestle for the night in the big ponderosa pines, big enough to encircle your arms and hold tight, bury your nose in for a whiff of rich vanilla, yellow, blue and purple lupine, periwinkle phacelia, orange wallflower, green grasses…

bollinger champagne with cold artichokes while we heated up already baked potatoes to enjoy with beautiful filet mignons with RBJ theologicum 2001… lots of waxing moon (full Monday night) to light our way to explore the boulders on the ridge enough light to see to the sea…pancake breakfast and lazy morning in the pines exploring and bouldering, view gazing, reading and writing a poem too

then down down down to the other end of the watershed to spend the night at the boy’s preschool with his friends and then the day at the beach…

Of course, living here by the beach, it’s rarely hot–even now, when everyone else in socal is roasting, we have all the windows and doors wide open and cool breezes swim through the house and it’s heaven here with corn on the barbecue, a cold Fat Tire in hand, and the house finches celebrating the hatching of their second clutch in the nest on the heart shaped wreath on our front door…