A man sells ice cream on the beach. His cart’s paint is deeply faded
from many summers. The treat is simple and cold.

At the southern tip of Isla Mujeres there is a little historical park.
There are pathways that streach around the edjes of cliffs and down
around the sea. Here and there railings are tattered and broken. It
feels other worldly, almost like you are playing some sort of
adventure video game. You hop over small breaks in the path, avoiding
the deadly plundge into sharp coral. No one else has followed you on
this quest, but soon enough the path leads its way back up and into
the park again.

There is a little joint just north of Puerto Juarez in Cancun. You
just walk along the gravally road with barley a side walk, past the
barraks and wander back through the kitchen. There you’ll find plastic
chairs and tables embeded into a small beach. Many white canopies are
flapping in the breaze. Mexican pop and traditional songs rise and
fall from the speakers. You can sit there for hours, munching on fresh
ceviche mixto and sipping cool Sol beer. The chips are pleasently
stale and the hot sauce makes you perspire slightly. The water laps up
against what appears to be an old dock and there is a peacefulness
that washes over you. It’s not just being away from tourism, it feels
like you could be away from everything here.

We took an old boat out to the reefs for snorkling.

The Art of Thank You

In a time when nearly everything has been made digital, it is those things that harken back to an earlier time that carry more gravity. We pay significantly more for our hand-made denim, our tube powered amplifiers, or locally sourced cheese. When it comes to thanking those who have brought you joy, there is only one option: the thank you card.

Purchase a high quality, simple set; the paper should be thick and sturdy. This one is from Crane & Co. and features only the necessary words on a plain card. Hand write, from the heart, and hand address. Finish with a bit of sealing wax, and perhaps a unique stamp. Details such as these show you put as much though into gratitude as the recipient gave to you.

You realize that you are quite close to your destination as you fill up for what would be the last time. It is amazing how fast you got to this point after you stopped caring about getting there. The last leg is a bittersweet return to Las Angeles along the beautify beach road that cuts through Santa Monica and Malibu. Now it is officially hot, and you find yourself longing for the morning chill feels like years ago in a different world. The traffic grows in intensity, the coast lined with RVs and beach goers. Now you are morning the loss of the peaceful ride, once again concerned with the cars, the trucks, the stop and the go. Eventually you do find your way through the hot streets of the city to drop off your ride. Only much later, easing into you chair in a jet high above the earth, can you contemplate the whole ride for what it was. You remember the high points and the low points. You feel a slight bit calmer, and you hold with you that infinite crashing blue Pacific, finally on the way home.

With some melancholy you return to civilization to refuel your body and your bike. At Avila beach you wolf down an excellent breakfast, mexican omelet, coffee. It is good to take a little break and recharge your senses listening to the soft waves on the white sand. What a calm little resort town. A single pier jutting far out into the water. Speckled with couples of all ages enjoying their vacations. You make a note to come back when you can do the same, but don’t dawdle, right now your place is back on that highway. Off again you start to really notice the landscape changing into a warmer, rougher terrain; browner, redder. You cut inland a bit, following the highway, rising and falling over large ranches and amid large sea mountains. Every so often a massive power plant rises out of the coast, and at one point it is mirrored by an even larger mountain exploding high out of the sea, its steep grey faces answering the smoke stacks of its neighbor. You are in the zone now, miles slip by, you don’t feel any pain, and longing, anything really.

Energy of the morning sun courses through your body as you drop out of the mountains onto an epic coastal valley. The symphony of curves and switchbacks builds to a crescendo, now one note, one loud tone that is the road. Picking up speed the wind whips into your helmet, fresh sea air, salty, with bits of hot seaweed here and there. You howl into your helmet, each breath pulling in exquisite life. Beaches cut into the lowlands as the asphalt elegantly curves over lower hills and smaller cliffs. More bits of rock pop out of the low sea, and more and more you see virgin beach land, pilled with driftwood, slowly caressed by what appears to be a calmer ocean. You are cooking now, making good time, eating up tarmac as you rocket south.

The air is frigid in the morning. There is light but no sun, a blue hue washing over the land. The chill wakes up up faster then a cup of coffee as you rocket off from this overnight, glad to be back on the road, now free of everyone. Only cars seem to pass you on the left, no one is behind or in front. It is just you on this little line drawn around the mountains and the sea. Again you long for those patches where the sun warms you, only this time it is different, the intensity grows each time. The angle of the sun is so low you are blinded as you drive towards it.

Only a small patch of road ahead of you is visible, every bit of quartz in it glowing with the intensity of the dawn. They slip toward you and under you like millions of stars. Here is that trance you were looking for. Here is that moment you will remember most deeply when the trip is done. The large cat tails that line the road glow with a fire of the morning sun. The sun shoots right through you, the sky, you, the road, the mountains, the sea. One line connecting you with the world. Time isn’t your concern, you have no pictures to recount it, and you are not really sure how long you were cutting through the curves of Big Sur, and you are pretty sure part of you still is.

Rising into the mountains now you sense you are getting to that no man’s land you have read about and wanted to see. You filled up at the last town expecting not to see another station for miles. The sun is low in the sky now and the shadows of dusk are creeping over the hills. The air is getting much colder now and you long for the south eastern roads where the sun warms you, before you cut back out to sea, twisting along shadowy roads, the massive fingers of these mountains clawing into the Pacific.

You are here now, Big Sur, alone on the edge of the world, alone in the fading day. The cold and darkness and fatigue has become too much, it is time to stop for the night. There are ancient motels along the way, any one will do. It is nice to have a warm meal and a few pints and soak up the local color. Everyone here is quieter than you might expect. It’s the road that is in them. They are moving north or south, they have not come here but for the tire and mental exhaustion of travel. Some are drifters, speaking strange phrases, huddled in blankets out side. Some are local workers, eager to share a piece of their world.

One couple you speak with has been stranded here by a broken car, having traveled the country up and down in search of something; maybe they are doing what you are but just got lost along the way. The image of the girl won’t soon leave you’re mind; naturally beautiful, her blond hair in dreadlocks and the rest covered by a shabby collection of jackets. You hope their luck turns around as you drift off into a deep sleep.

Here and there along the coast you stop to take in the glorious view. Your stops are brief as it would all too easy to simply sit down and bask in the warm late afternoon sun, perhaps lulled to sleep by the infinitely crashing waves. At times the cliffs break away and massive crags jut out of the foam. Perhaps only birds have had the fortune to land there and listen the the waves ever smashing against the sides, slowly changing the epic rocks. You realize that as you gaze into the see you are looking at geology that only you will ever see. The next person will see something slightly changed by the slow procession of time.

Your mood now shifts slightly as you begin to ponder the epic scale of the ocean and the unceasing surge against the coast. Eons have passed and little has changed here. Still the water against the land. The pacific does not care about you and your troubles. It will always be there an always has.

The city is long behind you and the road winds like a ribbon tossed at the edge of the sea. To your left green hills rise and fall, to your right the Pacific occupies your periphery. Massive sandy cliffs rise up out of the beach as you gain elevation. The population dwindles and only a few cars pass you or come up behind. Here and there another bike, probably doing the same thing as you. The massive beaches touched only by a few foot prints or an off roader, its tracks long since eroded by the surf.

The stress wavers slightly and you think you are a little less tense. The waves lapping at the beach, the drone of your engine, and the white noise of the wind serves to clam you somewhat. Still you are excited at what is to come, you know it will be a while before you can completely let go, get into that trance that calls you back, again and again.