something concerning everything occurring

We left San Francisco after two days and drove south to Big Sur. We stayed up late at Deetjen's Big Sur Inn, sitting on the floor with a bottle of wine, pouring over journals left in the room. (It's a thing, apparently.) We read about others' children, divorces, travels, sex lives, dreams. We laughed, and each cried a few times. Ashlee worried about a ghost a visitor claimed to have seen in the room (in the journal from 1992). I laughed.

Midnight came and we went south along Highway 1—our weeklong guide—to the Esalen Institute for a night bath. We met at the side of the road and a man with a flashlight led a group of us down to the bathhouse. We changed out of our clothes, only in our skin, and we bathed in hot springs on a cliff. The hot water and the cold Pacific air, everything dark except for the stars above, everything silent except for the waves below. It was 3 a.m.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013