Can you hear me now?

Let me back up to August 5th. I left a beautiful campground and enjoyed an amazing drive along the coastline. The views are absolutely stunning.

(The photo at the beginning of this post is of a waterfall at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park — I tried to hike in that area but it was overwhelmed with visitors and I couldn’t find parking).

Ocean on the left, mountains on the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you. 🎶

I saw cows grazing, buffalo chilling, elephant seals napping, and of course lots of tourists snapping photos. (I was one of them). I was enjoying a turkey sandwich when I snapped this pic of the seals lounging on the beach.

Twisty Turny Roads

After leaving the seals, I cut inland a bit through Carmel Valley. I saw lots more cows, some horses, and a lot of farmland (primarily vineyards).

The roads were in terrible condition and very wind-y — I didn’t see many other cars and wondered if the route I was taking was a little too scenic. Ha!

I arrived at my campground close to 5pm and set up shop. I took a walk around and noticed lots of hand-made signs in front of houses thanking firefighters. California has a lot of fires right now.

What I didn’t see were any bars on my cell phone. 😂

I’d had pretty spotty service along the coastline and then zero cell service driving through the valley or at my campground.

That really frustrated me as I needed to tend to some work, but simply couldn’t. If I were to adopt the nomad lifestyle for any length of time, I’d have to find another solution for connecting to the internet OR just plan to be in places with better coverage.

Anyhow, that’s why I banged out a quick post letting you know that I was, indeed, alive.

Starry, starry sky

While being in the boonies wasn’t great for being on the phone, it was PHENOMENAL for viewing the night sky.

I fell asleep to the rhythm of locusts, frogs, crickets, and whatever else makes night noises. I closed my eyes and tried to isolate as many individual sounds as I could. It kind of reminded me of how an orchestra sounds when musicians are tuning their instruments before a show; instruments all making their own noises, but somehow the cacophony makes an interesting chorus.