California Chronicles: Chapter Five

Magical Morro Bay; and how to win a Coddiwomple bag

The Divine Ms. Em with Morro Rock behind her.

On each of our big trips, I find myself captured by an unplanned time and place. In the months and, in some cases, years that follow, I’m pulled back in a daydream.

The first time was when it was just Samwise and me, and we’d snuck off across a meadow and sat beneath a sprawling tree on a hillside in Wind Cave National Park. Four hills away, just dots in the distance, a herd of bison grazed. The July breeze was soothing, the birdsong sweet, and soon we both fell asleep. While we napped in the shade, the bison crossed over those hills. I opened my eyes to find them inspecting us in a semicircle within twenty yards of us!

They eased closer, sniffed at us, and some stuck their tongues out to taste our scents in the Black Hills’ air. After their inspection, they receded like the tide and we were left looking at each others in bedazzled bliss.

The following trip, we pulled over next to a gated road on the Beartooth Highway between Yellowstone Nati…