Lots of Seals, dolphins, and whales.

Along this part of the coast you start to witness the abundance of life.  Many places you can view groups of seals relaxing on the beach and rocks.  Look close at this picture and you will see around a100 seals.

Greetings my friends !  I finished off my last blog post visiting an awesome water fall with my new friend Lisa.  After the this stop Lisa and I went our own ways.  I was planning on staying in the area for a bit and she was heading up north to meet up with some friends.  We shared some great time together and I am glad I took the time to stop and pick her up. 
I was now in an area along the coast where I wanted to take more time and really explore. Big Sur.
Big Sur is one of the special places that is off the grid.  Disconnected from all the distraction we find around most cities.  It sits in the mountains, in a forest full of pines, furs, oaks, and red woods.  The mountains and forest tapper off into the ocean with spectacular views and powerful landscapes.  Along the Big Sur coast is where you start to see a lot of seals, whales, sea otters, and dolphins.  This tells you alot about whats going on here as far as the abundance of life present.  Big Sur is home to the famous Henry Miller Library.  Henry Miller was a popular beat nick author who bounced around these mountains and along the coast in his latter years.  He established a wonderful little nook along highway 1, with a log cabin setting in the middle of trees 50 to 100 teet tall.   Today the cabin is filled with his art, books he's written, and many more fascinating authors who have caught the attention of him and like minded.  The Henry Miller Library hosts events weekly and is a meeting place for many of the local happenings.  Another wonderful place along the Big Sur Coast is The Eselen Institute.  Eselen is a wonderful world leader in alternative and experiential education.  It sets on a Sea Cliff over looking the Ocean with natural hot springs.  The landscaping is amazing and includes tiered slopes where stone tubs have been created for the hot springs.  It does require a small investment for the services Esalen provides but there are volunteer opportunities and a over night usesage of the hot tubs.  Esalen has opened up the healing hot springs for the community by allowing them access to them from 1am to 4am.  It cost $20 dollars and is well worth the soak.  This is what I did.  It had been a couple of weeks since I had last soaked in the hot springs and because of the healing properties I decided to pay the $20.  It was well worth it.  I do prefer the natural tubs created by nature, but it was amazing soaking in the tubs overlooking the ocean in a pristine setting.
Next stop was Phieffer Beach.  This was a friendly familiar place to me.  When I walked the rickshaw up the coast I stopped off here for several weeks.  It is a very powerful place and attracts many  daily visitors.  It was a great resting place for me after walking the Big Sur coast and a place where I could set up my market and make some supply money.  It hadn't changed. Now driving the coast, this was the first time I really set up a market after leaving Venice beach.

    

I set up a small market and made a peace sign out of the driftwood I found on the beach.  I had a breakthrough here while walking the beach in the morning.  The breakthrough had to do with giving and being grateful for this place on earth.  Before I searched the beach for driftwood, before I set up my market, before I ate food or got my day started I needed to be grateful.  Grateful for my life, grateful for all life around me, grateful for waking up and being conscious of whats important in living.  Aware of this magnificent planet and universe.  So now I start off each day by being grateful.  I spend a small bit of time in the morning and devote my attention and energy to being grateful.  must do this daily to stay focused.  This is one of the advantages when traveling on the road and living outdoors.  You just are more grateful for everything you have.  To go within, go without.  This is one reason why this last thought might be true.  You go without a lot of the comforts and convinces.  You must put real attention on what is important and what is not. I could go on for days about this.  Back to Phieferr Beach. 
I set up in the parking area just beside my van.  It was a splendid day.  People started showing up at the beach that morning and every so often some would stop to talk with me.  Some of them would just be interested in my goods and others would be interested in my story.  It turned out to be a good day for the market.  The next day was also good except for a GOM who approached me and accused me of camping in the park overnight.  It made my stomach curl when he came up to me.  He was very obvious in his cold hearted expression. He walked up, didn't even acknowledge me, looked around at my stuff, and showed he was discussed.  Then he blurted out you camped here last night didn't you.  He had seen me there the day before and assumed I stayed there all night.  Turned out he owned property in this area and took it upon him self to run off those he didn't like around.  He was the kind of person who felt like he owned this beach along the coast and was going to take it with him when he died.  There are a lot of older people like this.  Its also one of the reason its so hard to change things today.  Besides big business, its bitter old people, who got living wrong and are clinging to the objects they own, as if its all they have to show for there lives.  I call a guy like this a GOM - Grumpy Old Man.  There are a lot of them out there.  I can see it in there eyes when I talked to them and they find out what I'm doing.  Doing meaning, living outdoors against the norm and happy.  That's the kicker.  When they see I am happy and full of life they get upset.  Which I believe is the opposite when they see someone unhappy and miserable.  They get happy. 
Anyway, enough of that, its just worth mentioning because its a major problem we are facing today.  This old man or people in general don't take the time to look someone in the eyes and find out what there about.  Its true that many people living outdoors are up to no good for a number of reasons, but the same is true for people living indoors.  These people are just lost in the labyrinth, and are doing what they see being done, at all levels. 
Back to Big Sur.  I decided to leave that day because the old man was buzzing around talking to the rangers, and it put them in a position where they would have to tell me I couldn't set up my market.   They didn't mind at first because they saw I was respectful and not bothering people.  In fact the opposite is true, but now they had no choice because technically I was not suppose to be there making money.  I decided to head on to Carmel and Monterrey Bay.