My favorite season of marine layers has begun, trapping air mass between the warming spring sun and the colder ocean water, so called temperature inversion, creating air rich with oxygen and what feels like miniature, almost dry, rain drops.
From the sandy bluff, held in place by a rich local flora and fauna, I can imagine the Channel Islands to the south, which are turning larger southern swells into softer rolling waves before hitting the Coal Oil Point, a natural reserve.
The waves are perfect for longboarding; once hitting the point, slowly building up over the ascending sand bottom and turning into long and even surf breaks ready to be ridden all the way to shore by beginners and advanced surfers alike.
I come here every morning with a cup of coffee made of instant coffee and water heated up with my SnowPeak burner on my tailgate. The coffee is good, really good actually and for $0.25 cents a cup I cannot complain.
Coffee is such a great example of how basic essentials have been turned into luxury goods with nothing more than unhealthy additions, to be charged 20 times more than I’m paying. It’s the caffeine jolt I need, not all the added sugar.
We are being sold an artificial experience, being invited into the world of the barista in a cramped and loud coffee house, when the real true experience is making and having a coffee on that early morning walk in nature.
A few weeks ago I left Malibu County, traversed Ventura County, and into Santa Barbara County to explore a region that I’ve only been passing through on US-101. Santa Barbara is where a lot of people come to retire and live slower lives.
I had grown tired of zig-zagging across Los Angeles every day and wanted to explore living in silence and solitude for a while. A few days turned quickly into weeks as I found a neighborhood just north of Santa Barbara to my simple taste.