A California Crossroads

We had gotten ourselves stuck… stuck and itchy. We looked like wild dogs trying to rid ourselves of fleas. Stuck walking on a narrow trail, loaded with poison oak. We had no choice but to turn around, and then we found ourselves in shell heaven! It was a day I’ll never forget.

Me, my mom, my dad, and my sister Neve were in the car, on the road to a California state park. I rolled down the window, feeling the refreshing breeze whip through my hair like a brush. I could almost feel the brisk water and sand sinking through my toes as I inhaled the salty sea. I could see the soaring mountains, bursting with the blooms of Indian Paintbrush.

Finally, Dad stopped at the big sign that said Garrapata State Park. I got out of the car and immediately sand trickled through my tidepooling shoes like water running through a stream. “Oh, great!” I said. “It’s going to take forever to get this sand out of my shoes!” “Come onnn, Delaney!” My sister Neve said as we started on the trail.  

As I began to advance towards my family, the juniper bushes started harassing me like silver-green bullies. I tried not to pay attention to them. As we went down an arduous hill, I had to grab some strongly rooted plants to stay on my feet. Momentarily, we got onto level ground and I could stop yanking plants. “Woah, Dad, what is this plant?” I asked as I looked at a yellow-flowered bush. “I don’t know.” He responded, for once.

So when we got to a fence overlooking the ocean, naturally Dad had to stop and take some pictures of the sea and some nearby plants. The sea looked like Poseidon was whipping a long, blue and white liquidy whip towards the coast. There were signs saying to not go into the water because of riptides and strong waves. I thought I had seen big waves before, after our last trip to Florida. But every day here, the flags were red to warn you to not go in the water.  Why are the waves so huge? I wondered.

We got to a fork in the path, and suddenly, we stopped. There were two different paths. Both paths went downhill, toward the ocean. One was thin, and steep. It looked rocky and unstable. The second path was wider, and gentler. It looked more like the path we were just on. The narrow one looked like trouble, so we decided to take the wider path. Happy with our choice, we headed down the hill.

After about fifteen minutes of hiking, I started to scratch my legs, once again. Then Dad said, “Watch out for these reddish-green bushes. That’s poison oak.”  I had to start jumping over poison oak bushes and stomping on other bushes so I wouldn’t get even more itchy later on. But still, it seemed like every branch wanted a piece of my calves. Why did we have to take this fork on the path? I wondered as I jumped over bush after bush. Finally, we stopped on the trail. “Why are we stopping, Dad?” I asked him. “Because.” He replied. “This trail is too thick with poison oak. We’ll have to turn around and take the other path we saw.” “Ugggh.” I groaned. “Don’t complain!” Mom said.

So then we walked all the way back until we arrived at the crossed paths. We got on the other path and stopped at a large boulder that was facing the ocean. “What now?” I said. “We climb down the boulder,” he casually replied. So we climbed down the boulder. “Ouch!” I said. I scraped my arm on a big rock. Almost instantly, I heard“Wow! Look at all those mussel shells!” Crunch! I hopped down from the boulder. The mussel shells were as thick as a pile of raked leaves in November.

“Oh, wow!” I said. We then started scraping under the mussel shells. “Wow! Look at all these incredible shells!” I said. “I found a dead sea urchin!” I heard Neve say. So then I said, ”Cool! But be careful, Neve. Those are very fragile and they break easily. It will be hard to get it home in one piece.” This is like a shell wonderland! I thought to myself.

As we were digging through the shells, Dad said, “Come here guys, and hold out your hands!” So we walked over and he told us to choose a hand. I chose his right hand, naturally, because I’m right-handed. So he held out his hand and there in his hand, was a real live medium-sized abalone shell! “Oh my gosh!” I yelled. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!”

Have you ever seen a pearl? On the inside, abalone shells look just like that, except the outside is a brick-red color. Abalone shells are really pricey at some stores, and if you order abalone at a restaurant, your bill’s bound to be high. So you can imagine how ecstatic I was when I got one. Then Dad said, ”One of you, come here.” I got there first. So he said, “Hold out your hand.” I did and in my hand he dropped a cone snail shell and a murex shell. “Thanks a lot!” I said. These shells are SO cool! I thought.

Then Mom said that it was time to return to the trail and head back to our hotel, Monterey Tides. I didn’t want to leave because I had so much fun finding shells. I had to use my hands to cover the openings of my pockets, because of all the shells I had jammed in there. I swear, when we got back on the trail my legs skimmed against poison oak, and I was so happy, the annoying branches couldn’t possibly damper my mood!

When we finally reached the rental car we started heading back to our hotel, and Dad was playing one of my favorite songs by Kaki King, Life Being What It Is. I could smell the shrimp cocktails when we passed the fisherman’s wharf, and I could almost taste the grilled artichokes we had earlier that day. Those artichokes were yummy! I thought.

When we got to the hotel I could smell the chlorine from the pool on our way to the room. Once at the door of our hotel room, I took my shoes off and shook the sand out of them. Then I opened the door to the room and ran on in.  Then I heard Dad say, ”Here, Delaney. Put your shells on this plate.” When I had finished taking all the shells out of my pockets, my hoodie immediately felt five pounds lighter. Then I hopped on the bed. I could smell the detergent on the freshly washed sheets. My parents turned the TV on and I got under the covers.

What a day! Hunting for shells, poison oak, abalone, what a lot in one nutshell! Having the adventure and excitement of discovery was by far the most memorable part of the experience. But bringing home some rare shells, especially the abalone and murex shells, was pretty cool, too. In the end, I had as much fun as someone skydiving through the air!

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A final note...

Originally, this was an assignment for class. This was a special experience for me, and I had a great time revising this story to bring it to life. I wanted to share this with you because I worked hard on this, and I thought it would be a cool post!