Rain! Rain? There is none of it, but some days a few white clouds pass, signifying a weakened system of weather. With summer-like talk in the forecast last week, I decided to take my truck camper once again, and partake of more scenery along the coast to our south. My sister came along on this six-day trip so that I could show her the unpopulated places I visit.

The drive out of Santa Cruz County included a pass through Mission San Antonio de Padua, one of the original twenty-one missions founded in California by Father Junipero Serra in the eighteenth century. It lies on the edge of an oak-studded valley like a lonely widow. We pass beyond her and through the Hunter-Liggett military reservation, a practice ground for army troops, before slugging up the narrow patch of asphalt, Nacimiento Road, that is slapped down on the back of the Santa Lucia mountain range. This November the deciduous trees still wear more green than their customary autumn yellows and reds. The dancing entrance into winter is coming so late. Afternoon sun shining on the tall brown field grass draws out the silvers and golds that enrich our viewing experience.

The two tiny campgrounds along the Nacimiento River have no water to sit beside, and we are on the wrong side, the eastern side, of the sunny mountains that face the sea. Just over the lip of the highest ridge we see the Pacific spread before us like a giant table cloth. It is so smooth, with no waves and no wind. It actually lives up to its name today and is peaceful. We find a wide spot in the road and pull off the thin strip, so that we might gaze down thousands of feet of canyon. Below us, the view is filled with hawks, oaks, redwoods, and slowly churning mountain shadows. Nothing is here that can produce noise except for a wind that shifts directions at sunset. Two deer on a ridge above us peer down, but the quietude advances uninterrupted.

Then the first slice of new moon stirs in this calm sky. We see it while looking straight ahead, and follow its downward trajectory for another couple of hours. It picks up phosphorescent gold from the fallen sun, while Venus emerges from the side, as if from behind a theater curtain. The two bodies will bow into the horizon below our feet, while we turn our attention to the great white galactic star band that circles above. It is a rare and dramatic view of the sky that continues the mystique of Big Sur camping. I will always be surprised with sights that are freshly inspiring.

Down the coast in the sunlit morning for a further view of the rocks and vertical cliffs that comprise this remote coastline. One narrow spur of road leads to Mill Creek, at water level, where we stop to cook potatoes and eggs. Kayakers park beside us and wait for the lower tide so that they might launch their bullet-shaped vessels out between the wave-splashed rocks. Over-sized kelp bulbs bob in and out of the water as if they are the heads of seals. Such delicate and careful display below these thousand-foot cliffs of rock and dirt.

We will find our way further south today and camp in another of my regular look-outs where I like to go have an evening fire and listen to the coyotes. This place, a mountain top near Hearst Castle, is seldom heavily occupied this time of year. A few Canadian snowbird RVers come visit on their way to the warmer south lands. We take a long walk on one of the surfing beaches. The low tide leaves a ribbon of hard-packed sand that is embroidered with sea shells and colored pebbles of jasper and agate.

The air remains warm. Should I just enjoy the reckless and carefree attitude this autumn seems to encourage? Maybe the disaster of a devastating second year of California drought is upon us? It seems like all the events that my imagination can cook up to make me become fearful never materialize. I understand how the current moment is the easiest one to live in.

My journeys south usually meet their boundary near the south end of the Big Sur coastline, where the Santa Lucia Mountains back off from their proximity to the sea. This is the edge of the wilderness that extends for a hundred miles. It's the hundred miles I have been coming to explore for years, the miles I know well enough that they have become a friend with whom I hold a regular conversation. This time, however, we decide to travel more to the south, with the destination in mind of Jalama Beach in Santa Barbara County.

Another hundred miles of driving through stretches of countryside, with small unvisited farm towns connecting the big dots on the road map. Jalama is 14 miles of more narrow asphalt off the main highway. I came here a few times many years ago to go surfing. It borders the north edge of Point Conception and Hollister Ranch, which is privately-owned farm land that is fenced off from public access, except for the beach below the steep cliffs. We camp here for a night, fortunate to find a spot with a view of the ocean, when so many come here regularly from the bigger cities to the south. An evening and a morning walk down the long sand beach, another evening around my modest, portable, propane camp fire, before we retrace the drive north to where we camped the previous nights. Jalama is warmer in winter than Big Sur, I think, and so my next camping trip may be to come here instead.

On the sixth morning of our excursion, November 10, Sunday, we make the hundred mile drive north through Big Sur, and arrive home in Santa Cruz County in the early afternoon. The world seems to be as we had left it. Still no rain, but this continual drenching from California sunshine. Maybe this agreeable season of warmth will allow me another trip fairly soon?