We spent the last few days of our Northern California trip in Big Sur, California, a beautiful small town that seems to exist solely for the sake of the tourists who visit there. It's one of those small towns in which the only source of revenue comes from the hotels and the hotel restaurants attached to them. Since I never saw any houses or apartment complexes, I'm also betting that the people who work at the hotels and restaurants also live there as part of a "work for pay and boarding" summer program. I don't know, maybe it's part of a Hospitality and Management degree plan at one of the seemingly countless California colleges and universities.

Regardless of the town population, Big Sur is an absolutely gorgeous town. It's about 10 miles off perhaps the most beautiful portion of the Coastal Highway and is nestled, some would say almost swallowed, by the most gorgeous redwood trees I've ever seen. Because it's right on the coast, the hills and trees seemed to be under a constant blanketing of clouds and fog. One of the most gorgeous rivers snakes its way through the edge of town.

It's amazing that all of the things that make a place endearing can also make a place seem eery and spooky. Minus the backwards talking midget and murdered blondes named Laura Palmer, Big Sur had a very Twin Peaks feel to it.

We stayed in these really cool old wood cabins at the Ripplewood River Resort. My mother-in-law called them "rustic." For a city boy such as myself, "rustic" is almost too 20th Century a word. These cabins look like they had been around since Yosemite Sam stayed there in the gold rush of 1849. They were made of wood (duh!) and I bet that up until about 1950 or so, if you tried really hard, you could peak between the wood slats in the wall into the outside world. The roof was identical to the walls. They were just a layer of wood nailed on top of the structure. There was none of that pink insulation cotton candy foam stuff that we have grown so accustomed to. It was just wood and wood treatment protecting us from the Northern California fog.

Don't get me wrong, these cabins were nice. They're just... yeah, I guess "rustic" actually is the best word to describe them. If I had been born in the era in which Confederate and Union Soldiers were capable of writing eloquent letters, I may have a better word to describe them. There was no TV, no central air, and the floors creaked when you walked on them.

Again, something endearing can also be creepy. Creaky floors when you're watching a stage production of "Little Women" is endearing. Creaky floors when you're in the middle of the woods can be creepy for over active imaginations.

Because this town was a good 30 miles from the nearest large town, there was absolutely zero phone signal? AT&T may brag about their coverage, but I don't think Big Sur got that memo because my iPhone was essentially rendered the world's most expensive calculator for the night.

So what is an iPhone addict like me supposed to do if I can't check the Huffington Post a thousand times per hour? I had some major poop related ideas I wanted to post all over Facebook but couldn't. What was I to do? I felt like a heroin junky licking the plastic bag my now-gone heroin came in for one last taste of the sweetness. I played another round of sudoku and checked out my never used "weight lifting" app and used it for a flashlight once. The battery was soon dead.

Leave it up to my over productive imagination to take a cue from the setting sun and start recollecting every single slasher movie I had ever seen. It's virtually impossible for me to go into the woods and not think of horror movies. The two go hand in hand. Thanks to Steven Spielberg, I do the same thing with dark bodies of water and sharks. And when I was a kid, I had to take a shower with the shower curtain half open, much to the dismay of my dad and stepmom.

Have you ever been in a situation in which you realized that your current situation is playing out in a very movie-like fashion? I was cleaning out our car the other day and had my hands all down the on the floorboard like I was Indiana Jones probing a knight's skeleton for the key to a locked tomb. Well, as I was doing this, Parker started singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." In any other circumstance this would have been adorable. But I've seen Arachnophobia before and I know what's coming by the time Parker gets to the part where the sun "dries up all the rain." This scene ends up with me in a bag and some geeky researcher, turned eventual hero, saying "this type of spider doesn't exist in this part of the world."

I had a very similar experience at this cabin in the woods. No phone signal. The keys to the rental car were with my brother-in-law, who was going out to a bar later that night. Even if they weren't out late, my brother-in-law and cousin-in-law (is that right?) were staying in a completely different cabin down by the lake. We even passed a sketchy looking dude who was watering the garden and joked about it later in the cabin.

They could have used our situation as a textbook for how to perfectly construct a slasher movie and I knew how this would end. Parker, Anya, and I in one cabin. We hear a scream coming from a neighbor's cabin. We go and check it out. Family of four, brutally murdered by an axe. I run back to my cabin and close the door. Anya convinces me to run and get the car key from my brother-in-law. I run across the street and into their cabin, just in time to see him get an axe to the face. I grab the keys and run to the car. I fumble the keys in the car door and drop them. I pick them up and get in the car. The last thing I see is the killer's face in the rearview mirror. That's where my story ends, but Anya and Parker make it out alive because of the local sheriff who had been looking for the escaped lunatic comes in blasting his revolver. The killer springs back to life after appearing dead, kills the sheriff, forcing Anya has to finish the job. AND SCENE!

Thankfully there weren't any escaped lunatics in the area and we survived long enough to be able to enjoy the delicious breakfast at the diner attached to the rental office. Turns out they had Wi-Fi, too. So there you go. 21st Century Rustic style.

Matt