The last stretch of road up to Tassajara is a grueling, windy, bumpy, dusty, hour long trek on a single unpaved 14 mi. "road" up, around, and through the mountains of the Ventana wilderness area. On my way over, I could see the smoke from a huge wild fire in the distance. As I hadn't been able to make a reservation for a stay there, I just went and figured I'd find my accomodations later. I got to Tassajara and checked it out, and then took off to find a place to set camp. I found my spot at a little turn off, about 3 miles back, where I could hide my car from the main road and nestle my tent in between bushes.
Up on the ridgeline, where I was, the wind was really whipping, doing the wildfire many favors and igniting the whole sky. It's too bad the night shot didn't come out so well, it was so beautiful to stand on the dark road and look out a few mountain ridges away to see the night sky on fire, and lighting up the smoke plumes. Way too windy to sleep in the tent, so I moved to the car which was NOT much fun. But, woke up bright and early around five, broke down camp and headed into Tassajara for morning Zazen, where I think I may have gotten the last available zafu.
I had thought of sticking around for the day and visiting the springs, but, didn't feel like dropping the $25, and got balled out for not taking off my boots in front of the shoe rack, (which, I don't know, don't you usually go up to the shoe rack to take off your shoes?) Anyhow, I was trying to look at the schedule for the day to figure out what I'd do, and followed the teacher's compassionate instruction (most notably the subtle and hidden teaching, to get lost and go travel some more instead of sticking around here and camping out again) so I did, and made tracks for Big Sur.
Check out the latest results...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080628/ap_on_re_us/wildfires
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