The Moonlit Path

After phasing in and out of consciousness, the distant voices outside my tent warned me that the day had already begun to get late and that perhaps it was time to probably get myself out of bed.

I slept in longer than usual today. I finally woke up at approximately a quarter to ten. My eyes this morning felt very rested and less irritated than normal, however they were still quite red. Erika and Shelby are on their way now. Last I heard they were at Rohnert Park, which is not too far away from here, probably just an hour’s time away. Once they have settled in, I would really like to go on another hike since I cut my run yesterday morning by a third of the usual distance.

Vivien came back after a few laps around the campground saying that she had seen stray turkeys along the outskirts of a campsite located near the down-ramp entrance and wanted to take a few pictures of them before they wandered too far away. She headed over with Robbie to take a few snapshots, but came back with only a couple decent images as the turkeys had begun to flee when the distance between them was much too close.
 
Later during my routine run, two huge turkeys had begun to cross my path, unphased that I was running towards their direction. I stopped for a second. Then they too stopped for a second. And for a moment we just stared at each other in the eyes — Who was gonna make the first move? But too late, the showdown was over and I lost. One of the turkeys raised it’s feathers, I suppose to appear bigger, gobbled and then shook its head vigorously and continuously towards the right, shooing me away. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me to capture the moment. It would have made for a great picture. They continued across “Turkey Crossing” victoriously, and I, in my defeat, continued on in my quest to burn a few hundred calories.

**************************************************************

After dinner, we had a few drinks and played a few games of King’s Cup. I lost one round and had to gulp down a cup containing a mixture of piña colada, beer and Absinthe. It actually didn’t taste all too bad, but the smell was overwhelmingly disgusting so I wimped out and sipped it.

Afterwards, we headed out to a special place we call “The Clearing” — a small area where the trees begin to thin and an opening in the sky unfolds before you, allowing you to see a clear view of the million stars spangled across the night sky — so clear that you can even see a band of light emanating from the brilliance of the Milky Way. Erika, Shelby and I rested our bodies across the dusty and rocky ground, gazing upward on our backs, mesmerized. The sight of it all was beyond any description of words. I could have laid there all night.

We later tried to recreate the photographic lighting technique that we used at Pismo Beach. It was a little difficult because instead of running around freely along the softness of sand, we were constantly tripping over rocks, brush and pieces of wood that were scattered beneath us in complete darkness, but the results were still amazing. I must have fell at least once. (Note to self: never again attempt to run around a tree in drunken madness.) — the things that we do for art.

It was an uphill battle back to our campsite, eventually passing out into the still of the night. It was the perfect end to another perfect night.