The Cliffs

The year is 1995, and it is the summer that many wept. We had planned to go down to San Francisco to join the reported millions of followers in celebrating the life of one Jerome John Garcia. However, the price of four airline tickets from Portland, Oregon proved to be too much. Instead, we decided on going camping at the coast. Take a look at the unwritten journal entries that should have been written at the time:

Friday, August18, 1995

We are driving to the coast today. It is already 7:30 at night and I really want to stop. It looks like we are turning around (we are by a river trying to figure out where the coast went) and going to that camp site we passed 20 miles back. I just want to get back there, set up camp and drink a beer or two.

10:00 PM

Now it is frickin’ raining. What kind of west-coast camping crap is this. We got a fire built, have the guitars, have a few beers in us and are trying to find more wood. The fire is going---let’s hope the rain doesn’t wash it out.

1:00 AM Saturday

Too much beer…

This place is a bit scary at night. It is so quiet. This is totally different than the Smokey Mountain camp sites.

Saturday, August 19, 1995 11:00 AM

Earlier this week, I got my second tattoo. It is a lovely peace sign in the shape of a tear drop. The colors inside each of the quadrants are red, blue, yellow and green (which represent fire, water, air and earth). Only my little brother knows that I got it because he went with me and saw the pain I went through. Hopefully, it will dissuade him from getting one.

Here we are on the coast now; about to go swimming. The many years growing up in the Midwest and camping on Lake Superior had not prepared us for the frigidness of the mighty Pacific. We thought the water temperature would be similar, but we were oh so wrong. I of course will where my t-shirt so as to not give away my secret to Greg or Rob, my older brothers. I don’t know why I don’t want them to know, but I just don’t.

11:10PM

COLD, COLD, COLD

4:30 PM

We are headed back home now. The craziest thing just happened----I don’t know if I can verbalize it here. So, on the coast, there aren’t many beaches. The few that they have are hugged by large rock formations and cliffs. Christopher, Rob, Greg and I were all walking in the sand to the right side of the beach. There was a “hay stack” out in the water, but too far to get too to do some adventuring.

We were about a half mile down the beach, and the car is up in the parking lot (which was even further). I had no shoes on, as the sand was pretty warm and it was pleasant outside---one of those “Sun-breaks” they keep talking about. We climb up about 10 feet onto some rocks on a cliff. Rob took Christopher, Greg and my picture. I don’t remember who led, but that really doesn’t matter. We started to climb higher---ALL OF US. If one slipped, the other would grab hold until they could get their bearing. We did this back and forth (me with no shoes on) until we reached the top of the cliff (to where we were met by a bunch of small brush and bushes). It took us about 15 or 20 minutes, but we made it---together. I think this was the first time we as brothers accomplished something together. We had a goal, a task, and we took it on full force and succeeded. Man, that was awesome.

July 1, 2005
3:00 PM

I sit here and read what went on almost 10 years ago, and I recognize the power in that day. Each of us played a pivotal role in that adventure. Rob was my age. Wow.

My now 30 year old mind asks, “What the hell were you thinking? You all were at least 50 feet up off of the beach! You could have fallen and DIED!!!” ………

After a few seconds, it replies to itself, “Man, that was AWESOME!”