I left while the motel windows were still dark. By the time the ocean appeared, the sky had a pale strip along its edge and the coffee in my cup had stopped being useful. Seventy miles on the rough plan. No appointments. That helped.
The first stop was a lighthouse on a low, rocky point. I parked in the little lot and walked far enough to hear the water below the grass. There was just enough dawn to turn the white tower pink. Behind it, fog sat over the next headland like a decision nobody wanted to make.
I stayed twenty minutes. It may have been forty. A gull inspected the hood of the car and found nothing worth reporting. Out on the water, the horizon had disappeared. Inland, the hills were already getting sun. The coast was keeping its own hours.
The receipts
In the next town I bought fuel, though the gauge did not seem particularly concerned. The spaces between little coastal towns look shorter on paper. I had no interest in spending a good morning wondering whether the next pump would be open. The receipt went into the notebook with the mileage.
A small grocery had sandwiches wrapped in paper and a coffee pot behind the counter. Three dollars for the coffee, nine for the sandwich. I ate half on a bench facing the road. It was cheese, tomato, and enough mustard to remain part of the trip for another hour. The other half went on the passenger seat.
By late morning the fog had reached the bends I had driven earlier. Each time the road climbed, the ocean returned for a minute, then went away again. I pulled into one turnout simply because the water was visible. Nothing else needed doing there.
The inland turn
Eventually I took the turn away from the coast. Salt air gave way to warm dust, then the damp smell of redwood bark. The road narrowed under the trees and the light came down in thin strips. I stopped at a pullout and finished the sandwich without turning on the radio.
The notebook says four stops. It leaves out the places where I only sat for a moment. Back at the room that night, the lighthouse was what I remembered first. The coffee came a close second, despite itself.