Light waves

It’s all about light at the edge of the continent where Pacific Coast Highway moves through sea and sky and stone. Drive just south of Mugu Rock in Ventura County and you’ll see it, a 4-mile stretch that’s equal parts ledge and road. Wherever you look there’s so much blue that the crazy lingo of paint colors makes sense. Sailboat, splash, breeze. Seagull, fog, glass. On the land side, the Santa Monica Mountains loom. It’s steep here, and untouched. The cars zoom along and that’s one way to do it, to feel the looping grace and rough edges of this bit of coast. Step on the gas and flirt with the laws of physics: action and reaction, centrifugal force, vectors. Or you can slow down, crack the window and hear the waves, hear the wind, hear the flap of a pelican’s wings. Pull over and the coast is dotted with pocket beaches that appear and vanish, depending on the tides. At night, there’s the sweet spice of campfires. At dawn, mist. Except for the smooth gash of roadway chipped from the sheer rock, this is California as it looked a century ago.

-- Veronique De Turenne