2:40 pm – from the River Inn after a great lunch, at least a couple days for the closure, update tomorrow morning.
8:00 am – the official word is that this slide south of Gorda will keep the highway closed, probably for most, if not all day. An update will be issued this evening.
The South Coast drums are reporting a two day closure. And Danny Millsap, the Willow Creek Supervisor just confirmed.
The good news is N-F Rd. is holding, so far. The road down from Big Sur is clear to here. Good luck everyone.
Mother Nature sure has a sense of humor! Keep laughing.
I’ll be out and about checking on things a bit later.
At least the sun is out giving our highway workers a chance to work in some better conditions and get some color on their faces. Smiles!
Per KION:…..just released…..
A new slide on Highway 1 makes it the third in just two weeks. Cal Trans says that large boulders are falling into the roadway at Alder Creek. The slide happened eight miles inside the Monterey County line.
The Big Sur Chamber of Commerce is expected to release more information regarding the slide early this morning. In the mean time, the section of the road will remain closed.
The new slide comes just 11 days after the worst slide made a forty foot section of road collapse into the ocean. That section of the road remains closed between Palo Colorado Road and the Bixby Bridge. Crews do not expect it to be open for several weeks.
Does anyone have any information about the Big Sur Post Office? Do they have power? (when calling their phone number, a weird electronic sound comes on) Is staff working? Is it open? If so, are the open hours limited? If they’re open/working, are deliveries of mail being made to them or is mail being diverted to Monterey? (I am waiting for a time-sensitive piece of mail is why I ask, which, I admit, is kinda laughable at this point.)
Thank you.
The early morning drive over N-F road had one benefit for me…
IT GENERATED POETRY!!!
Enjoy the product:
——————————-
NACIMIENTO ROAD
The ribbon of the road
threads the canyon curves.
Misty morning whisps
lace snow-dusted summits.
Verdant Spanish moss,
burnished bronze bark,
of madrone and manzanita,
twisting oak tines,
regenerating redwood
line the wandering way.
…Waterfalls everywhere!
Finally,
The sapphire sea
stretches to eternity
David Allan, that is a good poem, I like it a lot. Nice and simple and descriptive. The combination of the mist with the snow is pretty incredible, yes? Wish I had seen it. Thanks, keep up your good work with the P.V. school. Helping kids is the best. Been by there many times on my way to Salmon Creek, Estrella, and even Jack Knife mine in the 1970’s(years ago).
I guess I wasn’t quite finished (above post). This is a blog, and I’m something of a writer, like David Allen. What I liked about his poem sends this thread off on a tiny tangent, with a tale to tell.
In 1971, I went into the Santa Cruz Mtns., to Ben Lomand, had a relationship to the Friend’s Center there. Upon leaving, I drove up, instead of down, to Monterey. Up, up to a place where I was still on asphalt, but also at the top of the Redwood trees and Doug Firs. I stopped and looked all around, mesmerized at the center bowl of a valley and all greenery of the tree tops, and the dramatic break to blue sky.
This last portion ties into David’s N-F Road poem, with the low Stratus clouds- the fog. They were like notes of a song, appearing and disappearing, little clusters of fog, floating up into the bowl of evergreens, and vaporizing, all around me. All natural, no drugs, you guys. It was just beautiful nature, the fog playing in the mountains.
Anyway, DA’s poem brought back this memory of what I call the ‘flute fog’ that day in Santa Cruz highlands.
The central California coastal redwoods, it is their home.
O.K., back to Alder Crk.
Thanks Wallyncats…
At school, we have an ever-growing “Poetry Storm”, which is a growing exchange of poems that starts like a a rain drop, then another, and then another, and so on. We did this among the Surf Team students and other surfing friends, e-mailing poems back and forth until the rebounding e-mail became a pages-long anthology. The students have written some high-voltage haiku during last week’s storms, and the above poem is a continuation of the “Storm Poetry – Poetry Storm”…now gaining “post storm” poems. Maybe later we’ll put together an anthology book and have it available at our PTO fundraiser “Spring Tide Festival” planned for April 9th at the school. Anyway, with the double closure, the highway has been so quiet, and simply walking across it brought this haiku out of my thoughts:
The silent highway
Listens to the songs of birds
Swept by salty breeze
David Allan, was looking through some of my South Coast slides (photo-type :)) and found a nice one of N-F Rd from the top, before the western descent, with the ocean and the complex lower valley. If I can get my scanner hooked up, I’ll try to digitize and send it in.
Are you aware of Garrison Keillor’s daily E-mail The Writer’s Almanac? Anybody can subscribe.
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/
It is an amazing daily history lesson about literary artists, filmmakers, and people who have made important contributions to humanity. It is what Garrison reads on air, but not confined to 7 o’clock time periods. It is advanced, but the kids might like it.
Maybe BSK could consider providing a link.
i like the david allen poem much. thanks for sharing.
any word on when the road at alder creek may open up? we’re trying to come and bring some love / share the love in and of the area.