…when I was going to Cal Poly to add a teacher’s credential to my repertoire. I went to it again in my time of need. Even though it had a “No camping, $200 fine” sign, it was a cold, dark, and stormy night…so I figured the chances were that no cops would be checking. If they did, I had the perfect defense….Necessity. Yes, it is a real defense, and I had it in spades. It was getting dark, the storm was already here. It was crazy to drive further with the rain and wind in a BIG box, so I stopped.

At 4:30 am, I woke, not because of the storm, but because I had to pee. Shortly after I woke, the storm hit full force – I mean full force. The rain was pulmetting the van – a metal box can cause the rain to amplify – and the wind was rocking it, literally. I was in a pull-out immediately adjacent to the ocean. The rain and wind were so strong that I thought the van was going to be flipped. Missy, my dog, and I were completely freaked out. At one point, I crawled into the driver’s seat to turn on the headlights to see what was going on because – this is hard to believe – I was questioning whether this was the storm, or whether I was being hit by monster waves. Yes, that’s how bad it was.

Once I found out it was just a monster storm, Missy and I settled in, awake, to wait for daybreak. We slept no more. We cuddled.

At daybreak, this is what I saw;

And so, I traveled onward and southward. (To be continued…)