From Mary Adams:
A Big Sur Clean Up has been planned for Saturday, October 13 at 8am. Waste Management, MRWMD and Stericycle will be hosting the event for Big Sur residents to drop off bulky items and limited hazardous waste. The event is first come first serve, which means the event ends when the dumpsters and HHW capacity is full. Please let us know if you have any questions.
At least this one is making a donation to the Mid-Coast Fire Brigade for our troubles, but still…
Good morning!
Friday, Suzana Cruz, Cal Trans PIO, sent me the following. I condensed it, slightly. She sent it in response to my blog post about the graffiti, which by the time they saw my post and went to take care of it, Marcus already had. Cal Trans is concerned about us taking care of it ourselves, due to the traffic danger involved, so requests we notify them at the link below, or tell your local friendly Cal Trans worker, who can pass it on.
“We appreciate that locals take pride in their community as do all our crews that work there and our whole Caltrans family; we love the area and do get very upset by the way it gets treated, but our Mtce. Dept. would rather follow the existing protocol and have its employees do the job they are paid to do and take care of these issues.
We have an existing and efficient Customer (Mtce) Service Request CSR/MSR system in place, so when issues, such as this one take place, you and your followers have a way of reporting this kind of incident so we can properly track, record and handle it. This also deters folks from taking matters into their own hands when it comes to an issue that pertains to State property….The last thing we want is for someone, especially a member of the public, to get hurt.
Thanks for understanding, not taking it the wrong way, but rather safety-minded, and for helping me pass this link/info. (below) along and encouraging your followers to use it.”
The days and dates of the Big Sur portion of the ride are next Monday and Tuesday.
Remember this from Monday?
Look at it by Tuesday –
Thank you, hummingbird! (Aka Marcus Foster) Show the love! Share the love! BE the love!
A reader sent me this story once, forgive me, but I’ve forgotten who. I think it was during the Soberanes Fire, and she told me I was the hummingbird. I felt honored. We are all the hummingbird, or can be. Here it is:
The Story of the Hummingbird
One day a terrible fire broke out in a forest – a huge woodlands was suddenly engulfed by a raging wild fire. Frightened, all the animals fled their homes and ran out of the forest. As they came to the edge of a stream they stopped to watch the fire and they were feeling very discouraged and powerless. They were all bemoaning the destruction of their homes. Every one of them thought there was nothing they could do about the fire, except for one little hummingbird.
This particular hummingbird decided it would do something. It swooped into the stream and picked up a few drops of water and went into the forest and put them on the fire. Then it went back to the stream and did it again, and it kept going back, again and again and again. All the other animals watched in disbelief; some tried to discourage the hummingbird with comments like, “Don’t bother, it is too much, you are too little, your wings will burn, your beak is too tiny, it’s only a drop, you can’t put out this fire.”
And as the animals stood around disparaging the little bird’s efforts, the bird noticed how hopeless and forlorn they looked. Then one of the animals shouted out and challenged the hummingbird in a mocking voice, “What do you think you are doing?” And the hummingbird, without wasting time or losing a beat, looked back and said, “I am doing what I can.”
These were sent to me yesterday. They were taken along Highway One, in Big Sur proper, so-to-speak. Big Sur is being desecrated. What kind of mentality are we getting with our visitors? This is heartbreaking.
Michael Chatfield sent me this excellent article. The second half of the article outlines the solutions they are implementing, including fees for parking and viewing the phenomena.
HORSESHOE BEND — In simpler times (before social media), Horseshoe Bend was a quiet yet spectacular stop along a lonely stretch of highway in northern Arizona.
Visitors would wander in from U.S. 89, just south of Page, Arizona, either because they’d heard of the dramatic bend in the Colorado River from locals, or noticed the small sign pointing the way and reacted quickly enough to make the sharp turn.
They would take a sandy path to an overlook where the land dropped away steeply to reveal a canvas only nature could paint — an emerald river hundreds of feet below, tracing a graceful arc at the bottom of sharp-edged cliffs.
A few hundred people might stop each day during the summer road-trip season. In winter, maybe just a few dozen.
But those languid days are long gone, lost in the exhaust fumes of the tour buses, party vans and SUVs that choke an area never meant to hold so much glass and steel. Each day they disgorge thousands of visitors, many from China and Germany and France and Japan.
for the rest of this article, and the solutions they are implementing, see:
For additional article on bigsurkate re Bixby Bridge issues, see:
