The fog

Hey guys!

Have you ever seen the classic horror movie “The Fog” directed by John Carpenter? It tells the story of a strange, glowing fog that sweeps in over a small coastal town in California, bringing with it the vengeful ghosts of mariners. Well, I can tell you there’s a spark of truth in this fictive story – this weird fog really exists. And it is as vengeful as in the horror movie. Because it appears right when Oliver and I are looking for a nice Sunday afternoon trip. Every single time!

Our first experience with the impervious Northern California fog was a few months ago, when we drove to Half Moon Bay, a coastal city in San Mateo County, about 25 miles (40 km) south of San Francisco. We already saw it crawling over the hills but still hoped it would disappear as soon as we reached the coast. Nope. There it was – persistent and thick.

Last Sunday we wanted to visit Point Reyes, a prominent cape in Marine County, 30 miles west-northwest of San Francisco. And it happened again! The fog appeared and swallowed everything within a distance of 50 meters. We took some pretty photos of the white wall in front of us and imagined how the marvelous pacific behind would look like. Awesome!

A few days later, absolutely frustrated by that experience, I decided to make another try and went to San Gregorio State Beach (about 1 hour west of Sunnyvale) – alone. It was breathtaking! Sun. No rain. Just a little windy – but, hey, no fog at all! I was sitting there on a high cliff for about 1 1/2 hours, just staring at the choppy ocean and the wide blue sky, thinking “What a wonderful world…”

I stayed until the sun went down and actually I didn’t want to leave this wonderful place. Still I can find no words that roughly describe how I felt. But one of America’s greatest writers, Walt Whitman, expressed it perfectly in his poem “A clear midnight“:

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

Well, I would say, this place definitely changed me, made me look through the fog. And discover the astonishing beauty of nature. It’s one of my favorite places.