Walking with Mr. Coe: Old County Road

Things have been quiet on the blog since we left Santa Cruz for (what was to be) a quick family visit at the beginning of August. As mentioned in my last post, we drove down to LA for the Mars Science Lab landing. That was two weeks ago. Jason came back up to Santa Cruz on his own a couple of days later, and Roscoe and I ended up hanging out for a week and a half longer, enjoying the perks of staying with Mom and Dad (excellent home-cooked meals, clean and comfy house, air-conditioning, LA museums and restaurants, local hiking trails, etc. etc. etc.). It was wonderful, and we very well may have stayed on for another week (and a half?) if it weren't for a surprise email offering a last-minute job interview. That got us back up here super quick. More on that later. 

Before leaving for LA, though, Roscoe and I took a final early morning walk in our little mountain town. We usually walk in our immediate neighborhood, and along our beloved Love Creek Road, but that morning I took us across the San Lorenzo River and into the neighborhood carved into the side of Ben Lomond Mountain. We walked up from highway 9 and took a left onto (the) Old County Road.

You get to walk through a pretty, little residential neighborhood for the first bit, but as the road winds around the mountain up above the river, you pass through a dense patch of vegetation. And then you get to walk over this awesome and wonderful redwood bridge, over a gully with a creek feeding into the river. It's pretty scary, actually. The bridge is old, and has enormous redwood slabs that are weathered and cracked and have big (okay, not so big) gaps between them. Because I'm an old person with old person vertigo (I know), I have to walk down the center of the bridge because if I get too close to the railing (that doesn't even come up to my waist) I feel like I'm about to lose total control of my body and throw myself head-first over the railing like an insane woman. VERTIGO. But I just walk down the center and remind myself that the people who live up Brooks Road drive their trucks and cars on the bridge daily and that, just like Lucille Two in Arrested Development, "we're okay, we're okay." 

What does that sign mean? Can you really drive an 11 ton big-rig over this bridge?
Why bother with the 6 ton limit for the smaller truck? Why why why?

Once you make it over the terrifying bridge, you're met with this lovely gate and signage. The neighborhood watch sign is new. A couple of times, Roscoe and I have walked beyond the ominous gate, but we never make it very far. Maps show that Old County Road continues, carved into Ben Lomond Mt., high above the San Lorenzo River, for a bit longer before crossing the river and meeting back up with Highway 9, still within the town limits. In reality, though, who really knows (certainly not us because I'm a rule-following, vertigo-inflicted old lady): rock and mud slides have made a mess of the old abandoned road and I always feel like I'm being watched by mountain lions and werewolves from the fallen tree trunks and boulders up above. Maybe I'll bring a friend along and really give it a try, until then, Roscoe and I turn around to go back down the mountain at this point.

The aforementioned Brooks Road continues up the mountain to the left of the ominous gate.

Re-crossing the redwood bridge on the way back home. 

In weekend update news: today is my birthday; I'm currently sitting in front of my laptop with a shower cap on over a deep-moisturizing treatment for my hair; I'm preparing for the aforementioned interview for the teaching job that I have tomorrow, Emily will be mock-interviewing me sometime this afternoon; Jason and I will go downtown for a fancy dinner of my choice this evening (don't get too excited because I'll probably end up deciding on a cheeseburger at Betty's -- but then I WILL insist on going to a movie), and then I'll go to bed nice and early so I can get up with plenty of time tomorrow morning to GET IN THE ZONE. 

I wrote Lisa an email last Thursday telling her about this interview, asking her to think woo-woo thoughts for me the day of. She replied that she was going to "woowoo all over that shit" and it made me very happy. Perhaps you'll woo-woo, too?* I JUST BROKE MY BRAIN.

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* I think it's hilarious that Deepak Chopra wrote a snarky little article defending woo-woo for the Huffington Post in 2009. Yes, I just found it when I googled woo-woo, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY.