The Great Outdoors
This morning I am sitting at the top of Palomar Mountain at a wooden picnic table in the shade of a massive (8-10 foot diameter trunk) spreading California cedar tree that is purported to be 400 years old. Actually, that tree is off to the side and cordoned off and I’m sitting in a picnic area that is situated between three of its brothers who are probably no more than 350 years old. In any case it is a quiet, sun-dappled and idyllic spot on the top of the world. I’m about 20 miles from home at a place I often visit by motorcycle, though I never bother to come the extra two miles up the fire road to the Palomar Mountain State Park as I have today. Usually I am just passing through the mountaintop transitioning from the South Grade Road (S6) to the East Grade Road (S7) to go have lunch at Lake Henshaw and then ride back home. It is sort of my go-to local motorcycle ride because it has every type of twisty road you can imagine and the scenery ranges from high desert to California chaparral to alpine forrest like I currently find myself in.
There are some flying insects this morning in the 82 degree morning heat (it is the hottest weekend of the year by far), but the beauty of this mountaintop, not unlike my little hilltop at home, is that it still catches the sea breeze and that nice cooling breeze manages to keep the bugs from lighting too long and therefore it is pleasant to just sit and type away. I did not just come up here and pay the $10 park entrance fee for no reason other than to sit in the shade of the cedars. I came up to take my cousin Pete and his wife Nancy out for a morning adventure. They are visiting for a week from Ithaca and being the natural health-conscious outdoors people that they are, they like hiking and communing with nature, which they have ample opportunity to do in the gorges and lovely parks around Ithaca that are near their home. California is a very different landscape than Upstate New York, and while they have been out here before, it has been a few years and they are excited to see and do everything there is to see and do. Other than the sheer size of these trees, I’m not so sure that this stone and wood campground looks so very different than the ones near them in the gorges of the Finger Lakes, but I think its fair to say that the views are a bit more expansive and spectacular in that they look out towards the Pacific Ocean, some twenty-five miles to the west.
Even though its Labor Day weekend and what should be one of the busiest visitation days of the year at a state park like this, in this little parking lot (one of several up in this multi-level mountaintop park), there are only five cars including mine in a lot that can accommodate probably forty cars. Maybe its too early at 9am or maybe its expected to be too hot or maybe with school starting last week this is just more of a backyard barbecue weekend in these parts. In any case, Pete and Nancy have launched forth after several false starts on several of the many very lightly-marked trails surrounding this campground. They are in search of the ridge line fire tower trail that will take them to the best views out towards the ocean. That is according to both Google and the park ranger at the gate, who was exceptionally helpful in pointing out the hiking options. That has left me to guard the Tesla and sit at this Pic-a-Nic table (as Yogi Bear and BooBoo might call it) to write my story and fulfill my daily literary obligation while really using that as an excuse to not have to take a hike and get more exercise than I like (especially on a hot morning). I really should exercise more and hiking would be ideal (assuming there are no bears anywhere near…thank you very much), but not today…maybe next time, as a perpetual exercise procrastinator might say.
Pete and Nancy, or as my and Kim’s family like to call them, Da Massicci’s! for whom we have named Massicci Day in honor of our trip ten years ago to Carpineto, Italy, the ancestral home of the Massicci clan, are always game for an adventure. Now, any day that includes Pete and Nancy might well and rightly be called Massicci Day and that convention is accepted by all as a special day of celebration. We have organized gatherings with all of the assorted family members in the area during their stay. Thursday was an arrival lunch at Coasterra on San Diego Bay with Washley (that would be Will and Ashley to the uninitiated). Yesterday was a Hidden Meadows hike and tour of the back hillside followed by a trip to Coronado with Kathy and Bennett for diner at the Hotel Del Coronado and a fun musical at the Coronado Playhouse. Today is lunch with Mike and Melisa followed by dinner at Vigalucci’s on the beach in Carlsbad (again with Kathy and Bennett). Tomorrow we have the whole fam-damly coming over for another rock-climbing party. The rest of next week will be everything from visits to Old Town to kayaking in La Jolla Cove (that would again be a Massicci-only activity since Kim and I are too unbalanced to attempt sea kayaking or kayaking of any type I suspect). There are concerts in the park (with Kim singing in her Encore ensemble), dinner in Little Italy and just about anything else we can think of to do in San Diego County. Like almost all people, we see and do more in our local community when visitors like the enthusiastic and energetic Massicci’s come for a visit than we ever do on our own. I expect we will be fully tired out and ready for several long napping days by the time they leave next week.
We got to know Pete and Nancy because Pete agreed to take on the chore of being the caretaker of our Homeward Bound house in Ithaca over the past twenty-five years. Pete is actually the son of my first cousin, so he is technically my first cousin once removed. Pete and Nancy have been part of our extended family ever since in a way that his siblings haven’t and I consider that a combination of circumstance and the fact that they are both so damn pleasant to be around. Whenever we travel with family, there is a fight about who gets to sit with the Massicci’s. They are unassuming and always have a smile on their faces. They are up for anything and then some. They are always ready to laugh and engage in whatever is put in front of them. As we are shutting down the Ithaca house this year we have all worried a little that we not lose this very valuable connection we have established over the past quarter-century. This visit locks that concern away as far as I am concerned.
Whether it is in the great outdoors like today or in a restaurant in some far away land, a year is simply not a complete year for us without several Massicci Days in it. Ala familia! as Danny Aiello (rest his soul) says at the end of Moonstruck, and Ala Massicci!