The Million Dollar Bonfire
Nov. 29th, 2017 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreFor many years during my childhood, the height of summer vacation was the trip down the coast to Parajo Dunes, a beachside resort made up mostly of privately-owned homes and condominiums. We'd go for a week or so, borrowing the house from one of my father's clients. Daddy was a travel agent in a rich town, so he got all sorts of favors.
We stayed in house 73, an unassuming place compared to some of the more experimental designs you saw along the beach. The house next to us had all sorts of odd towers and very seventies smoked glass windows in unusual shapes. The one beyond that was dubbed "the bunker" because of it's resemblance to a German fort on the Atlantic wall. Half the fun was examining the odd designs and questionable color choices as we walked along the beach.
Each summer had a pattern. We'd get to invite a friend along, make the drive down 101 from San Jose to Watsonville, drive through miles of fields being tended by migrant workers, then pass through a range of low hills and find ourselves at the beach. Chaotic unpacking would follow, then onto the beach.
It's funny now to think about the fact that these days I'm deathly afraid of deep water, but back then I was amphibious. I'd gleefully plunge into to freezing waters of Monterey Bay and swim, get knocked around by the waves, body surf, or just stand chest deep and let the swells pick me up and then set me back down on the sandy bottom. Meanwhile, my mother would be watching me turn blue from the cold. "I'm fine!" I'd insist through chattering teeth, swearing that the water was just perfect!
We ate like kings on those trips. Food just tastes better on vacation, it seems. We'd pig out on snacks all day and still be hungry at dinner. For one thing, my brother and I were at the stage where we'd eat the refrigerator and everything in it given the chance, and we were also burning calories at an astounding rate. We'd have marinated steaks, a taco night, just good food all around. I would drink a six pack of Pepsi Light a day, it seemed.
The days were filled with fun in the sea and sand. In the evening, we developed a variant of flashlight tag where one person stood on the house porch with a flashlight while the others crawled up the sawgrass-covered sand dune that led to the house, trying to avoid being spotted and 'shot' by the flashlight. In retrospect, this was great training for the Army.
But there was one amazing year. Earlier in the spring, huge fires had ravaged Bir Sur, destroying thousands of acres of forest. Many of those trees had fallen into the Salinas River and been pushed out to sea. Which led to thousands of pieces of driftwood washing up at Pajaro Dunes. We had everything from twigs to entire tree trunks on the beach, which pieces washing up daily.
Every night, all the people staying at the resort would gather up wood for bonfires, which naturally became a sort of competition. The kids in house 73 eagerly joined in scavenging driftwood so we could have a bonfire you could see from space. When they were all lit, the effect was amazing. Two dozen or more blazing fires consuming pyramids of stacked wood that topped fifteen feet. I wish now that we had a kayak or something so I could have seen that from the water.
Near the end of that trip, we drove down to Monterey to visit Cannery Row. Which, if you have never been, is the tourist trap section of Monterey. We had lunch somewhere, wandered from store to store until we came to a nice little shop selling tourist kitsch. They had a basket filled with little pieces of driftwood, each piece six inches long at most. The sign said "$2 each."
When questioned about this, the shopkeeper assured us that this was a good price because driftwood is so rare, and it's so hard to find good examples like she was selling. We all managed to make it out of the store before we burst out laughing. Just the night before, we had helped erect a bonfire using 12-foot-long branches that had to be six inches thick. We had burned millions of dollars worth of driftwood! That became a family joke for a very long time, that we could always go into driftwood to make our fortunes.
I kept a piece of wood from that trip for several years, it vanished when I left for the Army. Pajaro Dunes is still there, and you can see the house where we stayed on their website. I don't go to the beach often these days, but the memories of those annual trips, and the Million Dollar Bonfire, are ones I will always treasure.
We stayed in house 73, an unassuming place compared to some of the more experimental designs you saw along the beach. The house next to us had all sorts of odd towers and very seventies smoked glass windows in unusual shapes. The one beyond that was dubbed "the bunker" because of it's resemblance to a German fort on the Atlantic wall. Half the fun was examining the odd designs and questionable color choices as we walked along the beach.
Each summer had a pattern. We'd get to invite a friend along, make the drive down 101 from San Jose to Watsonville, drive through miles of fields being tended by migrant workers, then pass through a range of low hills and find ourselves at the beach. Chaotic unpacking would follow, then onto the beach.
It's funny now to think about the fact that these days I'm deathly afraid of deep water, but back then I was amphibious. I'd gleefully plunge into to freezing waters of Monterey Bay and swim, get knocked around by the waves, body surf, or just stand chest deep and let the swells pick me up and then set me back down on the sandy bottom. Meanwhile, my mother would be watching me turn blue from the cold. "I'm fine!" I'd insist through chattering teeth, swearing that the water was just perfect!
We ate like kings on those trips. Food just tastes better on vacation, it seems. We'd pig out on snacks all day and still be hungry at dinner. For one thing, my brother and I were at the stage where we'd eat the refrigerator and everything in it given the chance, and we were also burning calories at an astounding rate. We'd have marinated steaks, a taco night, just good food all around. I would drink a six pack of Pepsi Light a day, it seemed.
The days were filled with fun in the sea and sand. In the evening, we developed a variant of flashlight tag where one person stood on the house porch with a flashlight while the others crawled up the sawgrass-covered sand dune that led to the house, trying to avoid being spotted and 'shot' by the flashlight. In retrospect, this was great training for the Army.
But there was one amazing year. Earlier in the spring, huge fires had ravaged Bir Sur, destroying thousands of acres of forest. Many of those trees had fallen into the Salinas River and been pushed out to sea. Which led to thousands of pieces of driftwood washing up at Pajaro Dunes. We had everything from twigs to entire tree trunks on the beach, which pieces washing up daily.
Every night, all the people staying at the resort would gather up wood for bonfires, which naturally became a sort of competition. The kids in house 73 eagerly joined in scavenging driftwood so we could have a bonfire you could see from space. When they were all lit, the effect was amazing. Two dozen or more blazing fires consuming pyramids of stacked wood that topped fifteen feet. I wish now that we had a kayak or something so I could have seen that from the water.
Near the end of that trip, we drove down to Monterey to visit Cannery Row. Which, if you have never been, is the tourist trap section of Monterey. We had lunch somewhere, wandered from store to store until we came to a nice little shop selling tourist kitsch. They had a basket filled with little pieces of driftwood, each piece six inches long at most. The sign said "$2 each."
When questioned about this, the shopkeeper assured us that this was a good price because driftwood is so rare, and it's so hard to find good examples like she was selling. We all managed to make it out of the store before we burst out laughing. Just the night before, we had helped erect a bonfire using 12-foot-long branches that had to be six inches thick. We had burned millions of dollars worth of driftwood! That became a family joke for a very long time, that we could always go into driftwood to make our fortunes.
I kept a piece of wood from that trip for several years, it vanished when I left for the Army. Pajaro Dunes is still there, and you can see the house where we stayed on their website. I don't go to the beach often these days, but the memories of those annual trips, and the Million Dollar Bonfire, are ones I will always treasure.
