I don't expect you to agree with me

shudder

I spent the last three days in Big Sur for a story and I'll tell you here what I almost surely won't say in the article which is that I find this place dreadful in the most primal sense of the word. It's incredibly beautiful. That (borrowed) picture doesn't begin to capture the Caribbean blue inlets, the waterfalls, the soaring raptors, the enormous sky. Wow! Beautiful. But Snow White's stepmother is also very beautiful, at least in the Disney movie.

The Pacific Ocean makes me deeply uneasy. Always has. I think it's beautiful, but I also think it's a terrible and annihilating body of water, loud and angry and powerful and it never, ever shuts up. It crashes and roars and smashes itself against rocks and occasionally out of this tumult comes a sleeper wave. The Pacific Ocean is also icy cold. If you get the crazy idea of taking a swim in the freezing water, look around for the sign warning you of dangerous undertow, perhaps featuring a drowning stick figure. The sign is always there. It should be heeded, unless you are a surfer in which case, I am in awe of you. Go with God. My mother's friend Nicole drowned in the Pacific.

Worst of all, the Pacific is full of great white sharks.

Anyway, the Pacific is pretty integral to the Big Sur experience. The other thing about Big Sur: cliffs. Big Sur is essentially one very high, very long cliff overlooking the frigid home of the great white sharks. I can't drive in Big Sur without thinking how easy it would be to accidentally steer off of a cliff. Just one little slip of the hand while replacing the disc in the CD player. . .

It's very beautiful. Really! It's beautiful and scary, at least if you're me. You should come here some day.

Also, there's wonderful food.

my favorite Big Sur landscape

I don't usually drink chai, but the chai at the Big Sur Bakery is incredible, like a nectar in a fairy story. I dipped the donut (homemade) in the chai and spent a very happy three minutes over breakfast on Saturday morning. I went back in the afternoon for another chai, and then went back for dinner and ordered the roast chicken -- brined and cooked in the wood-fired oven -- which was pricey, but great, great, great. I've come around on the Big Sur Bakery since I first visited a couple of years ago. The young husband-wife owners used to work at Campanile and I read their book over the weekend. It charmed me. Yesterday, on the way to hike to a waterfall, I stopped in and bought a really terrific oatmeal-raisin cookie. When I'm done with banana bread, I'm going after oatmeal cookies.

More banana bread claptrap coming your way soon. I drive home today. Actually, right now.