Things Promised II

Here is the transcription of my voice-recorded guidebook entry for Rock Point Beach, on Highway 1 in California, written in December, and dedicated to Wilma, who has now been gone one year.

Honestly, kind of a cooler day than I thought it would be here, Wilma. [Wind blowing pretty hard in the background, sorry!] I've driven quite a long way to make it out here, but I think that you'd definitely get a kick out of what I'm looking at right now. I'm going to hold the microphone out to see if I can, wait, yeah I think it's happening [sound of wind blowing hard into the microphone].

Dang, I think I missed, wait -- [sea lion roar faintly, then, triumphantly in the backgounrd! -- there it is! Wilma, I'm looking at a conference of sea lions here. And they are, well! Well they smell something quite powerful. And the fish smell on top of it is definitely noticeable.

But talk about the majesty of nature! They are -- whoo man, actually that just kind of is overwhelming, I think I'm going to step back here a few feet [huffing, groaning]. Yeah so I climbed back a little bit up onto the rocks looking down at the beach.

From here, it almost kind of looks like a mound of slippery, smooth rocks. But it's the sea lions down there, moving around in a mass of flesh. Not rock at all! Ha! Actual sea lions.

[Ten seconds of wind and now, from up on the rocks, ocean sounds pounding].

Wilma, I made it all the way to California for you. What do you think about that? Kind of something else, no? And these sea lions are the kind of thing that you'd actually want to see, I think. You'd be amazed. I know how much you always loved the biggest animals at the zoo.

[Sea-lion roar].

Wow! Ha! Ha! There she blows, Wilma!

But you know, lots of folks are getting kind of close down to the sea lions, come to think of it. They're probably drunk. There's a group. Hang on. What the devil are they thinking of -- "Hey [shouting]. Hey down there, don't do that, they'll -- no, I'm not with the park pol [wind blows across the microphone. Crashing sound.]

***

Well so I dropped the microphone after one of these California kids came up and told me to put it on the ground. I explained what I was doing, Wilma. I told him that I was here because of you.

Don't worry. Nothing bad happened after that. They were just being kids is all. I think. Well I think that he actually ended up feeling kind of sad about it. [Twelve seconds of wind and sea and sea lion]. Do you think it's pathetic that I did this, Wilma? Are you embarrassed of me driving all the way out here? What would you have rather me done? Sit at home and watch the news all day? Never!