Having beaten breast cancer in 2004, Charmaine Coimbra now finds herself facing the unexpected and unwelcome return of cancer.
A Rock n’ Roll Romp In the Desert
What happens when two old hippies, Charmain Coimbra and her husband, cut loose from their AARP lifestyle for a three-day California rock fest? They let nature's music rule.
story and photos by Charmaine Coimbra
I gasped for air as the constrictor of too much life strangled the air from me. So I took a trip to Death Valley to remove the choking beast.
Maybe it was the funeral I attended the day prior. Or maybe I was ready to take in the nothingness filled with life that colors the 5,219 square mile Death Valley National Park.
I escaped to three days of rock and sand—like a magic, colorful, sand strata bottle—hoping the trip would restore my soul's battery.
At the funeral, filled with native Californians, I mentioned that I planned to drive to Death Valley in the morning.
“You know, I’ve never gone there,” confessed more than one person.
“Why Death Valley?” another old-time friend asked.
“I can use a desert retreat,” I explained, oblivious to the fact that I was leaving a Death event to go to Death Valley.
“But you live in paradise, a few blocks from the ocean, perfect everything,” my friend countered.
“True. But sometimes I like the stripped down and naked desert. Fewer distractions.”
After a year of personal challenges, I craved a drastic change of scenery. All I wanted was two things: unearthly silence, and minimal human contact.
So I booked The Cottage at Panamint Springs Resort. Sounded like ice tea on a hot day.
When the Los Angeles Times reported in July that approximately two-thirds of extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) sold in California grocery stores isn’t so virgin after all, and that the problem comes from imported olive oils, I dashed to my pantry, flung open the door, and sighed. My EVOO bottle was on the list of claims-to-be-extra-virgin-but-don't-believe-it olive oil. The alleged EVOO from Italy in my pantry apparently shacked up with cheaper canola, seed or nut oils—thereby losing any hint of virginity. Shame on my olive oil, and shame on Italy.
Arbequina Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Kitehawk Farm in Atascadero, Ca.Double shame on me. One, the report went on to say, “No such mixing was found in the recent tests of products produced in California…” and, two, the nearby foodie-town-in-training, Paso Robles, CA, is home to over two dozen olive farms that co-habit with the burgeoning world-class local vineyards. Why did I not buy local? I preach it, so my bargain EVOO shopping vs. quality EVOO shopping was about to change.
Last week, I slipped into the 7th Annual Olive Festival in Paso Robles, and it was a voyage into the new world of an ancient food. Mostly family-owned farmers/producers poured samples of their oils for visitors to taste. Vendors supplied bread for dipping—but I watched as the purists went directly for the straight on sipping. Without a clue as to how oils are tasted, I chose the purist route.
February 14 is a day for love, and if you visit the Piedras Blancas bluffs near San Simeon, California on that day, you will see more love-making on the beach than ever before.
That’s right. I’m talking northern elephant seals. As I write (January), the adult females are birthing pups, and the way the gulls are bounding about the beach cleaning up the birthing mess, it looks like popcorn gone mad with wings. The 2010 female and pup count far exceeds the last two years, according to stats taken by Brian Hatfield, the marine biologist on site.
Thousands of visitors from around the world flock like the gulls for the unique opportunity to watch these migratory seals give birth on the beach. Birthing takes place once a year during the winter months, after the females make a 2500-mile migration from open sea to the Piedras Blancas rookery.
How does this relate to Valentine’s Day? First, let me explain that female northern elephant seals are pretty much bare-flippered and pregnant most of their lives. So, after the female gives birth, she nurses her pup for about 28 days. (The 70- pound pup will weigh in at over 300-pounds when it’s weaned.) She’ll turn her back on the little guy and (OMIT) now contend with a two-ton love machine, because she is now in estrus.
Most births occur around mid-January, consequently supplying harems of females-in-estrus on February 14. The alpha bulls, many weighing in at two-tons and about 16-feet long, have waited all year for this. And because any given northern elephant seal bull has less than a 10% chance of ever breeding in its lifetime, they take this seriously.
Just south of Big Sur on California Highway 1, we hit the brakes when something akin to a 15-foot long slug caught our attention. Born and raised not far from the Pacific Ocean, I never saw such a creature on any California beach. It was 1997, my husband and I had been living in Santa Fe for nine years, and we were on vacation in California. 
There were few legal places to pull our rental car off the highway, so we broke some likely vehicle code and parked as close as possible to this giant slug sunning on the beach. As we neared the beast we heard from the crashing shoreline something that sounded like a Harley Davidson revving its motor inside an empty warehouse.
“Did we just enter the twilight zone?” I asked my husband. We paced through the ranchland grasses west toward the beach. Eerie noises seeped between the fog and sand, and more slug-like creatures appeared.
“What are they?” we simultaneously questioned each other.