Big Sur, if you've never been, isn't a town. It's a valley of coastal redwoods, pine and oak, ferns, clover, grass and wildflowers. It's a river, driftwood beaches, cliffs, surf, seals and green green sea. Highway 1, a tenuous tethering of San Francisco and Los Angeles, winds two lanes through Big Sur country. They're few and far between, clad in darkening wood, overshadowed by trees.
Homes are nowhere to be seen, hidden up dirt roads with forbidding signs.
Slow growth among old growth. Recent landslides north and south of Big Sur have necessitated nighttime road closures, spreading a blanket of stillness impenetrable from outside. At some hour past midnight, I was startled awake by two empty-all sighs from a deeply pleasured woman, followed by unbelievably annoying male laughter. If you've ever tried to slumber to the unsolicited sounds of sex, you'll recognize the path that winds through surprise, amusement and arousal to finally dead-end at annoyance. Sex, real and not your own, is a scenery-whoring RV holding you up and blocking your view.