I could tell you a lot of things about the central California coast. I could tell you that it’s a desolate and ethereal fairyland, or that the sky peeking through the ubiquitous fog is impossibly blue.
I could tell you that the long, thin pines look like castle spires rising from the hills, or that the waves seem to break slower here, sweeping the shore with a luxurious melancholy. I could tell you that the air seems to ache with a tragic romance.
What I really want to tell you about, though, is elephant seals.
About 5 miles North of San Simeon, there’s a stretch of beach where, at certain times of year, you can witness large numbers of elephant seals doing what they do best: sleeping.
Actually, sleeping really doesn’t begin to cover it. These creatures, which look more or less like giant blubber burritos that started growing limbs and then thought better of it, are capable of a level of passed-outness I have never seen in any other life form. (The only thing I can think of that comes close is maybe a toddler, if someone gave them a Four Loko and set them loose in a bouncy castle for three hours.) Their giant bodies are flopped on the beach in such devout agreement with gravity that you almost don’t register them as living creatures at first.
At first you’re like, “who left like 20 giant sandbags on the beach and then drove over them with a truck?” But then one of them rolls over to scratch its chin with a stubby flipper, or lifts its eponymously oversized snout to emit a sound that’s not unlike someone starting up a weedwhacker.
What little energy they possess during this time seems to be used hauling their 5,000-pound bodies into battle with one another, which mostly entails a lot of aggressive chest-bumping. Occasionally it looks as if they might be trying to bite each other, but haven’t quite figured out how to do so without swallowing their own noses.
In short: my heart has found a new keeper, and it is the elephant seal. I highly recommend getting yourself to a place where you can observe them in the wild — and then taking a long nap afterwards, because believe me, no one can make sleeping look so good.
The Good Ship Watermelon 