Personal Narrative On The Beach

The Personal Narrative

There’s a beauty in nature that seems almost too vast to explain to others. In Southern California we have beaches that are 2 hours away, and Big Bear the same distance. I’ve found that the place with beauty so astounding to me is much farther away, where the air is clean and the beauty is unsurmountable. This past summer in the beginning of June, I went camping for the 2nd time in the Sierra Mountains. The drive there was 5 hours of a mostly desolate road full of desert the first half of the trip, and pastures filled with cows and horses the second. The sky was clear, which seemed an almost foreign aspect to behold considering the mountains we see in our backyard everyday seem to be filled with a constant grey haze.

The boys fished from early dawn till the afternoon, while the rest of us lazed around the campsite reading and occasionally walking around the campgrounds. I can still smell the smoke from the campfire and hear the remnants of the guitar playing softly in the background from our evening dinners. One morning we decided that we would visit Yosemite National Park seeing as my sisters never been. Now if you’ve ever gone to Yosemite through Tioga pass you’ll know that some parts of the road seem like an imminent fall to the ground thousands of feet below. Now add to that, actual snow along the road and fog that almost completely blocks out any visibility of cars in front of you, it was a bit daunting. After a certain point, we’d passed through the gate and the fog cleared to misty mountains with white peak tops. Then after driving through the road full of tall trees we could see Half Dome, and I remember thinking that this must be what home felt like. The prospect of being around a place that I knew to have so much beauty was poignant. It occurred to me that this anticipation I’ve felt all year, just to come back to this place had much more meaning behind then to just ‘get away’. This trip marks the time I get to spend with family that I don’t get to see