Red Rock

The trail to Red Rock is at the end of Paradise Road on the Santa Ynez River. Jumping off he 40 ft. cliffs led to only two accidents in my days visiting Red Rock. One friend dove and his head could have used an extra 5 ft. or so of water. Maybe if it had been February or March there might have been, if had been a wet winter. But this was July and the rainfall had been normal, which meant his head hit rock bottom, or I should say bottom rock. For a brief moment it truly was “red rock”, but being below the surface, the blood quickly dissipated.

Due to the amount of drinking, this area is now routinely patroled, especially on summer weekends. Not that the amount of drinking has increased in this area over the years, but the patrols have.

postscript:

It just dawned on me that the same friend went on to join the Hare Krishnas. After not seeing or hearing from or about him for a couple years, he suddenly appeared at my parents home asking to live in a trailer in the back of their property. He had left the Hare Krishnas, not because of the limited attire of saffron colored robes worn Monday thru Friday, and then saffron colored robes worn Saturday and Sunday as the others hung on the line to dry. It wasn’t because of the vow to abstain from eating meat, fish, and eggs or to abstain from gambling, sexual relations outside of marriage, and/or recreational drugs and intoxicants including caffeine. No, those things were apparently okay. He had apparently had a “vision” and had seen Christ, who, in a way only he could understand, told him to leave the Krishnas. My mother should have followed suit by telling Karl to leave, but instead invited him to dinner, upon where he produced a package of soy burgers. Looks like a hamburger, but is soy. I guess some things about the Krishna-life just don’t go away that easily. The answer to living out back was that it probably wasn’t a good idea and after dinner he left. I haven’t seen or heard from or about him since. I now wonder had I dived off the rock first, maybe I’d be wearing yellow-orange bedsheets, signing “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hey Buddy, got any spare change?”