This was my first day on a trip to this fairly remote piece of California. I wasn’t alone out here, I was a guest artist travelling with a group of science students from the CSU system. Right on arrival the group decided to jump right in to a 7 mile round trip hike to a prominent nearby point. I took off early giving myself a head start so that I could get the painting started and let them see it in progress, looking forward to the subsequent conversations- those kids always point out the tidbits of information so easily lost on me: the plant names, the geology at play, the fauna that dwell here, and how they impact the flora we see around us- always interesting things for a person who mostly just sees the world in red, yellow, blue and white distributed on x-y axis. When I reached the end of this trail at the destination point, I had to go around a corner to get out of the strong wind and that’s when I saw this cool little sea arch down below. I set up quickly and went to work, keeping my ears out for the group to round over the hill behind me. But on account of the steep hill and the strong wind, I never did hear or see the group and they never spotted me on my perch over this cove. We just went separate ways. Looking back I realize that I spent this entire afternoon hiking and painting surrounded by phenomenal natural beauty and never saw a single other human. Can’t say that very often, but out here I have found it’s not all that unusual out here.