Ocean Beach, a small beach community in San Diego, CA is one of those unique beach communities in Southern California. Sadly, like so many other funky hideaways, it’s slowly being gentrified, with OBceans kicking and screaming the whole way. But when the sun goes down there’s still a a whole lotta flavor.
I’ve been walking a lot lately. I’m walking places I’d normally drive. I know, nobody walks anywhere in Southern California. I get the weird looks and double takes when people ask me how I got there and I say I walked. But it’s summer in Southern California The weather’s great and I’ve got a creative itch. I carry a camera. I’m looking to get back in touch with my roots. Every couple of years I need to scratch this itch. Back in school I carried a camera with me everywhere. I fancied myself quite the street photographer. I was inspired by the greats; Cartier-Brasson, William Klien, Walker Evans, and all the rest. So when I want a jolt of inspiration, I get back to my roots, I get back to the streets.
I recently listened to a conversation between environmental psychologist Ming Kuo and Shankar Vedantam on the podcast Hidden Brain. They discussed attention restoration theory which proposes that spending time in nature has a profound affect on mental and physical health. In short, spending time in nature improves your state of mind and boosts your immune system. Kind of a no brainer, but I learned that spending as little as a 3 day weekend in the forrest increases your natural killer cells 50% on average. And these benefits can linger up to 30 days after you return to the big city.
You need more reason than that!
Get out there and explore!
This summer @cindysaylor and I hit the road to restore and rejuvenate our natural killer cells in the furthest north reaches of California. The state has no shortage of natural wonders. The northern third tends to get lost in the shadow of Yosemite, Death Valley and Big Sur, etc. The area is exquisite and far less crowded. From the hot springs and mid summer snow of Lassen Volcano National Forrest to the many water falls, the lost coast and the great redwoods, we were able to immerse ourselves in natural wonder and build up our immune system too.
