After a few minutes on the trail, George and John fell into their natural
hiking rhythm, passing the desalination canteen between them as they went.
"Must be getting torwards late morning, Grandpa. The red-tailed
hawks are starting to circle."
They shielded their eyes against the glare of the sun to
watch the slowly spiraling hawks as they scanned the mountainous terrain for their
prey.
"If they get too high, we're going to look small enough to be their lunch,"
George said.
"That's a bird-brained notion, Grandpa," said John, making a goofy face.
"'Yuk-yuk', and I emphasize yuk," paried George, who proceeded
to tickle John's ribs until he begged for mercy through tears of laughter.
They were on the crest trail now, following the contours of the rounded
coastal mountaintops made smooth by millenia of wind, fog and rain.
Far below, the choppy windswept sea danced blue and white.
As they walked, John and his grandfather looked down upon the backs of gulls gliding
parallel to the shore. They could also hear the muted thump of a wave as it smashed against the cliffs, though they
were too high to see the explosion of spray against gleaming rock.
It wasn't long before they came upon a narrow trail that led straight up the side of the mountain.
At its summit lay a collection of boulders, the cracked and broken stuff of the
mountain itself. It was amongst these ancient stone sentinels that John and Grandpa George stopped
at last to have their lunch.