Encinitas

I’ve been fortunate enough to tread about the wastelands of Southern California for the better part of my lifetime. There are lesser known byways and there are more widely known boroughs. One of SoCal’s most infamous regions, in its draw for tourists and locals alike, is north county coastal San Diego, comprised of the beach-adjacent hamlets of La Jolla, Del Mar, Solana Beach, Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Encinitas, Leucadia, Carlsbad, and Oceanside.

I’ve spent a good deal of time in Encinitas over the years. I’ve had several friends dwell there. I nearly moved there myself on a number of occasions. It’s safe to say it’s my favorite haunt in San Diego. Good food, chill people, great beaches, laid-back vibes, not too unlike my hometown in Santa Barbara. Probably why I’ve burned so much time there. I like to travel within my state, but rarely outside of it, as I’ve mentioned. And again, this state is big enough for me. I’m a SoCal hick. What can I say.

Connecting all these high to mid-end ‘burgs is what SoCal natives and Cal Trans call ‘Old Highway 101,’ which is to say, it was a segment of the original stretch of our primary highway up and down the state, replaced by the San Diego Freeway in 1958, and then the I-5 in 1968. Now it’s a local commute avenue and tourist boulevard, stretching from the first exit ramp south of Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, down to the city limits of La Jolla.

It was there, in Encinitas, heading north on the old 101, where I came upon this descanso, only a hop and a skip away from Beacon’s, one of my favorite beaches in San Diego and a notorious surf point. The memorial honored one Chad Justin Dorsey, clearly a local in north country, clearly a surf cat, clearly a dog lover (it appears his dog’s name was Sweet Pea), and quite clearly beloved by his community.

I especially enjoyed his matted photo, where people came by and wrote tidings of good will and expressions of love around it. There were many dried-up bouquets of flowers, a few candles, a standard cross, and tacked to the eucalyptus tree were a pair of what I presume were his favorite surf booties. It’s a pretty safe bet Chad was my kinda people, what with his beach hobbies, doggie parenting, and general SoCal vibe.

There were at least two pictures of Sweet Pea posted there, and the only thing that distracted me from my admiration at his people’s dedications to him was the wonderment in whether she passed away with him in some car accident nearby, or if folks were just including those photos because his dog was so important to him. I hope the latter. I’m kinda soft on doggos. You may have determined that by now.

And yes, your next musing might be whether I’ve come upon any doggie descansos, and the answer is a resounding yes. We’ll get to some of those. Those ones are harder to absorb, because as we all know, doggies passing via inadvertent road crossings is a tough thing indeed. Violent, and mostly unnecessary, many of those demises due to an unfortunate lapse in attention or a lack of proper supervision. I’ve helped a number of pals bury their dogs because of a momentary distraction, resulting in their furry kid ultimately taking the rainbow bridge unto whatever world awaits them beyond.

Have I mentioned how much I look forward to ridding ourselves of big, two ton transports of steel and fiberglass, and getting on with the teleportation jazz? No? Well, now I have.

As much wanderlusting as I’ve enjoyed over the years with all my drifting about California, usually in a pickup or SUV, I’d gladly forego my personal wheels to save the lives of all the wildlife (and domesticated wildlife) killed on our country’s roads every day. Birds. Deer. Skunks. Possums. Cats. Coyotes. You all know the roadkill drill.

I have only accidentally hit two creatures with my vehicles in my forty-some years of driving. One was a skunk, while I was driving my dad’s VW Rabbit in the mid 80’s, in the dead of night coming back from some high school outing. I don’t know if it was killed. I presume so. It was about 2 AM, and I didn’t stop to check, being the only vehicle on the highway at that time of night in that sector of SoCal. What I do know is, it stank up the underside of the chassis for weeks after.

I felt horrible, by the by, and the same was true when a small, young, red-tailed hawk flew into my front grill in the early oughts. I stopped for that one, went back, picked it up off the road, upset as all get out, brought it back to my pad, offered some silent appeals for forgiveness to the magnificent bird, and buried it in my herb garden.

Full disclosure…for a long while, I used to carry a pair of gloves, a shovel, and a large, industrial-sized dustpan in the back of my pickup bed, in case I came upon roadkill that deserved better than getting squished over and over endlessly until they were literally part of the pavement. It still bums me out, every time I see it, and I pretty much see it on a daily basis, same as you do. One of the high costs of our public roads is the invasion upon nature and wildlife habitation.

No, I’m not vegan yet, though I’m aspiring.

My mindset was less about the bloody deaths involved, and more about our collective human ability to ignore those tiny, unheralded lives and not really caring about disposing of their remains in a respectful fashion. Depending on the decay rate, and as always, just like with descansos, where the critter in question was situated and whether it was safe for me to skitter out to it between traffic (yeah, it never really was, thanks Cal-Trans, I know that), I’d sometimes stop and bury the animal by the side of the road, if I had time, particularly if it was a larger creature like a coyote or a cat.

I had to stop doing that, not just because it was an unsafe practice, but because I was concerned I might accidentally bring some bacterial disease from the carcasses home to my own doggies.

That said, yes, roadkill bugs the hell out of me, because it reminds me of human hubris and the fact we ought to have developed better transportation methods at our current level of technology (we have, they’re just not in wide release yet, and ya know…the fossil fuel industrial complex blah blah blah).

Anyhoo…segued there a bit, Chad, apologies.

Point being, it was a tossup, in my feelings, concerning whether your doggo was with you at the time you shed your shell, and shed her own shell as well, or whether you left her behind to live out her life. That’s the thing about dogs. Given a choice, they’d probably elect to go with us. I’ve seen too many heartbroken animals upon the passing of their parent. Some of them never get over it, no matter how well their inherited new parents take care of them. You’ve all seen those agonizing photos of dogs laying in front of their daddy’s or mommy’s coffins, especially those soldiers coming home from active duty being laid to rest. A great way to break my heart on any given day would be showing me videos or social media posts appealing to the public to take pity on some poor doggo whose parent passed away and the dog now needs a new home, they’re at the shelter, not understanding why their parent is no longer around them.

Hey, FYI, two offbeat notes here.

First, always let a dog sniff and check out their parent’s dead body, should that parent pass on, because dogs know via their inherent instinctive nature, with their ability to process stimuli through their noses like pheromones and yes, the aroma of rigor mortis, that that creature they were bonded with has died, rather than them wondering why they never came home. Dogs definitely do feel a sense of abandonment when they’re suddenly dropped in a strange place without their family. So weird as it might sound, do those dogs a solid and let them smell the body. Honest. They know when something has died, and they don’t understand disappearances.

Second, you’ll note I keep using the word ‘parent,’ or ‘steward,’ instead of ‘owner,’ because you can’t fucking ‘own’ dogs, you can’t ‘own’ animals like property. They’re living creatures with sentience or sapience, there is no ‘owning’ living creatures…despite what our shameful history has wrought. The only reason we think we can own animals, is because as a species, we’ve managed to spectacularly fumble the ball in not balancing scales with the natural world. It will bite us in the ass, inevitably. As we’re seeing right now, with the climate crisis.

Yep, corporeality is a bitch.

We’re all subject to the fragility of our vessels, dogs included.

I came upon this descanso not too long ago, but long enough. So if Sweet Pea was not involved in Chad’s early demise, it’s likely she’s rejoined him by now.

Here’s hoping the two of you are doing exactly what I hope to be doing with all the dogs I’ve lost over the decades, in that next world. A shit ton of ball throwing and horseplay, running in endless meadows and on white sand beaches, young and vital and no longer subject to physical limitations.

Playing in a world with no forced good-byes.

Bet the waves are tasty, in the next phase.

Am I right, Chad?

I bet I am. :)