"View from a Nepenthe chair," Big Sur, September 2005

Nepenthe, Big Sur, California

This is one of my absolute favorite photos. I took it on our honeymoon when we stopped at Nepenthe solely because Jack Kerouac wrote about it in Big Sur. In between lunch and dinner, we ordered snacks -- a salad and french fries, I think -- and a little wine and enjoyed the late afternoon light over the cliffs and the Pacific.

From the baths we go to Nepenthe which is a beautiful cliff top restaurant with vast outdoor patio, with excellent food, excellent waiters and management, good drinks, chess tables, chairs and tables to just sit in the sun and look at the grand coast -- Here we all sit at various tables and Cody starts playing chess with everybody will join while he's chomping away at those marvelous hamburgers called Heavenburgers (huge with all the side works) -- Cody doesn't like to just sit around and lightly chat away, he's the kind of guy if he's going to talk he has to do all the talking himself for hours till everything is exhaustedly explained, sans that he just wants to bend over a chessboard and say "He he heh, old Scrooge is saving up a pawn hey? cak! I got ya!"

-- Jack Kerouac, Big Sur