NYE Big Sur Trippin'

1/1/17 - Big Sur
 
Location: Limekiln State Park
Dose: 1.7g
Method: Peanut butter and jelly shroom sandwich topped with strawberries and bananas
 
     My girlfriend, who we'll refer to as Angie, and I were invited on a camping trip up to Big Sur for New Years by two of my friends we'll call Simon and Chris. I should note that almost all of my previous psychedelic experiences have been with these guys. They are two of my very best friends who I trust with my life, especially on these adventures. For Angie however, this was all new. Having dabbled with party drugs in the past this would be her first psychedelic experience. Simon volunteered to be our sitter as he always so graciously does. Simon is everything you look for in a good sitter. He is patient; let's you enjoy yourself and most importantly watches out for you. Prior to leaving for our camp trip I obtained the magical mushies from a friend. We decided to get 7 grams to split between Chris, Angie and myself. We drove up through the night and arrived at Kirk Creek Campground, a beautiful campground on a cliff overlooking the ocean. We decided that because we would be there for a total of three days, we would go on our magical journey on Day 2. 
 
     Morning of Day 2 we took our time getting ready. We split up everyone's dose and proceeded to break them up into small pieces to put on our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches topped with strawberries and bananas. Once our lunch was made we hopped in the car and took a short drive to Limekiln State Park. The ranger had told us about some easy trails that led to some old kilns and another that led to a massive waterfall. We parked the car, got our packs and started chomping down our sandwiches. We spent that time walking to the limekilns about a half mile down this trail. Because we were there in New Years Day the trails were rather crowded. There were ton of kids, families and dogs. Walking through this park was absolutely beautiful since it was following a small creek all throughout. Everything was lush with the ground-covered clovers surrounded by huge sequoias. At this point about 20-25 minutes had past and we were all wondering if we were actually going to trip. We had made it to the kilns where everything seemed hilarious. We were laughing and were all in a positive mood but we knew we were definitely not tripping yet. We decided that we would head back to the fork in the trail and head over to the waterfall.
 
     On the way to the waterfall we kept running into families and other groups of people and would wish them a Happy New Year as we'd pass by. While we weren't tripping yet, I remember feeling a little awkward around groups of people. To get to the waterfalls you have to cross that same river several times by walking across some branches and tree roots that made makeshift bridges. I hadn't realized this until later but my balance, which tends to be pretty good, slowly started to get worse. We crossed the river several times and eventually came to the waterfall. There were only a couple other groups at the waterfall, which was good because at this point I started to feel really uncomfortable and nauseous. I would look up at the waterfall and get very dizzy. Although I was so overwhelmed, the waterfall was absolutely beautiful to stare at. I kept making awkward eye contact with one of the guys who were there with his family and I started to wonder if he knew I was starting to trip. Angie pointed out that some of the water has frozen as it was falling making icicles. Realizing that the water was making icicles was a really crazy concept to comprehend. I kept feeling like I was going to throw up and felt like I needed to leave the waterfall. Angie would use the term over stimulated a few times during this trip which was spot on. I started to feel the shrooms hit me in waves. One moment I would feel really off and a little %u201Cdrunk%u201D and the next moment I would feel perfectly okay. Nonetheless, I knew we had taken flight. I ran over to Chris to see if I was the only one feeling this. I wasn't. Angie and Chris started to feel them too. 
 
     As we started back on the trail, back to the main area of the park, Angie would trail behind taking in all of the plants and flowers that were around us. We had to cross those makeshift bridges again but this time it was a lot more difficult. Crossing one of them I accidentally stepped completely into the river and got my shoe drenched. On the other side Simon saw some interesting looking wild fungi growing. Angie wanted to play with them a little. As she would touch them it looked like human flesh. Just the thought of a plant looking like human flesh growing in the wild was a rather difficult thing to take in. We kept moving along and eventually got to one of the bigger bridges. There were several other groups coming across so Chris, Angie and I stayed back for a bit while Simon crossed and watched from afar. This bridge we were waiting to cross was a giant tree, which had fallen across the river. Angie was crouched to the side of it watching the river flow through it. I can't remember exactly what she said but she was pretty mesmerized by that sight. We made it back across and down the trail further when we came to this bench that was just sitting on the side of the trail, which Angie immediately laid down on. She was completely blown away at the sight of looking up at the trees. She insisted that we try it as well. Chris and I opted to stay standing but looked up anyways to see how crazy of a perspective it was. Looking up into those trees almost felt like we were going light speed on the Millennium Falcon. We then noticed that there was a plaque on this bench with a John Muir quote.

 

"%u2026 sequoias, kings of their race, growing close together like grass in a meadow, poised their brave domes and spires in the sky three hundred feet above the ferns and the lilies that enameled the ground; towering serene through the long centuries, preaching God's forestry fresh from heaven.%u201D

 

     After thinking about Muir and all of his adventures back in the day, Angie and I saw a hollowed out tree stump we wanted to check out. We kept imagining little gnomes living in there and thought it was hilarious. This hole went deeper and deeper and I had an urge to crawl down it to see what was living down there, which Angie talked me out of. Angie and I turned around to meet back up with Chris and Simon and saw what we thought was a bear. It was actually just part of a burnt tree but I swear it looked just like a bear that was waving at us. I was met with a combination of fear and excitement seeing this bear. We really weren%u2019t sure if it was real or now so we asked Simon what it was. He confirmed it was just a burnt tree.

 

     As we walked further down the trail, we passed a huge tree with roots coming out of the ground. As we passed, the roots strongly resembled all sorts of different snakes. They were moving very very slowly and kept turning back into the roots every few seconds. They weren%u2019t necessarily scary but it was not something I wanted to be by for very long. I should note that this shroom trip was a lot different than my others. There was part of me still rooted in reality but there was another part of me that was seeing what was actually around me and my mucked out mind was transforming it into something entirely. For example, I would still be able to tell that the snakes were tree roots but I still wasn%u2019t 100% sure if that was the case. I felt kind of confused but didn%u2019t really care to try to make sense of it. I was just observing everything. I attributed this to the smaller dose I took this trip. In the past I had taken a 1/8^th to myself. Despite feeling overwhelmed at times, I was still enjoying myself.  Colors were much more vibrant and I felt a lot more alert and observant throughout the day. I should also note that all throughout this experience I would get the sudden urge to throw up which I would fight back as to keep the trip going. Having had a weak stomach in the past, I was rather proud of this minor achievement.

 

     Anyways, back down the trail we went. I kept looking at the grains of the wood, which were very interesting to look at. It was just a very vivid and pretty thing to take in. I would have shroomy thoughts like what it would be to live as an ant walking under all of the clovers as if they were palm trees. We all decided that we would head back to the main part of the park because we all had to go to the bathroom. We passed over a bridge and into the main camp area where there were several groups of people at their camps. By this point I was definitely shrooming at a good level. I didn%u2019t want to look at any of the groups because I knew I had this mucked out look on my face. I felt almost a cross between rolling on MDMA and being shitfaced drunk. I had been carrying a backpack that I just wanted to take off. I felt that it was holding me back from being completely free. Angie volunteered to carry it for a while and once that pack was off it was a whole new level of tripping. I made a conscious decision to completely liberate my mind and give in fully to this drug. All along the trail we had been saying Happy New Years to the groups we were passing, but in this moment, being pretty mucked, I just wanted to saw Merry Christmas to everyone. Angie was back a little ways checking out a giant leaf that was on the ground. It was almost as big as her face and staring at all the tiny holes in the leaf felt almost as if I was reading how the different insects and bugs have eaten through it.  She gave me the leaf almost as a gift and eventually found another bigger better one. I didn%u2019t really want to keep it just because I felt like it would %u201Cweigh me down%u201D so to speak much like the backpack. I asked Angie if she would be offended if I left it behind. She didn%u2019t mind and I was so relieved. In that moment I felt completely connected with Angie and I didn%u2019t want her to be upset that I didn%u2019t want her gift. We finally made it to the bathrooms and eventually reconvened outside.

 

     As I was waiting for everyone outside, I found a really cool rock that was so smooth and soft. I kept rubbing it between my fingers, which I felt connected me to the earth. It was speckled with some crazy looking algae or something that was really intriguing to look at. I kept the rock in my pocket to remember this trip. We remembered that the ranger had told us that there was beach access so we decided to head over there to check it out. Angie was still trailing behind everyone else and every time I would look back at her I%u2019d be hit with the biggest smile. I felt so lucky and fortunate to be doing all of this with her. We had to walk over a small bridge over the river we had been following all throughout the day and into the beach campground area. Once we got to the beach I noticed that the river we had been walking past all day let out into the ocean. It seemed so perfect and poetic to me. It was like the water was matching the intensity of my trip. We started the day off with a mellow river, much like how the trip started, very calm and peaceful. That river then led us to a ginormous waterfall, which is when the shrooms hit hard, and then we eventually made it to the beach where the river let out into the ocean right as I peaked.

 

     While completely enjoying how the sand felt under my feet, my eyes then fixated on how incredibly beautiful the sun and clouds were. I hadn%u2019t seen anything that beautiful before. The colors were all so vibrant and I cold clearly see every beam of light that was coming from the sun. I felt that my vision had expanded on either side and I was able to see my peripherals very vividly which gave my vision a panoramic effect. I was so euphoric I could barely contain myself. Angie and I both noticed a crazy colored rock that we wanted to be in the presence of. We both rushed over there and laid in the sand next to this rock. I didn%u2019t care how dirty I was getting and couldn%u2019t stop looking at the horizon. Chris and Simon walked over at one point and I was able to mutter the words %u201CI am so blissful%u201D. I was laughing hysterically and kept looking at Angie, which only made me laugh harder. There were a few moments where I thought I was going to be sick but I fortunately kept everything down. The clouds off in the horizon were shaped in a way where the sun was barely peaking through. It felt that, if I was able to, I could float up into that space and it would be heaven on the other side. This was such a spiritual part of the trip that I won%u2019t ever forget. At this point Angie was completely hugging that same rock and staring at the grains of sand. We kept joking that she fell in love with that rock. I said something to the effect of %u201CAnd just think that at one point these were all very large boulders%u201D which completely blew her mind. The weather started to take a turn and it started to feel a bit colder so we eventually started walking back to the car. On our way there, Angie noticed a couple up ahead that was hugging and taking a picture. She realized that the guys%u2019 jacket, their VW bus and the leaves of the trees all matched perfectly. As soon as she pointed that out I was completely shocked. That moment of realization hit me like a greyhound bus and I thought it was one of the funniest things in the world. I felt that nature and fate had put all of those pieces together for that exact moment. Apparently my face looked that way too because Angie kept saying, %u201CChange your face! Change your face!%u201D We made it back to the car and had Simon take us back to camp.

 

     On the way back to camp, Angie and I were having the time of our life in the back seat of the car. We felt like we were being transported through space in a space shuttle or a monorail of some sort. We kept looking out at the ocean and sunset and were still hysterically laughing about nothing. Once we made it back to camp, Angie and I decided to head into our tent since we had some heavy blankets and were pretty cold from all the wind. We spent a good amount of time in the tent having some weird conversations about time, numbers, and colors and how they all connect. She tried to explain that she views ages 1-30 were the color yellow, ages 30-50 were grey and 60 was a dark yellow; or something along to that effect We were lying in the tent and noticed that our rolled up clothes resembled an eagle perfectly. We could both tell that we were coming down but still had that mushy, confused post-shroom trip feeling. At one point I wanted to get outside and check out the sunset and to go for a little walk around the campground. By the time I came back I could definitely tell that I was nearly sober. My mind was jumbled a tad but I was able to carry a conversation pretty normally and I didn%u2019t have that %u201Cdrunken%u201D feeling anymore.

 

     We ended the night by making dinner around the campfire swapping stories of the days adventure, sharing photos and listening to some good music. All in this entire trip was a ton of fun in an extremely beautiful place with my closest friends. Because we had taken a smaller dose than normal, it gave me a different experience, which I was completely okay with. I experienced some resistance to the drug but learned that by letting go your trip will only get better since you can be completely in the moment. This particular trip only lasted a total of about three and a half hours but they were some of the best three and a half hours of my life.