## Guy Fleming Trail, Torrey Pines Reserve — September 19, Evening

This is one of our favorite places to walk. Sarka brought me here on our first meeting in San Diego, and my love of this place has never wavered.

Below the trail, the bluff drops about fifty feet to the beach. The sandstone is old — Eocene and Miocene formations packed with marine fossils dating back 10 to 30 million years, exposed layer by layer as the ocean eats into the rock.

Ocean breezes carry the scent of the deep sea up the cliff face. Prickly pear cactus clusters along the bluff edge, some bearing fruit, while dry coastal scrub fills in around them — browned out by late summer, waiting for the rains. The juxtaposition of cacti and vast open water is like an amusing trick of nature.

The Guy Fleming Trail loops about two-thirds of a mile through this section of the reserve, and this west-facing overlook is one of the payoffs — nothing between you and the horizon but air.