One of the best things about the Arroyo Burro Open Space is that it doesn’t talk at you. Instead, it hums. It whispers sweet nothings: the low murmur of insects, birds chirping, and the steady stillness of blood pulsing in the veins of your head.
Almost as cool is how ridiculously easy it is to get into. It’s hiding right there in plain sight, located at the butt-end of Alan Road near Hendry’s Beach. For those trapped by the impatient pings of life’s many conveniences, this restored open space offers the possibility of drive-by deliverance. You can saunter your way through much of it in only half an hour and come out the other end feeling not just better but, well, restored.
Last time I went, I encountered just one other person. I found myself caught up in a happy riot of yellow mustard dancing in a sea of fennel stalks. Hunchbacked hillsides shoot up steep and sudden. Purple thistle bushes compete for space with some other herbaceous being, the name unknown to me, that sports long red bulbs. A dragonfly hovers aloft like a Sikorsky helicopter while an uncommonly fat lizard — as big as a Mounds candy bar — squirts herky-jerky across the dirt path.
