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morro rock today
Its name is misleading. Rock? Morro Rock? Rocks are small. This is no rock.
Its scale is misleading. “It’s huge,” people tell me. “How huge can it be,” I ask, “if you call it a rock.” “Really huge,” they say. “Really really huge. It covers, like, eighty acres.” “Eighty acres? Eighty acres?” “And it’s like five hundred and eighty feet tall, no lie.” This is no rock.
Everything about this is misleading. I say, “This is no rock.” And they admit it. It’s a volcanic plug, they tell me. “A volcanic plug?” “Yes, a volcanic plug.” A volcanic plug, I learn, forms when lava hardens on the vent of an active volcano. “An active volcano?” I ask. “It’s not active anymore.” “How do you know?” “That’s what they tell us, the geologists. I guess it eroded.” “What eroded, the volcano?” “I guess.” “So this is a plug of hardened lava from a volcano that no longer exists?” “I guess.” This is most definitely no rock.
But…what else could you possibly call it? Morro Volcanic Plug? No, impossible. Eighty Acres of Ancient Hardened Morro Lava?” No, unthinkable. No, it has to be Morro Rock. To call it anything else would be inconceivable (a word which, by the way, means exactly and precisely what I think it means). Morro Rock. It has to be Morro Rock. It has to be.
But still, that’s no rock.
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