Southern California here we come

Our short road-trip down Highway 1 (H1) direction South, final destination Santa Barbara, was an integral part of my visit to San Francisco. This visit had taken many years to progress from a dream to reality, and all through this period the road-trip evolved continually. It changed length, direction, and style, depending on our moods, the planned time and length of my visit, and restrictions such as work commitments. At one point, the trip had even fallen off the radar of things to happen, when Sophie gave up her car. Fortunately, that obstacle was overcome easily, and one glorious December day we left Sophie’s apartment laden down with weekend bags and a picknick hamper. Emotions were running high. Sophie was excited, and proud of the route she had planned to show me interesting aspects of the Californian coast outside of the jurisdiction of San Francisco. I was terrified. Heading South, the Pacific Ocean lies outside of the passenger side of the car, and I had seen enough on television documentaries to work out that the Highway and the sea lie very close to each other, and that the Highway is just that, high relative to the sea. I imagined that my vertigo was going to give me trouble, and even before we climbed into the car, I was picturing myself tumbling out of it to crash onto the rocks that bounded the Ocean. I could see myself clearly as a fatal victim of circumstance.

Our first aim was to reach the City of Pacific Grove in Monterey, where the famous 17-Mile Drive starts. Prior to actually joining the reputed part of H1, we drove through some pretty strange countryside. The adjectives it evoked were: exotic, tropical, swampy, water wastelands, and blasted heaths. It was obvious to me that we were crossing a surreal county of contrasts, but the only hint that we were near the Ocean was a signpost pointing down a narrow track, indicating “Zmudowski State Beach.” This was not conducive to investigating further to either of us, so we carried on until we reached our pre-defined goal of the 17-Mile Drive.

There, we were confronted with the outstanding optics that we had been waiting for. Over seventeen miles, the guide-booklet cited seventeen points of interest, but these were not all spectacular sites of nature, as they included the Pebble Beach golf links and visitor center with their luxury hotel and restaurant complexes. This had developed unrecognizably since the last time Sophie had travelled this route, as Pebble Beach is host to the 2019 U.S. Open golf tournament. We were able to come away saying we had eaten lunch (a basket of fries) sitting on the most expensive terrace I had ever graced. Providentially, the sea remained unchanged. My favorite spot by far was what is labelled the restless sea. This certainly deserved its name. At a significant distance out from the beach, discordant waves constantly crash violently and noisily into each other. I could have sat all day and watched the spectacle. I find the sea extremely soothing, even when it is at its most dramatic and turbulent. In contrast, for me the most disturbing sight were the ghost trees at Pescadero Point. There, sun-bleached Cypresses watch silently over the well-ordered waves of a dramatic surf spot.

I discovered a significant advantage of the 17-Mile Drive. For most of the circuit it ran around at sea level, right on the edge of the beach. Thus, my vertigo never raised its ugly head.

Carmel, our destination for the night, marks the exit from the 17-Mile Drive. Before heading out to investigate the town thoroughly, we raced down to the beach, straggling alongside other hordes of visitors, to catch the dramatic sunset. We made it, just, but felt a bit like Japanese tourists doing the whole of Europe in three days. Camera in hand: ‘arrive; snap, snap; on to the next destination.’ For sure, we would have to co-ordinate our photos at the end of the holiday. Next, we walked back up the main street in a much more leisurely fashion. As I soaked up the atmosphere, I became aware of several impressions. First, every second shop was an artists’ gallery in some shape or form. In my mind I baptized Carmel “the arts sanctuary for millionaires,” and I had a wonderful time window-shopping, as the quality of the art was really very good. Second, Clint Eastwood seemed to have left his mark firmly on the town from when he was mayor there (1986-1988). Nothing ugly is allowed in Carmel. Yes, you understood that correctly, nothing. So, most noticeably, there are no mail boxes. The residents have to trail to the post-office to collect their mail. Furthermore, until recently, there were no traffic lights, road signs or neons, and no billboards. Amazing!

I had hunted through the guidebooks available to me, and found what seemed to be the most attractive restaurant: “Casanova.” When we arrived there, we found that it was situated in a charming house that could have come out of a fairy tale. The property belonged to an old chef of Charlie Chaplin, and the food was probably the most expensive in town. How did I manage that feat? I ordered “Pappardelle,” although I had no idea what it was. When it arrived, I found out that the name referred to the wide ribbon-like form of the pasta So, it is similar to fettuccini, but clocks in at the slightly broader ribbon width of two to three-centimeter.

After dinner, we headed back to base. Cost had beaten down my bad habit of snoring, and we were sharing a double queen-bedded room. However, Sophie suffered immensely, and had to sleep with her music earplugs in all night to drown me out. Not only did she have to contend with my snoring, but also, in my sleeping state, I kept turning on the television. I’m sure she thought I was doing it deliberately, just to annoy her, but some incredible subliminal messages were filtering through my dreams.

The next morning, after I devoured a huge cooked breakfast, the prosaic aspect of life in the USA that is probably my favorite, we headed out for our next destination: Hearst Castle. It should, and often is, actually be called his ranch, as this press magnate owned a genuine castle in Glamorgan, Wales. The panoramas that spread out before us on that morning driving down to Hearst Castle were awesome. Our view was hampered to begin with by the rising striated sandstone “walls” that bound the H1, but finally vertiginous views hove into sight as the sea opened out below us. Luckily, I didn’t suffer as much as I had dreaded from irrational fears and phobia.

When we arrived at Hearst Castle, we split up, scheduled for separate tours. As a first-time visitor to the site, I was to do the main downstairs rooms, whereas as an old-hand, Sophie headed for the library along with the bedrooms, and the forty-two bathrooms that go with them. My guide was a talented narrator, and I was fascinated by his anecdotes, but otherwise I didn’t like the site overmuch. It had been built from 1919 to 1947, but Hearst still considered it to be unfinished at that point. He had planned it to be lived in, but at one hundred and fifteen rooms it was huge.

I began my visit in the living room, a space dominated by two twenty-foot Christmas trees, one at each end of the room. One tree had presents for boys piled under it, while the other was a girls’ paradise. We moved on, room after over-furnished room, until finally we reached the dining room. This was relatively sparse, apart from full-size flags of different origins that fluttered in the breeze at the windows, and an extremely long wooden table running the full-length of the room. Apparently, this was the dining room that had served J.K.Rowlings as inspiration for Hogwarts. However, I’m not too sure how much credence I give to that story. I was much more convinced when Hearst’s character trait as a collector was revealed, especially the announcement that one of his main interests was collecting ceilings. My mind boggled at the thought. Where did he acquire so many ceilings of the correct sizes from? and how did he transfer them to his castle and install them securely?

My only disappointment was that I didn’t see a bathroom. They must have been another example of Hearst’s collection mania, and I speculated as to how interesting and varied they would be. Sophie and I joined up to walk alongside the indoor Roman pool. Its design has over a million Murano glass tiles, and some of these enclose a layer of gold leaf. I can now say in all honesty that I have walked on gold!

After Hearst Castle, we motored directly down to Santa Barbara. In a road trip, it’s the getting there that supersedes the arrival, but we had limited time available to us, and Christmas was rapidly approaching, so we chose to keep motoring most of the time, and enjoy the sights through the car windscreen. That day we had a lovely view of sunset over the mountains. The first two rows were white, with dark green tips, while the third was pale pink. It was such a pretty sight. I was slightly disappointed however, as I had hoped to be in town to see the sunset from the beach again, and prior to that I had wanted to visit the market, which had looked extremely attractive on a documentary I had watched from France. The highlight of the market was made on the spot pizzas that were dripping with melted cheese. But obviously, none of this was destined to be. Instead, we headed directly for our hotel. It was a most attractive old-fashioned Spanish-style inn, with the typical American spa on the terrace (hot tub for Europeans; an American spa does not include mud baths or other treatments). The inn offered cheese and wine before dinner, which was very relaxing, and set us up nicely for a dip in the spa. When we finally went out hunting for more substantial food, we could see that the whole of Santa Barbara had a Spanish look about it. The houses are made of Adobe, and have courtyards with arcades that reflect the Spanish influence, and we found out that it was reputed to be the home of Zorro. To me it was a foodie’s paradise. Every second building downtown seemed to be a restaurant, and we only had to walk two blocks before finding a reasonably priced Mexican restaurant that had some non-spicy dishes on the menu, so Sophie could eat as well as me.

At three hundred-and-thirty-two miles South of San Francisco, there is a micro-climate in Santa Barbara, with eighty-four percent of days being beautiful, weather-wise. Thus, even on Christmas eve it was positively hot. Therefore, the next morning, before breakfast I went for a brisk walk along the promenade, dressed as for summer. There was an old guy on the beach, making an intricate sand structure. My Father would have loved it. Sand has always been one of his elements, and in his heyday when we were children, he was constantly sculpting the beach out.

We took a quick look around downtown before we hit the freeway on our way home, and found the quirky ‘Book Den’ that was chock-a-block full of new, used, and out of print books. The shop claimed to stock tens of thousands all told, and to accompany this boast, our noses were assailed with the distinctive smell of overcrowded dank paper. This shop sorted out nicely the absolute tail end of our Christmas shopping. Unfortunately, it also gave me ideas way beyond my means, and beyond the concept of cutting back on the numbers of books I own, which I had been pursuing diligently for the previous five years.

The SatNav sent us home on H154, through the wine region of California, with interesting views of the mountains in the background. However, our main occupation that day was listening to the radio. As so often, there was criticism of Mr. Trump, but my favorite piece was from the Economist of three days earlier: “the great Emu bubble – a story of human greed.” This told of how people had bought Emus to raise like cattle for their meat, and how the animals had ended up unwanted and worthless, rampaging through Texas. I also appreciated the philosophy propounded concerning the British: “Mustn’t Grumble.” And so, accompanied by humor issuing from the radio, our encapsulated road-trip drew to a close, and we arrived back at the apartment just in time for Christmas.