Scenic Highway 1 to Big Sur

View from 17-mile drive near Pebble Beach

This past weekend Esperando and I set our sights for Paso Robles and a little wine tasting adventure in a region with which we were not familiar. We drove down Highway 1 with a diversion through 17 Mile Drive at Carmel, and then on south down Highway 1 to Big Sur where we had never been before, stopping for a delightful lunch on the deck overlooking the river at Big Sur River Inn.

Hotel guests enjoying the lawn chairs set into the cool stream.

After eating Esperando trotted over to the Valero gas station to see if they sold diesel fuel, but they did not. On the way out of town he checked at a different gas station and same story. They thought the nearest diesel fuel was about 40 miles down the road at Gordo, or maybe Ragged Point. Thinking we had enough to get that far we traveled on enjoying the breathtaking views of California’s rugged south coast. Looking at the craggy coastline and steep mountains reminded me of the Kingston Trio song, South Coast:

Chorus:

South Coast, the wild coast, is lonely. You may win at the game at Jolon,

But the lion still rules the barranca, and a man there is always alone.

My name is Juan Hano de Castro. My father was a Spanish grandee,

But I won my wife in a card game, when a man lost his daughter to me.

I picked up the ace. I had won her! My heart, which was down at my feet

Jumped up to my throat in a hurry- Like a warm summers' day, she was sweet.

(Chorus)

Her arms had to tighten around me as we rode up the hills from the South.

Not a word did I hear from her that day- or a kiss from her pretty red mouth.

We came to my cabin at twilight. The stars twinkled out on the coast.

She soon loved the valley- the orchard- but I knew that she loved me the most.

(Chorus)

Then I got hurt in a landslide with crushed hip and twice-broken bone.

She saddled our pony like lightning- rode off in the night, all alone.

The lion screamed in the barranca; the pony fell back on the slide.

My young wife lay dead in the moonlight. My heart died that night with my bride.

Romantic, sad, life in another time but the place is still the same. Although artists and tourists flock to Big Sur and the breathtaking views along Highway 1, it is still a very isolated place and doesn't change. There is no room for new construction between the sheer cliffs and tiny slices of valley. It is so amazing that a stream can even find a place to run along parallel to the highway and then create a spectacular waterfall that drops thousands of feet into the ocean for a brief glimpse as you barrel along the road.

Beautiful Highway 1 out in the middle of nowhere.

At Gordo we pulled over, but no fuel; same story at Ragged Point. Esperando continued on down the highway, me snapping pictures nonchalantly. Ahead of us a road grader was working on the side of the road and Esperando rapidly pulled off the highway in front of him. Out he bounced from the car and approached the driver. In the secret language of men he managed to buy enough fuel for us to continue on down the road to Cambria where we would be able to fill the tank.

Now just why might you want to name this 'Ragged Point'?

What an amazing drive, but you better have your camera pointed and ready at all times because you won’t have the opportunity for that second shot. And if your vehicle uses diesel fuel, make sure your tank is full before you start the journey.

Cowboy country

Last weekend Esperando and I took a short spin over to Watsonville, a small farming community on the central coast of California just south of Santa Cruz that was featured recently in Sunset Magazine as a getaway destination for strawberry picking and its great beach.  We drove along winding roads through wooded coastal glens of sunlight and shadow to break out onto waves of rolling hilly farmland that is Watsonville. Besides major crops of strawberries, we saw row after row of lettuces waiting to be picked. I only vaguely remembered driving through Watsonville on my way to Carmel in past times. I was always so eager to get to Carmel and shop, and Watsonville was just in the way.

You will see this kind of view from any narrow road in Northern California leading to the coast once you get away from the houses.

 

This time Watsonville got its full due. We drove around and took photos of farm acreage, took the very photographic road to the beach lined with old Monterey pines, but turned around because we didn’t want to pay to get into the beach.

A great swooning Monterey Pine looks a bit lonely in the midst of the strawberry fields

Back in town, around the town square we saw a large Hispanic population enjoying the afternoon in the park like you would see in anywhere in Mexico. I surfed on my Blackberry phone to figure out where we might eat and we settled on a popular Mexican restaurant, El Alteño, I supposed stealing its name from ‘Alta California’ versus ‘Baja California’ but I don’t really know. I guess we needed a Mexico fix having been away from Baja now for the last 2 months. The food was so-so, but the streets were full of Hispanic cowboys wearing Stetson hats. After lunch we went next door to a western clothing store and Esperando bought a fancy shirt while I photographed the Stetson hats on their display. One hat was marked for sale for $400. I guess if you are a wealthy farmer you wear an expensive hat, not a Rolex.

This fancy hat is waiting for a home.

As we rambled along we drove by the Redman House, a beautiful old Victorian home, facing the highway, that had seen better days. It had been set up on blocks and looked like plans were afoot to move it elsewhere. A little investigation on the internet revealed an interesting history. Designed by renowned architect William Weeks, this huge home was built for James Redman in 1897. When the James Redman family died out in the 1930s, the house and property were sold to the Hiraharas, one of the first Japanese-American families to own farmland in the nation. Unlike other Japanese families, the Hiraharas managed to retain control of their property during the WWII period of internment. Only in the late 1980's was the land leased to a strawberry grower, the home abandoned and left to deteriorate. The house was added to the National Registry of Historic Places to hinder demolition while the Redman-Hirahara foundation pursued funds for preserving and restoring the property. It seems the plan was to make a small farm around it and make it a visitor’s center, leaving it in its current location. The foundation had owned the home until September 2009, when it lost it to foreclosure. Now, without access to the site, the group continues to toil, working on plans and waiting for what will come next, though it doesn’t know what or when that will be. If you are interested in donating money for a worthy cause this one certainly deserves some attention.

She greets the Pajaro Valley's visitors and passersby like a grand lady fallen on hard times. The interior of the home was finished in eastern oak, birds eye maple and natural hardwoods.

You move me, baby

This past Friday was the eagerly awaited big move-in day to the new apartment. We had been living in a hotel, albeit a nice one, for the last 3 weeks. Every day we had a different maid—that seemed so strange to me that in 3 weeks I never saw the same maid maybe twice.

Our new apartment was rented sight unseen. It is difficult to rent anything when you want a short term lease and have a pet besides. We knew generally what the apartment would look like, but it is much much smaller than we had envisioned--only 800 square feet. It is across the street from Esperando’s office so he can walk to work. For me the nicest part is that we are directly over a nice shopping center featuring a Peet’s coffee shop. Although Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world with 17,133 stores in 49 countries, it is nothing compared to Peet’s. Long before Starbucks ever even thought of being the gleem in some entrepeneur’s eye back in 1971, Peet’s was pouring coffee for the denizens of Berkeley and San Francisco in the mid ‘60s. In the last couple of years, at least in the West, you can now buy Peet’s off the shelf in the grocery store. It took them a long time to start marketing their coffee very aggressively like Starbucks has but I am so glad they made the transition to at least getting it into the supermarkets. Their coffee is the best, and you can buy it on-line too. My favorite flavor is Major Dickenson’s, a very full-bodied, complex, rich, and smooth blend.

When we moved in we left Lupita overnight at Camp Bowwow, "where a dog can be a dog", so we didn’t have to juggle her and moving in besides. This was a good warmup exercise for when we go on vacation. When I delivered her there the other afternoon they put her in a small enclosure called ‘Tiny Paws’ whose only other occupant was a small Yorkie trying to take a nap on a small bed. Lupita was yap, yap, yapping, not at all happy at being left. I think Lupita thinks of herself as a small person rather than a dog.

One of the lowlights of our move was finding places to stash all the odds and ends we had collected in just 3 weeks of living. At the last moment I shoved a large bottle of Scope mouthwash into my big airplane carry-on purse which had about 15 packets of Kleenex, my passport and five Atomic Fireballs, those hard-to-find superhot cinnamon jawbreakers you remember from your childhood. By the time we manuevered the luggage cart down from the 4th floor to the car I started smelling that minty mouthwash scent. I had never checked to make sure the lid was secure on the mouthwash bottle and my apparently airtight bag was a awash in Scope. Yuck! I raced back up to our room. Fortunately my passport was undamaged as all the little Kleenex packets had soaked up much of the mouthwash. The cinnamon candies were bleeding inside their wrappers. Its going to take a long time for my purse to smell normal again, if it ever does.