California Travelling

by James Allen

‘FRIDAY 11th MARCH 2011, CALIFORNIA, TSUNAMI WARNING; following an earthquake in Japan a tsunami warning has been issued this morning for Central Coast…’

It’s 5.30am local time, the TV is predicting a tsunami (or many surges) to hit the coast sometime after 8am local, following an earthquake in Japan. Do you:-

A. Head for the hills?
B. Head for the beach?

We headed for the beach – well, the beach with a cliff…

8.30am we are standing on cliffs at Shell Beach - California, just up the coast from Pismo Beach. The day is starting warm and, as we watch, the fog is quickly dispersing. The cliffs are four or five metres high, and we are standing watching the ocean with about 20 locals. Suddenly the tide comes in – quickly - not a ‘wall of water’, but more a set of waves that come up quickly after each other without the previous wave having retreated. The water comes past the high tide mark and then goes out again. Many leave the cliff top believing that they have seen the tsunami. We hang around chatting to a local man when we note that the tide has gone out way further than before – way further. This, the locals say, is not normal. Rocks that earlier were almost submerged in the ocean are suddenly uncommonly high above the water.

Suddenly the tide returns, again not as a ‘wall of water’ but as waves that don’t retreat before the next one comes – the tide is then higher than before and the locals again say it’s way above the normal high water mark. This surge is repeated twice further in the next hour.

We both felt strange watching a force that is so uncontrollable, dangerous and, yes, I admit, exhilarating too. We were unaware at the time of the effect or the scale of the devastation in Japan (and Hawaii). Writing this now seems almost callous given what we now know about what happened and the consequences. However, we were in California to visit friends and family and taking the opportunity to travel down the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH/Highway 1) and so, at the time, it was just a dramatic sight.

Sunday 6 March (the day after our flight from Heathrow to Los Angeles): The sun was shining – so we headed up to the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve. This 3500 acre reserve is a state park and is determined to stop the increasing invasive building in the area. As we walked out the kinks from our flight we saw small wildlife, lizards, birds and Native American artefacts. We were interested to note that the plateau had received 24 inches of rain over the winter. Who said Southern California was dry?

Monday: Still suffering jet lag we were up at 4am. This was a good thing as we were driving to San Francisco. So at 4.45am we left the house… and at 5.10am we were in a traffic jam. Yep, it was dark and we were at the Instate 5/Highway 91 interchange – Highway 91, proclaimed by all the US motoring groups as the busiest road in the USA. Still it was 20 minutes and we were moving north, away from the 91. So by 7am we had crossed the LA basin via Pasadena and were at a Starbucks in Santa Clarita getting coffee and working out where next, which was the I-5 north over the ‘Grapevine’. This is a section of hills/mountains that surround the LA Basin. Today it was cold, wet and windy – this is often the area shut down due to snow in the winter! However, by 8am we were in the Central Valley, the long valley that stretches from here to San Francisco, a relatively flat but very productive valley suffering from deliberate water removal. As we travelled north the production went from grapes to salad onions to potatoes and finally to almond and cherry trees: many, many trees. However, there were many signs about a ‘congress created dust bowl’. We found out that recently water in the valley for food production was switched off and diverted to LA, due to the ongoing drought that has affected region for the last seven years.

We arrived at the hotel in Santa Rosa at 2pm and booked in for two nights, having driven 450 miles in nine hours (with breaks and traffic jams). We collapsed into our room but soon headed back to the car for a small ‘pilgrimage’ a further 10 miles north. This was to the Seghesio winery. We have been fans for some time since our friend who runs a wine bar/restaurant had some of these wines. We weren’t disappointed – the tasting was great and the wines we selected wonderful.

From here we headed to a triple D recommended location. We have a Freesat TV in the UK. This gives us 100+ channels. 95% are useless or bad or both, but we do get the Food Network UK, on which there is a show where a slightly annoying presenter/celebrity chef travels around to good local diners (Triple D is Diners, Drive Ins and Dives – surprisingly he never does Dives…) Since the chef comes from Santa Rosa, we had a selection in the local area to try. We tried Willie Birds - a bar/restaurant that farms their own turkeys and smokes the meat. The food was (as is normal in the US) plentiful and very well cooked.

Tuesday: We were headed to Point Reyes National Park. The route took us west towards the coast; the area reminded us of southern Scotland’s rolling hills, lakes, heather but without haggis and kilts. The park offices were not open when we arrived, so we decided to do the ‘Earthquake Walk’. As we got out of the car we watched quail wander around.

In 1906 San Francisco was hit by an earthquake, which damaged a large area of the city, followed by a fire, which destroyed a further 500 blocks of the city. The earthquake originated in the movement of the plates at Point Reyes, where Point Reyes is heading north, while the rest of California is slowly moving south. The movement at the fault was 16 feet. As you walk along the path you notice blue blocks lining the slight incline in front; these, we were, told make the fault. Then we came across the fence, famous in its day and in text books. The fence (well, a fence that replaced the original)is split, as the two halves are separated by 16 feet either side of the fault. This demonstrates more than anything else the distance of movement in seconds.

Later on the path, we passed a stream that was diverted at the same time. It was to give us a vivid reminder of what can happen; and later we thought back to the site as the news came through from Japan. We then went into the office and, as we have always found in the National Parks, talked with the very helpful and knowledgeable staff. We were told that the lighthouse was closed on a Tuesday, but we headed out to the point. We saw elephant seals and black tailed deer. We then swung south again to Drakes Bay. This is possibly the place where Sir Francis Drake spent time repairing his ship. A group of elephant seals sunned themselves on the beach.

We left the park through more dramatic Scottish-style scenery (or northern California scenery if you are from Scotland) and headed down the San Andreas Fault rift valley towards San Francisco.

Our next stop was Muir Woods to see the California sequoia trees, the largest and tallest trees on earth. These were around 280 feet tall; the tallest have been recorded at 380 feet. Further north (about five hours) you can walk through giant sequoia.

We then headed further south to the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge. Here we found ourselves going over old military installations that were built for the protection of the entrance to the harbour and then the bridge (these were first built in the 1860s following the US civil war) and on up to the Nike missile systems of the 1970s, and anything and everything in between. The bridge itself strides out over the bay, in majestic lines, its colour never quite red or orange (almost rust-terracotta).

Wednesday: After a second breakfast in Santa Rosa we checked out and headed south, this time across the Golden Gate Bridge and into San Francisco, and out the other side. We were headed south to Monterey.

First we came into Gilroy, known in certain circles as Garlic Capital of the World. And, oh boy, did it smell of garlic - the smell hung over the valley…

Anyway we finally arrived at Salinas, birthplace and sometime home of the writer John Steinbeck – best known for writing Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). He wrote a total of twenty-seven books and in 1962, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. We went around the Steinbeck Centre (sorry, Center), but were a little disappointed at the seemingly disjointed approach it took to him and his work, sometimes following on a time line or just in relation to his books.

Salinas itself is a small town that is again today suffering a depression (the descriptions by Steinbeck are not out of place today). Many stores were closed down, there were a lot of tramps and there was a feeling of decay.

Finally we left and headed to the coast and Monterey, famous for Cannery Row where Steinbeck worked and wrote about (Steinbeck used the name and the city then changed the name of the road). The Row was where thousands of people worked in the sardine industry working from 1880s to the 1950s. The canneries failed after the collapse of the fishing industry in Monterey Bay in the mid-1950s, which resulted from over-fishing. Before the collapse, the fishery was one of the most productive in the world due to the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that’s funnelled to the surface from an underwater canyon just off-shore. It’s now a tourist trap - places to eat and to buy souvenirs. Very little remains of the sardine industry.

The main building remaining from that time is now the Monterey Aquarium. This is housed in an old cannery and is now home to many different marine species with over 620 named species on display. The aquarium uses the circulation of fresh ocean water which is brought up through pipes which pump it in continuously from Monterey Bay.

Among the exhibits are the Ocean's Edge Wing is a 10 metre (33 feet) high 1.3 million litre tank for viewing California coastal marine life. In this tank, the aquarium was the first in the world to grow California giant kelp, using a wave machine at the top of the tank which is open to the air allowing sunlight to penetrate as low as possible. Also there is a 4.5 million litre tank in the Outer Bay Wing which features one of the world's largest single-paned windows; the acrylic window is actually five panes seamlessly glued together. Other sealife exhibits included stingrays, jellyfish, sea otters and numerous other species, which can be viewed above and below the waterline. As we walked around we watched a feeding of the sea otters in their tank. We were asked to touch a sea otter pelt – very smooth and silky and, we were told, with over a million hairs per square inch very warm. We also watched sea otters lying on their backs eating the food off their stomachs in the wild feeding. A diver in a tank fed the fish, and outside a pod of dolphins swam through the bay. We stayed overnight in Monterey.

Thursday: And we headed for Pebble Beach a golfing resort and home of the 17-mile drive. This is a toll road that weaves through the private Pebble Beach area of Carmel (no, we didn’t see Clint Eastwood…) The drive takes you through the many golf courses and some of the spectacular scenery (beaches, cliffs etc), as well as the multi-million dollar homes.

The drive starts by weaving down to the coast and it was early with some fog, so we missed the views, but by the time we reached the beaches (rocky coves), the fog had lifted and we watched and heard seals and elephant seals (who make a honking type of bark) frolic in the water. As we went further through the drive, we came upon bigger and, I’m guessing, better properties - huge, behind walls and high fences. Why buy here if you want privacy? Then we came to an overlook of the tree. This cypress tree stands alone on a rock promontory and is the symbol of the Pebble Beach Company. Best not to mention that what you can’t see is that the tree is now held up with wires as it’s getting old!

We then started down the ‘classic’ Pacific Coast Highway into the Big Sur. This is the rugged coastline, an often foggy area with classic 1930s style bridges – including perhaps the most famous and most photographed, the Bixby Bridge. This is an arch concrete bridge and was, when built, the largest concrete single span bridge in the world. As we drove further on down the PCH, we encountered an area where the road was being repaired following landslides. Just before we left, the road was closed following a landslip near the Bixby Bridge.

After stopping here we continued to head south, stopping to admire the views and watch the open (but empty) ocean. At one such stop we were looking at the ocean and noticed a whale! These grey whales move up the coast at this time, often quite close to where the breakers start to show – about where the water begins to get shallow at the start of the beach. The whales move at walking pace and come up for air every few minutes.

We stopped at the Big Sur Park to walk some trails, climbing to a fantastic look-out through more redwoods and looking north from the lookout for over eight miles. Back down was via the water falls, tucked away in an almost fantasy grove of redwoods. It was good to get some difficult walking done after all our driving. We then headed further down to a beach where we stopped for lunch before moving on again to Pfeiffer State Beach Park.

This is the home to the only waterfall to go straight into the Pacific in California and was a private residence in the early 1900s. On the death of the owners the house was destroyed, as per instructions in their will, and the land handed to the state. The bay in which the waterfall falls is magical: the water a turquoise, almost luminescent shade of blue. As we walked back to the car I noticed a couple of large birds gliding above the park. They were very high and were coloured differently from the normal large birds, as they had patches of white on the underside of their wings. We discovered later that these were California condors, a species that was almost wiped out in the 1970s and which became the symbol of the environmental movement very early on. There have been releases in the Pinnacles National Park about 50 miles east, but we felt very honoured to have seen these rare birds.

We carried on further past Hearst Castle (the billionaire publisher of Hearst Newspapers built a ‘home’ with bits and pieces from all over the world) and on to the Elephant Seal beach. Viewing is from a platform about 10 feet above the beach that houses over 1,000 elephant seals, who happily laid and watched the world go by with the occasional pup making a noise.

Friday: Awake at 5.30am and watching the news brought the first notice of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the fact that the central coast of California (i.e. where we are) was under a tsunami warning and the southern coast under an advisory from 8am. The extent of the earthquake was not known but the local station confirmed that all the state beaches were closed, and that a wave of up to seven feet (2.3 meters) might hit the coast – but ‘the main roads are open and no delay to traffic is expected’.

Over the next 30 minutes it became clear that the Pismo Beach dunes (our next stop) would be closed, so we had breakfast and headed to a safe vantage point. There were, for the 90 minutes, a number of locals explaining what was normal in terms of high and low tides, obviously the changes we saw really freaked them out.

After about 90 minutes we headed south again, stopping at the Santa Barbara mission. The Mission system in California was set up by the Spanish Catholic church to ‘bring the word of God to the natives’. In reality this started with the priests believing the natives to be childlike and then enslaving them to work on the church’s farms, while destroying their culture. Of the 15 or so missions many have been damaged by earthquakes etc, but Santa Barbara is the largest and is still used. The church is painted inside in cool Mediterranean (or Mexican) colours. Externally the view is fantastic down to the sea.

After this we headed again south, across LA. We travelled a little over 1100 miles in the five days. It was a condensed cross-section of California from the cooler north – along some of the most awe-inspiringly beautiful coast and into the dry southern California; we had the opportunity to see more wildlife than expected and to experience the chance to learn about the wonderful creatures.

First published in VISA 97 (June 2011)

Way Out West

by James Allen

A long dusty straight desert highway, hot and deserted, featureless scrub; heading from Ajo in Arizona to Gila Bend in Arizona. Signs appear indicating a stop. The post is manned by quasi-military dressed, armed, men, some with dogs. We are stopped and asked: ‘Citizenship?’

‘American,’ says Mara. ‘English,’ I say.

‘Do you have your passport?’ asks the border guard looking at me.

‘No,’ I protest, ‘I don’t.’

‘Do you have any identification?’

‘I have my Driving Licence.’

As I pass it over I realise that it’s an EU licence and doesn’t really convey my UK or English citizenship. After many long seconds and some discussion which we can’t hear, my licence is returned and we are waved on.

Welcome to America, 2011. The last time I required a passport for internal travel within a country was several years ago in Jordan, but only close to the Syrian and Israeli borders, not long after the second Iraq war. I didn’t expect to need a passport when travelling in the US, land of the free. Looking back on this and a second similar encounter, it’s clear that we could have lied and been waved on and that they weren’t looking for slightly overweight English white men. Had I been Mexican, I suspect each control point I would have been stopped and asked to provide documentation of my right to be in the US. Scary, really, how quickly those perceived rights we believe we have can evaporate...

Travelling through California and Arizona, close to the border (close - as in 100 yards to 100 miles), we went through perhaps eight to ten US Border Patrol checkpoints. I lost count after a while. In all but two we were waved through without stopping (I assume that we didn’t look ‘foreign’ i.e. Mexican enough). However, twice all cars were stopped and we were asked our citizenship. How long before these checks become more widespread? How long before identity cards will be required by all citizens? The second time we were stopped, I got a smile and a ‘have a nice trip’ from the border guard. I guess he wasn’t looking for overweight Englishmen either...

DAY 1. We took a mini-trip from California to Arizona. Our starting point was just south of LA, so we headed down the freeway to San Diego and ‘hung a left’ along the freeway heading East. Our first stop was Yuma. Arriving early afternoon, we had a shock when looking at our watches; they were an hour slow. We had crossed the Colorado River from California into Arizona, into Yuma which is on its banks and into ‘mountain time’. We lost an hour in the space of 100 yards.

Yuma’s not a place most people have heard of and today it’s a snowbird paradise - a human snowbird paradise. Thousands of people head south from Canada and the northern states in winter looking for a warmer winter. In RVs loaded with pets they head for Yuma (amongst other places) due to its fine weather – it’s reputed to be the sunniest place on earth. I can’t compare but it was warm and sunny when we were there and I guess 80,000 extra visitors each winter can’t be wrong! Some resorts and hotels are so confident about the weather that they are thinking of not charging when it rains…

Yuma is not a noted tourist spot, but it has some gems. This was the height of the navigable river from the Sea of Cortez and was therefore the site of the military supply base. It was here that the last piece of the Pacific to Atlantic roadway and railway were laid across the Colorado. The river now is a mere stream following the completion of the Hoover dam, compared to its original strength. The hotel we were in was next to the site of the first bridge and rail station.

So we headed off to the Yuma Territorial State Prison. You may have heard of the movies The 3.10 to Yuma (both versions), the prison most cowboys get sent to. Real life is different. Inside the prison the prisoners had to work, were held in cells 12 feet by 10 feet, six to a cell in bunks three high, were forced into a dark cell for disobedience (a cell 10 feet by 10 feet in a dark room), or forced to carry leg irons or a ball and chain. However, the locals pointed out that the prisoners had a band, a hospital, the first electricity in the area and forced air cooling in the cells.

Today the prison (or what’s left of it) still sits on the bluff overlooking the town. Some cells and the exercise yards still exist (some of the prison was lost when the railway moved its bridge and cut away 30 feet of the old prison in the 1920s). The museum is a good one, telling the story of the prison and some of the inmates that went through it. Interestingly when it closed it become a school, and a place to rest for the hobos riding to California in the 1930s depression. The prison graveyard still remains, mostly filled with those who died from disease in the prison rather than foul play.

From here we headed over to the old Quartermaster Supply Depot. Close to the river, it later moved north for its rail connections, before enlarging during World War II as a training site, before yet again changing into one of the largest army bases in the world and being renamed the Yuma Proving Ground. The old site we visited is a state park and has some of the original buildings built before 1900; including the water tank, the CO’s home, the Quartermaster’s office and old warehouse. The site is a museum designed to give a sense of the time and location which it does perfectly. We found a local independent restaurant serving lots of good, well-prepared American-Italian food.

DAY 2. The next day we left Yuma and headed for Tucson, indirectly. It was 250 miles and we went the ‘long way’. We followed the freeway to Gila (pronounced Hila) Bend, then north through the Sonoran Desert National Park. This was perhaps one of the disappointments as there was no entrance, just the road through the desert. It was pretty, but we were unable to get up close.

Anyway, on through the desert to Casa Grande (the big house). First a little-known fact – most Indian tribes didn’t live in wigwams. We have visited a number of Indian sites before, but Casa Grande is an Indian house (the large remains of one) and was a part of an Indian village. The site was believed to have been inhabited from 700 to 1450 AD by a tribe of Hohokum Indians – at its peak by over 5000. It’s one of the largest prehistoric structures ever built in North America, and its purpose remains a mystery. It could have been a four storey house or a temple or an observatory (certain holes line up to allow sun/moon to shine in on equinoxes etc) or all of the above!

Archaeologists have discovered the Casa Grande builders also developed large-scale irrigation farming and extensive trade connections which lasted over a thousand years until about 1450, when it’s believed that a prolonged drought forced the people to abandon such large villages. The site itself is over 400 acres, much of which is untouched and off limits. The Casa Grande ruins are just one compound of many, and other ‘public’ buildings such as irrigation ditches and ball courts are similar to those from Central and South America.

The ruins are made from local clay; when mixed with water it becomes cement-like. The structures are now only a maximum of three storeys, but only 2½ are present since efforts to protect the ruins have lifted the level of the surrounding earth. The walls which only look in some places two feet high are actually some seven feet tall (five of which are underground). The ruins are covered by a War of the Worlds-type structure.
Why the Spanish name? In 1642 the first Spanish expedition passed here and the building was described as a Casa Grande.

DAY 3. Having driven to our Tucson hotel for a two-night stay, we hit the road and our first stop was a few miles away – Saguaro National Park. Think of the American West and desert and the image is of a cactus – tall with two arms pointing up. That’s a Saguaro cactus - and there’s a whole national park dedicated to them. We arrived before the rangers and went around the eight mile loop, stopping to admire the views of Tucson and over the many acres of cactus. In the morning sun they had an added orange glow. Other kinds of cactus included prickly pear and drum.

From here we headed out of the city and on towards Tombstone, the site of the Gunfight at the OK Corral. But Tombstone has a much richer history than that. Starting as a mining town, it was actually small compared to other local towns. The railway reached nearby towns by the 1880s, but not Tombstone until 1903. The silver mines ran out in the early 1920s and many other larger local towns started to decline, Tombstone only remaining because it had a courthouse. The Courthouse is today a state park and museum. It feels like it was set up in the 1960s and has not changed. But it was interesting, mentioning the expulsion of over 1200 workers for ‘communist activities’ because they wanted to start a union!

The rest of the town is - well - a theme park. The main street (as was) is pedestrianised and many townsfolk (actors) wonder around in Western gear. There are at least three different gunfight groups, each offering their own interpretation of the famous OK Corral. Nobody really knows what happened, or why, on that day; or even why it became so famous. It’s clear from the museum that the gunfight was news very soon afterwards. It has captured the imagination of writers ever since - I think because of the ambiguities in the evidence, because it was so well written up at the time – and scholars have continued to write about it. Today the site is built over and the gunfight groups stage the shootouts in the streets or in open air theatres. The shops are all devoted to Western gear or food. We despaired over false and fake history being played out daily while far more important history wilts in a 1960s museum case.

Seeking something different, we went a few miles further on to the ghost town of Fairbanks. This was a much larger town than Tombstone was (15,000 people at its peak) and is now a small collection of restored buildings and a walking tour. The town was built by a small river, which provided much needed power for the mills which separated the silver from the ore. These mills (20 at a peak) ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Stretching some three miles up the river valley, they would have been heard miles away. The town was connected to the railway in the 1880s for all that silver and was occupied until the late 1970s.

We walked up to the cemetery. Perched on a hilltop, it overlooked the town, and now only a few graves are discernible. We then headed west and entered Arizona Wine Country. We felt obliged to stop at one and taste. The wines were good. See the website at http://arizonavinesandwines.com/index.html

From here we headed to Patagonia, a small but very pretty relaxed little town that was nestled in a valley and was surprisingly green given some of the countryside around the area was brown and parched. We had decided to go to the nature reserve but it was closed, so we visited the Patton House. The Pattons had spent years encouraging humming birds to their garden with sweet water. While we didn’t see humming birds, we watched falcons and other birds. The property now belongs to the Audubon Society.

DAY 4. We headed back towards Yuma, and our first stop was the Kitt Peak observatories. At the top of a 7,000 foot mountain, the location is home to the largest collection of optical telescopes in the world. The drive up the hill is actually quite easy, but arriving at the top we found snow. Though the temperatures reach 24C (76F) the snow remains in the shadows. We went on the tour to the solar telescope, which extends 300 feet underground and is designed to undertake viewing (spectrometry mainly) of the sun. It was built in the early 1960s and feels old inside, but it functions well, so won’t get changed. We then went to a small solar observatory to view the sun. This was a quiet day for the sun, but we saw sun spots and a small solar flare. Driving down is never as easy as you think, but we made it down and headed through the Indian reservations to Yuma.

We stopped for gas in Ajo (‘Ah oh’). High-grade copper made Ajo the first copper mine in Arizona. Working the rich surface ores, loads were shipped around Cape Horn for smelting in Swansea in the mid-1880s. The mine closed when a ship sank off the coast of Patagonia. With the advent of new recovery methods for low-grade ore, Ajo boomed. For several decades more than 1,000 men worked for Phelps Dodge in the open pit mine, and it’s believed to be one of the largest ‘holes’ in the earth’s crust.

DAY 5. We headed into California. Our first stop was the Imperial dunes, the largest dune field in the USA, 10 miles across. We pulled off the freeway and first stopped at an overlook. The dunes had a mystical golden glow in the morning light, spoiled by all the RVs parked around and the border patrol. The border fence is only a few hundred metres south. We went over to the last remains of the plank road. To cross the dunes by wagon or car was impossible before 1913, when the first road (of moveable sections) made of wooden planks was placed (or built) on the dunes. The road was moved when the dunes started to cover it, so it was constantly shifting. It was only wide enough for one car, with passing points every few hundred metres. Imagine today backing up 300 or 400 hundred yards; then imagine doing it without power steering, good brakes, mirrors... What remains is 300 metres of original planking, heading up a dune which is badly weathered and slowly being covered over by sand.

We headed down to a lower level and walked the few hundred metres over to the fence. The fence stands some three to four metres high and is made from steel uprights; designed to ‘float’ on the dunes, it dominates the surrounding landscape. We approached the fence and the first thing we noticed was that it was making a fast clicking sound which seemed to travel along the fence almost like a power line. Nothing we could see indicated it was electrified; perhaps it was just thermal expansion in the morning heat. It certainly looks menacing, but it’s not difficult to climb over (apparently) and, given the number of border patrols, not very effective!

We left the fence and, as we reached the top of the last range of mountains, we turned off north and headed into the Cleveland National Forest and the town of Julian. Julian sits at 4000 feet above sea level and was a mining town settled in the 1870s. Following the closure of the mines, it turned to agriculture and specifically apples. Prized today for its apples and apple pie, Julian itself is a mix of those two great American obsessions, shopping and food. We people-watched and then headed to Ramona. The Ramona Café sits on the main street and is smaller than expected. But the food was good and plentiful. I tried the signature dish of chicken Cordon bleu, deep fried and then covered with a hot spicy hollandaise sauce. Hmm.

First published in VISA 102 (Apr 2012)

Wineries and Beaches

by Eunice Kirby

Last September Steve and I spent three weeks in California. We go every couple of years as Helen, Steve's sister lives over there. Usually, we spend a few days with Helen then go off for two weeks or so on an epic 'road trip'. This year we decided to have a more relaxing holiday and spend most of the time staying with Helen at her house in Paso Robles. We flew in to Los Angeles and spent the first couple of nights in Redondo Beach, getting over the flights - one of those trips where if it could go wrong, it did go wrong! But we arrived safely with all our bags - on different flights but all eventually, at the same place at the same time! We also had to get used to the fact that the sky was blue and the sun was shining - after the 'summer' at home, this was something of a novelty.

We then drove north up Highway 1 / 101, passing through Santa Barbara just days before the fires took hold and crossed the highway, closing it to traffic. We arrived in Paso Robles where we spent fifteen days relaxing before we drove up 'The One' to San Francisco to spend our last few days in the city before flying home from there.

Paso Robles or The City of El Paso de Robles, to give it its full name, has grown a great deal since our last visit in 2004, although there are still only vineyards in the ten miles between Helen’s house and the city centre. There are a lot of large new hotels now open or due to open shortly. The city is almost exactly half way between Los Angeles and San Francisco on Highway 101, also known as El Camino Real or The Royal Road. It is also easily reached from Highway 1; just take the 46 inland south of Cambria or north of Cayucos, depending on which way you are travelling. We think that the area is becoming very popular with the residents of Los Angeles because of the vineyards. The San Franciscans can easily reach both the Napa & Sonoma Valleys but these are a bit too far for the Los Angeleans. Paso is only a half day’s drive away and ideal for a weekend of wine tasting.

The wineries vary in size from small to large; some offer only two or three wines to taste, others can offer fifteen or more to choose from. Most charge a small fee, usually five dollars, which you can have off any purchase or you get to keep the glass (we have a good selection now!) We visited several during our stay and learned some very useful wine facts e.g. dark chocolate completely changes the taste of red wine, improving it no end, in fact. If you open a bottle of red and are not too sure about it, offer your guests dark chocolate with it and they will think it wonderful! We were first offered chocolate with our wine at Justin Winery. They even sold tins of dark chocolate drops for you to buy - as did many others we found later. We particularly liked their Obtuse, a rich sweet red dessert wine. This is one of the larger but more out of the way wineries, set in lovely gardens and they have displays of the different sorts of grapes and the different ways of growing them - very useful if you are thinking of growing your own as Helen is. They also have an 'outside' dog to greet you as you walk through the gardens and an 'inside' dog who waits for you just inside the door.

The smaller wineries can be a lot more friendly. We called in at Falcon Nest on our way back to the house one day. We enjoyed the wines and talking to the owner who also kept hens and sold their eggs - she had a colour chart of the eggs, with the name of the chicken who laid each colour by it. We bought six eggs for breakfast and she asked us if we had ever tried guinea fowl eggs. We all said 'no' so she gave us three to try, but warned us that the shells were like concrete. She was right - it was like trying to crack solid eggs open when I cooked them the following morning, but they tasted fine.

We were lured to The Clautiere Winery by the advertising, the tasting room is described as 'Edward Scissorhands meets the Mad Hatter at The Moulin Rouge'. Well, we had to go after reading that, didn't we? And yes, it is rather mad but we enjoyed the wines, but most of all we enjoyed the gardens and the metal sculptures made by the Claudine, wife of the wine maker.

We went in the Robert Hall Winery ('the essence of Paso Robles'), a very large winery more like those found in Napa Valley, good wine but not as much atmosphere as the smaller wineries. Our favourite one was Tobin James winery. We were drawn in by the wonderful stonework in the grounds but were seduced by the most delicious of wines. We were served by a very nice young lady but when she went off to attend to someone else, a very pleasant man came to talk to us. Being English made us more interesting. He was really nice to chat to and we found out later that he was, in fact, Tobin James himself. We bought a couple of bottles and he autographed them for us - they are the bottles that we have not yet drunk! We shall call in at his winery when we next visit Helen - it was so much fun and had the bonus that all the tasting was free!

Well, that is some of the wineries dealt with; now for the beaches. The first few days we spent out on the coast because it was just too hot to stay in Paso. It was hitting 110 degrees and we are certainly not used to that, so a sea breeze was very welcome. All the little towns along the coast round there have wonderful fish restaurants, so we rather overdid the clam chowder and fish and chips, but they were all delicious and a change from the usual enormous steaks. We visited several of these towns and walked along so many piers. These piers are used by the local fishermen and some even have tables fitted with sinks so that the catch can be gutted and washed straight from the sea! Not for the squeamish. 

We enjoyed strolling down the piers as they gave lovely views of the coastline and offered the cooling sea breeze. We walked down Pizmo, Cayucos, Avila and San Simeon, all different but lovely. Pizmo is quite a large busy town as is the pier, Cayucos is so much quieter. They had seen whales and dolphins from the pier in the morning - we were on it in the afternoon. San Simeon is away from everything except a large group of eucalyptus trees which filled the air with their delicious scent. Avila Pier has The Olde Port Inn at the end, where you can sit at tables that are glass in the middle so you can look down into the water below and watch anything swimming by. 

Because most people just drive down Highway One for the scenery, not many actually stop en route except to stay the night, which meant that most of the places were empty apart from us. The only place with people was Pizmo Beach, which is quite a large place anyway. Our favourite place is Cambria, a town in two halves, the West Village and the East Village, both of which have lovely little interesting shops. We found a coffee shop in the West Village that had a roof terrace where we could sit with our coffee and cakes while soaking up the sun and watching the world go by, and guess what? We only ever had the place to ourselves. Another advantage to Cambria is that, if you cross Highway One at the western end, you come to Moonstone Beach - the most wonderful beach I have ever seen. It has rocks covered in pelicans out to sea, sealions playing in the water, large pieces of driftwood (sounds better than dead trees) for you to sit on and miles of clean sand to walk along. If you don't want to walk on the sand, they have built a boardwalk along to Leffingwell Landing with plenty of benches to sit on, to watch the ground squirrels as they dart about. We chose to cross the road and sit outside The Moonstone Bar and Grill for a cold beer one day, soaking up the sun and enjoying the peace and quiet.

One day, as we drove north to see the elephant seals near Las Piedras Blancas Lighthouse, Steve thought that I had drunk too much wine or beer as I spotted a zebra grazing in a field, then realised that there was a herd of them. They were in the grounds of Hearst Castle - William Randolf Hearst had brought them in as part of his private zoo and they have flourished - there were several young amongst the herd when we saw them. 

We also spent a couple of days in Paso itself doing normal everyday things and everywhere we went we found the people to be so friendly and helpful, we are already looking forward to our next visit.

We spent our last few days up in San Francisco and saw how it too has changed since our last visit. We also went over the bridge to Sausolito where we spent a couple of hours at The Bay Model, a scale model of the whole of the bay area built by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1957, to test the impact of proposed changes to the bay and its related waterways. All that work is done by computer these days, so the model is now used for educational purposes. We certainly found it fascinating and I had not realised just how big the bay actually is.

So, if any of you are thinking of driving down Highway One, try to spend some time in the central area. There is a lot more to it than just an overnight stop - I haven't even mentioned places such as San Luis Obispo or San Miguel both of which have lovely old Missions. Then there is Templeton and many other lovely little places that are worth more than just being a name on a map. 

We went inland to Parkfield - home of a USGS Station, and walked across the San Andreas Fault - and, no, the earth didn't move for us! So stop for a few days and fall in love with a quieter pace of life (San Luis Obispo's slogan is 'Experience the SLO Life'), where the people are friendly and honest. The local newspaper prints the police reports and the most exciting thing to happen while we were there was an emu which kept escaping from its field and running around on the road or the golf course! And the restaurants offer large meals and small bills.

First published in VISA 80 (Aug 2008)