Heading west from San Jose to Santa Cruz, one can pick up California Hwy 1, affectionately known as “the PCH” which stands for ‘Pacific Coastal Highway.” For the next 250 odd miles, your car snakes its way between the Pacific Ocean, anywhere from 25 feet to 1000 feet below you on your west side and the mountains of the California coast on your east side.
Your first major stop is Monterey, which is home to the world-class Monterey Bay Aquarium, with brilliant displays in darkened rooms with backlit water tanks showing the gentle movements of the ‘jellies’, a live kelp forest which your accompanying audio-guide explanation tells you is critical to the life of the creatures along the coast, a penguin exhibit with those cute little birds diving in and out of the water, and a round room where schools of anchovies swim around in never-ending circles, making you dizzy as you try to follow each one with your eyes in its rapid movements.
Another tank shows tuna (which are huge, at least the yellow find variety), sharks, barracuda and sea turtles. In a third, you can reach down and put your hand on the back of a sting ray (which I didn’t manage to do.)
And, as a final act of poetic justice, the entire aquarium is built in what was once the largest cannery in Monterey Bay.
Outside of Monterey is the somewhat famous 17-mile drive, which takes you past exclusive beachfront homes, Pebble Beach-the site of the US Open for golf, and affords you your first breathtaking views of the rocky Pacific coast.
Most people we told informed us that the drive along the PCH would be “by far, the best part of the trip” and with that high degree of expectation, we were happy to see that in many ways, it lived up to its billing.
In contrast to the Atlantic coast, the Pacific coast is rocky, with steep cliffs, and jagged points. There are jutting rocks and even mini-hills which stick out of the ocean for distances up to 200 feet out in the water. These are the rocks where the sea otters (saw them in the aquarium) and the elephant seals (we had heard of one place north of Santa Cruz where you could see them, but forgot about it until it was too late) play on the shoreline. There are numerous scenic overlooks where you can just stop the car, look out over the ocean, feel the strong wind coming in from the water and just feel the raw power of nature and its creation.
I am sure that the PCH is the site of the filming of many car commercials as it would be a perfect road from which to have an aerial shot of a sports car going up the mountainous road adjacent to the sea. We had a mixed blessing in terms of weather. It was funny, actually. All along our trip out west, we had had spectacular weather (you may have noticed, it’s now snowing in many parts of the country which we just left), but when we got to California, we only had limited sunshine and many overcast days.
The same was true on the PCH, but it happened in quite rapid succession. It was sunny as we left the hills of Santa Cruz and into Monterey. Then, it got gray and cloudy, a little misty even. Then, sun again. Then, the fog would roll in and I’m talking real fog here. We saw the wisps in front of us as we drove, which gave the ride a somewhat eerie feeling. This feeling intensified as the two-lane road became darker and darker as day turned into dusk turned into night. For some stretches, we were the only car on the road, kind of like in Nevada, except there it was straight, here and one wrong turn and you’re in the ocean (600 feet below).
We drove through Carmel by the Sea, the town made famous by the fact that Clint Eastwood had been the mayor there. What it really felt like was a west coast version of the Hamptons. It had the fancy boutiques along the main thoroughfare and my sister tells me that eating ice cream on the street is prohibited as it creates too much of a danger of a mess.
That’s another point worth mentioning. California has a lot going for it, but there are a lot of lifestyle prohibitions. They’re not necessarily wrong or bad, just noticeable or maybe just new to me. For example…
In San Francisco, you can’t smoke in ANY bar or restaurant.
In Santa Barbara, houses can only be a certain height and I believe they must all have those red tiles on the roof (or maybe just everyone likes it).
In Venice Beach, there’s a similar zoning law against buildings….
And In Beverly Hills, you can’t park on the street overnight.
But I digress and get too far ahead of myself.
The most famous stretch of the coast is Big Sur, where the views are supposedly magnificent. We wouldn’t know since we couldn’t see that much, though we did have a few moments of sun light.
The most attractive part of the ride, particularly as the day gets later and the sun starts to set is the play of the light off the water. You feel like you are looking into an Impressionist painting, maybe a Monet, with the water in the background, some rocks in the foreground and a sunny runway of light that comes from the distance and looks like it is meant just for you at that moment.
Tamar drove for a while, but found the constant turning back and forth and drivers who wanted to pass her to be a bit much, but she put in a good 1.5 hours on the day (the drive from San Jose to San Simeon—about 50% of the way to LA-took us, with stops, about 7 hours.) You could do the drive in 5 hours to LA, but if you have the time, why would you?
Seeing the anti-Iraqi invasion protesters in Berkeley and a few other places, plus what I consider to be a rabid anti-American feeling among members of the far left in the US and Europe, I was thinking about some of the lesser appreciated values of this country and how we can learn a lot from the strangest places, in this case, I am referring to traffic signs.
I’ve been on roads on 5 continents and one thing I will say that is true throughout the US is that the government and road people really do care about your safety. Many of us are so use to this that we take it for granted, but there are many places around the world where the signs and street markings are not nearly as well indicated as they are here.
Think about it. There are signs for Speed Limit, Crosswalk, Signals approaching, Exits, Slippery When Wet. There are reflectors on bridges and on roads to make it easier to drive at night. There are flashing yellow yield signs. There are radio stations devoted to traffic information. There are areas for resting and for the bathroom. There are sections of the roads in the mountains just for you to put chains on your tires when it snows. And I’m sure there are more that I haven’t even mentioned. Trust me, you don’t have this same degree or warning or concern for safety in a lot of other countries.
Then, let’s just think about the amount of land and energy that the country devotes to nature. There are national, state, and city parks. There are fisheries and wildlife refuges. There are designated campgrounds and beaches, which are kept quite clean.
All along our 4,400 mile route (to date), we have seen signs of this and I guess it has made me feel a bit more appreciative of the United States.
There are so many stories here. When you get to California and you see the raw number immigrants and people who are trying to build a better life for themselves and the little things, like the road signs, I guess I just can’t understand why there are those who really think that the US is “out to get the world” or something of the sort.
About halfway down the coast lies the town of San Simeon, uneventful save for the fact that William Randolph Hearst, he the founder of the Hearst Corporation, and one of the wealthiest people in the world during his time, decided that it was in this area of California that he would build the palace of his dreams.
The IMAX movie talked about the influence of an 18 month long trip to Europe at the age of 10 and the impressions from the glorious sites there to make a unique house, really a castle, as it is commonly referred to as the “Hearst Castle.” The book, which Tamar read, said that the fact that his father had made it big, with a silver mine discovery in the mid 1800’s raised the bar in terms of what was expected of him and what he expected of himself. The guide, when asked about the psychological profile, claimed that he merely loved beautiful things and wanted to do something with his wealth.
Well, whatever the motivation, the Hearst Castle shows once again that no matter how much money you have, you can always find something on which to spend it.
The castle sits on an 1100 foot hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean and during its heyday served as the playground for the rich and famous, whom Hearst loved to entertain. The entire castle is set up to mirror a Mediterranean village complete with village square and a church. Only in this case, the church is his house, the so-called ‘Casa Grande’ complete with two bell towers, a 100 seat movie theater, a dining room that is straight out of a medieval castle, a billiards room, a reception area, and many others. But it is more than that. Each room is an art museum unto itself. Hearst was a rabid collector and we were told that only 10% of his collection was on display at any one time. In fact, he was happy when something needed repairs, as it provided him another opportunity to showcase his belongings.
Every item in every room is some antique. The ceilings were imported wood from Italian church near Siena; massive Flemish tapestries covered the walls. The punch bowl was made of the purest of silver for Queen Victoria, and on and on and on. It’s unbelievable. And that’s just the main house.
There are multiple guest houses (each has its own name, e.g. ‘Casa del Mar’
as it faces the ocean) with multiple bedrooms within each as well as bathrooms and showers. There are two pools. One indoor (heated, of course) and one outdoor (in the shadow of a full Roman temple which was brought over from Italy).
Oh yes, the entire house sits within a ranch that at one time had a zoo, a number of head of cattle, its own airstrip, and is part of the 480 square miles of land within the central California coast owned by the Hearst family.
No detail was overlooked and Hearst seemed to want to do everything to the utmost possibility. He had fireplaces that were the size of a small RV brought over from Europe, paintings by Botticelli, brass lions, and Egyptian god statues. Italian and Vermont marble fountains were aflowing, orange and palm trees were blooming, as well as an elevator to his private room and secret doors so his guests wouldn’t know how he entered a room. He didn’t smoke at all, considering it to be a ‘nasty habit’ contrary to the claims of the day by the tobacco companies claiming it aided digestion and improved your heart (though he permitted it in the house for his guests as it was in
vogue) and preferred that people not get drunk, so he would allow them only one drink before dinner.
There was a tennis court, a stable, and other amusements—apparently, he was a great host, always looking to have his guests entertain themselves.
There’s really no end to the amount of possible description for this epic work of architecture (how they built it on top of a hill is a whole different story—it required laborers 7 days a week for 15 years). By my estimates (using the rule of money doubling every 7 years), he spent over $1 billion dollars in today’s money on this home and at the end of his life, he willed it to the University of California-Berkeley as an outdoor art museum.
After seeing the property, however, they decided that without an endowment for maintenance, there was no way that they could afford it. So, the state of California took over and has charged admission ever since (reasonable, given what you see—you can, and should, also make online reservations for the tour, as last year, over 800,000 people visited).
Curiously, or maybe not, Hearst’s personal life didn’t get much mention.
None at all in the movie and on the tour (there are four of those alone, we took the General newcomers tour), the guide said he was married, had five children, then separated but never divorced his wife and lived with an actress, whose name I forget, fairly openly for the last 20 odd years of his life. The famous Patty Hearst was his granddaughter.
One thing I should have asked, but did not, was about Citizen Kane. I feel like there has to be some connection, though I don’t know enough about either to say for sure. Hearst ran for mayor of New York at one point, even ran for President (may have been a Senator as well), and new the Who’s Who of his day.
What Hearst chose to do with his money is quite different from what J. Paul Getty chose to do with his, but we’ll cover that in the next email about L.A.
P.S. I’m always looking for feedback on the quality of the writing. I hope that these emails are getting better with time like a good wine, and not worse, like Godfather III.
P.P.S. A number of people wrote in to tell me that:
The Presidio used to be an Army post (Spanish word). It actually used to have a nice medical center. But the military drawdown at the dawn of the 1990s closed it.
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