Towards the end of the pilgrimage

Santa Barbara Beach in the evening

It’s always the same when a journey nears its end. It acquires a new urgency and vigour. What didn’t we see and can we remember everything that we did. Where did we stay 6 nights ago and what was the mane of beach where we saw a certain seabird?

I hope that I have been able to lay down some of those memories in this blog. The blog is about the 4 friends, about how we started in Seattle with no formal plan but a booked flight from Los Angeles and it’s about how well we got on. Martin and Liz have been the best of companions and we have shared all the high and low points together and prospered.

Martin mentioned a quote and neither of us could remember its origin. “In the past people used to travel for their religion but now travel is their religion”  We too have been on a journey that would have been a pilgrimage. All journeys have a spiritual element. They challenge you, stimulate you and question you. This is certainly the case with us. We have not travelled for the sake of it but to try to assimilate a big powerful country and understand more of what Americana means to us and the rest of the world.

While the American Colonies were fighting to throw off the yolk of the British crown in the east, The Mexicans and Spanish were establishing outposts along this coast and linking them up by a road. Their aim was to join each outpost or mission by a road with a day’s journey between them. They started by founding San Diego in 1769 and finished in San Francisco in 1823. Their route was called the Camino Real and US-101 follows this route today. All those Spanish place names on our journey were missions and religious establishments. Even in the New World, one can follow an ancient religious pilgrimage route.

That Hotel California Moment

Santa Barbara was known by the Spanish as the Queen of Missions and I would stay there again. We only saw the beach and the marina but it’s a relaxed and cool place. It’s a beautiful location to see the sun go down behind the palms and the forest of masts (reminiscent of the cover of Hotel California). Drinking Mojitos on our wedding anniversary at sunset, watching the pelicans diving into the water just doesn’t get a lot better!

 Jacqui and I on our wedding anniversary

 Liz gets eaten by a whale

The temperature rises, the countryside becomes more arid and the mark of man is more prominent. The evergreen giants are now replaced by giant King Palms but it all looks great and just as you expect Southern California to look.

Route 1 quickly transforms itself into a freeway but it still hugs the coastline and the sun blinds us as it reflects off the sea. Houses start to encroach onto the beach, as if they almost want to live upon the ocean. Martin comments that the “houses are overhanging the sea desperately hoping to withstand the next great storm”

An empty beautiful Zuma Beach

We begin to hit “Beach-land California”. Each name resonates in our memory as a location used in a television programme or a book. We have mysteriously turned into celebrity seeking tourists. Our first stop is at Zuma beach where some of the episodes of Bay Watch were filmed. Liz is in raptures as we pass 2 separate filming locations. We are getting the LA bug!

To many, much of this could look like indiscriminate building, urban overspill and shabby sprawl. To us its what we wanted to see. As Jacqui says, "its not what you look at, its what you see" Malibu is just like that but its Malibu. We walked to the end of the Pier immortalised by Paul Newman and looked over the parking lot used in the Rockford Files. There is nothing there to remind us, even the bar on the pier is closed. Thos cocktails will have to wait!

 Baywatch

 Malibu from the pier

Somewhere to park your board

LA is famous for some of its canyons which still retain wildness despite the fact that the city has encroaches around them. Names such as Topanga and Laurel Canyons have always harboured people with alternative views, opinions and lifestyles. Topanga became an alternative folk community in the 50s with blacklisted Will Geer and folk singers such as Woody Guthrie making it their home.

Will Geer

The hippies moved there in the 60s and this was followed by a multitude of famous musicians such as Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Marvin Gaye. Billy Preston, Stephen Stills, Bernie Leadon, Gram Parsons, Jim Morison, Mick Fleetwood, Taj Mahal, Alice Copper, Van Morrison, Ryan Bingham, Members of Canned Heat etc…. Neil Young recorded his seminal album “After The Gold Rush in the Canyon”

Wild Topanga Canyon in the middle of LA

 Neil Young

After the Gold Rush

I have always wanted to visit the Paul Getty collection in Los Angeles. Getty and his advisors bought European Art in vast quantities after the war and in the subsequent decades. His appetite for art matched the frenzy with which the English aristocracy bought up Europe a century earlier. I cannot quite understand this obsession that Americans have for all things Europe. Not a piece of Eastern or Islamic art was to be seen in this wonderful place.

The Getty Centre is new, expensive and wonderful. The collection was good but it has gaps and lacks the depth that some of the great European collections have. Still a marvellous experience and I came across some rare treasures which I have been posted below

 John Paul Getty

 Masaccio: The highlight of the exhibition; Western art would had been so different had he lived longer

An early Van Dyke: One of the best portrait painters of all time 

I love the Spanish painter Ribara. He paints old people wonderfully 

Head of  a Woman: Michael Sweerts 1654: One of the exhibition highlights and so modern

 A rare homely portrait by French painter David

This guys is gradually becoming one of my favourite painters: The Milliners by Degas

The Getty Museum 

What would any European Museum give for a venue such as this?

Our hotel was on Santa Monica Boulevard, reputedly 3 miles from the Getty Centre. We arrived on the Boulevard to find that our hotel was number 3070 and the road numbers were over 12000 and going up as we drove down the road. We turned around and spent the next 2 hours battling against the Friday LA rush hour traffic up into the seedy parts of LA to find our hotel. Liz who told us that she retained good karma about the location began to get worried when she saw shops selling bondage equipment and posters offering free HIV testing. Who would have thought that we were going the wrong way and that the road (in our original direction) changed numbers when we entered the city of Santa Monica. We arrived eventually in Santa Monica 2 hours later. Thank god! Martin deserves an OBE for getting us back safely.

LA from the Getty Centre

Two guys taking their pet dinosaur for a walk at the Getty

And finally, Santa Monica represents the end of Route 66 as it final travels to the sea. It is the great mother road that brought people to this once deserted coast. How these road watch the journeys of our lives and intertwine

Hollywood comes to Wilderness

The Roman Pool at Hearst Castle

It is difficult to imagine how isolated this area must have been in the first few decades of the 20^th century. San Simeon marked the end of the road and no one ventured further into Big Sur.

George Hearst, a wealthy mining magnate owned a ranch here where he, his wife and their young son William Randolph spent their summers. The young boy was to become the world’s first major media magnate. William Randolph was fabulously wealthy and always dreamed of building something special at San Simeon but his mother opposed any new development at the ranch. After his Mother’s death he approached a 47 year old shy architect from San Francisco called Julia Morgan. They worked in close partnership to build what was initially envisaged as a small house on the top of a hill overlooking the Pacific, close to where the family used to camp. They started in 1919 and the house was unfinished at Hearst’s death in 1945. The “small project” as Hearst called it, developed into a Spanish style hill village with a main house with 115 rooms and 38 bedrooms. Hearst spent lavishly, creating his own version of the European Renaissance from treasures and architectural features that his agents bought in Europe. 

William Randolph Hearst and Julia Morgan at "the Project"

Hearst Castle

The great and the good all came to the ranch to stay in its heyday. Hearst would entertain movie stars, politicians, presidents, writers and anyone of importance. He would feed gossip and news, gleaned during these visits to his editors on the East Coast. Home movies taken by Hearst show familiar faces such as Carol Lombard, Charlie Chaplin, Clarke Gable and many more.

Carlie Chaplin at the Castle

What we know as Hearst Castle was probably the model for Xanadu in Orson Well’s first film, Citizen Kane. It is reputed that Wells and his screen writer Herman Jacob Mankiewicz based the megalomaniac tycoon on Hearst. Wells never visited San Simeon and much of the image of Xanadu was based on the memories of Mankiewicz , who had been a guest there. Not surprisingly, Hearst did not like the film but he was particularly upset by the portrayal of his partner Marion Davies and her alcohol problem.

The controversy over the making of Citizen Kane

The place is worth a visit and should be visited by anyone driving Route 1. It is lavish, brash and lacks decent taste. Hearst’s version of the Renaissance is a mix of styles, cultures and ages.  Is it kitsch? I am not sure. It is certainly an extension of the “Hollywood Dream” into this beautiful romantic location.

The lavish surroundings of Hearst Castle

 Lavish renaissance ketchup

 Hearst's model of the European Renaissance?

The splendour of Hearst's movie theatre

Kitsch or Renaissance?

Whatever, its a great view!

Special thanks to our great guide Anthony who was extremely knowledgeable and helpful.

Anthony, the best of guides

South of Cambria, (the next town) the road crosses route 46 and it’s  only a short distance from a town called Shandon where 46 crosses 41. The junction has become notorious because it was at this junction James Dean was killed while driving his Silver Porsche.

 James Dean (died age 24 in 1955)

 Driving his Silver Porsche

Before Hearst built his airstrip at San Simeon, San Luis Opispo marked the end of the railroad where his guests would be picked up by limousine and transported to the ranch. Nothing singles this town now except a hotel called the Madonna Hotel. This was started in the 1950s and grew over the later decades.. It has been described as one of California’s pop culture landmarks and Roadside America” has described it as the best place to spend a night in America. If Hearst Castle is not kitsch, this is. Every room is decorated in gaudy style. Pink and glitter are in abundance. Surly the high point is the men’s urinal, which becomes a waterfall when you pee!

The Madonna Hotel off 101

 Gaudy with plenty of Pink

High Kitsch

All in Pink!

Waterfall while you wee

Pismo beach is a surfing beach situated at the junction of 101 and Route 1. The town was famous for its clams but true to form, this was another natural resource that was over exploited. The town has a pier that supported the fishing industry but that also disappeared. The town looks prosperous with RV parks along the beach. It has become a mecca for surfers and kite surfers on this vast windswept beach.

Pismo Beach: Pure California

Some of the enduring images of the depression and the “Dust Bowl” migration that took place from the Midwest are the photographs of Dorothea Lange. These pictures shocked the world and prompted John Ford to film John Steinbeck’s classic, The Grapes of Wrath. The classic image of the worn out mother with her hungry children was taken close to Pismo

 Dorothea Lange's haunting images

This is a relatively prosperous area but you occasionally come across small towns that are poor and sad. This is the case with Guadalupe. Many of the shops are boarded up and it looks in part more like a ghost town. The area around it is dominated by industrial scale agriculture with prominent migrant labour involved in the harvesting of vegetables and fruits.

Today is our wedding anniversary. We have been married for 37 years. I am a very lucky man!!

On to Santa Barbara for the night! 

Big Sur

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State park on Big Sur

“Big Sur is the California that men dreamed of years ago, this is the Pacific that Balboa looked at from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the

Creator intended it to look” (Henry Miller 1891-1980)

We had not seen enough of the Sea Otters and we met with a pair feeding on muscles and crustacea under the commercial pier at Monterey harbour. They captivated us for some time before we realised that we had in the words of Robert Frost, “miles to go before we rest”!

Sea otters at Monterey Harbour

There are 2 ways to leave Monterey. Either you take Route 1 and burn off to the Big Sur or you take the tourist route called the “17 Miles Drive” (and pay $10!). This takes you along a manicured coast with golf courses on the other side of the road and magnificent houses snuggled under the sculptured Monterey Pines. It leads to the smart town of “Carmel on Sea”, renowned for its famous past mayor Clint Eastwood. What makes us fascinated to spy on houses that we cant afford which are lived in by people that we don’t know (and probably wouldn’t want to know).

Liz misread a sign saying that we would be able to see wonderful houses, beautiful beaches and fascinating vegetarians. She spent some time looking for these reclusive vegetarians until she realised that it should have read vegetation.

Martin doesn’t play or like golf. He stated that golf courses were “an attack on wilderness” I must admit that these serene, highly preened lawns are the complete antithesis of what we have been looking at all the way down the coast. You can see that he is desperate to get onto those hills and start walking again.

Manicured golf courses leading down to the "17 mile" sea

The traffic has started to build up as we drive down towards the Big Sur. This is a stretch of the West Coast that many people try to take in. Sadly we are loosing our solitude as we merge into the metropolitan culture of Southern California.

On to Big Sur

At last its time to tackle the Big Sur. I have heard talk of this drive for many years but one is still not prepared to the scale and majesty of this lump of land that falls precipitously into the sea. The Big Sur stretches for 90 miles from Carmel to Hearst Castle. The mountains that form it rise to over 5000 ft. and fall directly into the Pacific. The Spanish called it El Pais Grande del Sur (the Big Country of the South) The Highway was built finally in 1937 and it took 20 years to build. Much of the funding came out of Roosevelt’s New Deal programme. It has some of the most magnificent bridges, vistas and seascapes in the USA. The road is narrow, it twists and turns and is liable to regular rockslides. Every corner brings yet another breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of feet down below. It’s very difficult to avoid stopping at all the vista points, in order to take yet one extra picture. Its wild, romantic, barren and much more. Yet one more spectacular stretch of this wonderful coastline.

Big Sur

Martin was keen to fulfil his urge to get out and walk a trail. People tell you that if you can only stop once on the Big Sur, that you should visit the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State park and the wonderful graceful waterfall that plunges into the blue waters of the bay below. The park is named after Julia Pfeifer who with her husband John Burns were pioneers on a ranch originally known as the Saddle Rock Ranch. They leased the land from a family called Mc Way. Ownership of the land passed to a Helen and Lathrop Brown (Lanthrop was a wealthy US Congressman) who built a house overlooking the waterfall. Apparently the house contained many paintings by Gauguin, Dufy and Degas. Helen Brown and Julia Pfeiffer became great friends and Helen Brown left the land as a state park in honour of her friend Julia. The house was demolished in the 1960s

 Julia Pfeiffer Beach and the McWay Waterfall

Our intrepid travellers on Big Sur

We took a trail that led us into a deep canyon full of redwoods and oaks. The trail wound up along the sides of the canyon until we appeared exhausted but excited above the tree line, looking down on the Pacific Ocean glowing in the late afternoon light. A memorable walk, especially as the trail was officially closed! I was fascinated by the fact that the forest had suffered a massive fire in the recent past and it was interesting to see how fire resilient the redwoods were and how the forest floor rejuvenates itself so quickly.

Walking with Giants again

A memorial found on our hike

 The forrest quickly rejuvenates after a fire

Our tally of mammals seen on the trip, rose when we came across large colonies of Elephant Seals on some of the beaches at the Southern end of the Big Sur.

Elephant Seals on Big Sur

Our final destination for the day was the small town of San Simeon, which is situated just below Hearst Castle. We aim to visit the castle tomorrow. The story of Hearst and the building of this fantasy retreat was immortalised in Orson’s Wells famous film, Citizen Kane.

Citizen Kane's Xanadu

More on this tomorrow!