West Coast Tour 2006
Sep 8th, 2006 by Dave
A little over a week opened up in my schedule so on a Friday after boy finished his last day at baseball camp we packed up and headed North, planning to do a lot of stops along the way. First night we stayed in Cambria at the Sea Otter Inn, (I guess because you ‘Otter Sea’ it). The inn was fantastic, pool and jacuzzi nearby, big flower garden, and just across the street from a wooden boardwalk along the beach where harbor seals were sunning themselves on the rocks, and small rodentia scampered about underfoot. Only complaint was that there was no place to sit down to have the continental breakfast - surely they could put in a patio for that outside. Would have been nice to stay longer but we had a tour scheduled at Hearst Castle up the road. The Castle is well worth the trip for anyone in So Cal that hasn’t yet been. From the tour guide you get a sense of the community that publisher William Randolph Hearst brought together on his hilltop; the notables he flew in on his private plane to his airstrip down the hill; the rules he imposed on his guests - no drinking after a certain hour; everyone expected to be prompt in attendence at dinner. He had all the technology of the day - telephone, telegraph - to be able to run his publishing empire from his castle. Several newspapers from that period - with banner headlines - a Hearst innovation - were on display.
There is an outdoor Roman styled swimming pool, an ornate indoor swimming pool, a full-sized movie theater, guest houses with stylistic influences from Spain and the Middle East, and the main residence which was a strange mutant combination of church and double spired Ottoman mosque. The features for the most part were individually quite impressive and must have been quite inspiring in their original contexts, but all the different styles brought together in such close juxtaposition make for a quite a gaudy jumble.
After the tour we continued our trip up the coast, meeting up with relatives and their kids to play in the grassy oval at the end of Palm Drive, leading up to Stanford University in Palo Alto.
We spent two nights in the Bay Area, and the intervening day first at Pier 39 where we watched a juggling act and browsed around; stopping briefly at the arcade a few piers down so the kids could see themselves in the fun house mirrors. We had the clam chowder in a bread bowl lunch that seemed to be pretty popular, but it was pretty disappointing - mostly milk and a few chunks of potato - don’t remember any clams. If anyone knows a good place to eat in that area please post for the next time we go back. I know other good places in the city - used to live there - but they are mostly in North Beach and other areas of the city (El Toro Taqueria on Valencia used to have fantastic chicken burritos). That afternoon we headed north to Muir Woods for the kids to hike around among some old growth redwoods with a stream running through it. Nice green respite for us SoCalers used to brown and dry this time of year.
Next day we headed North, stopping briefly in Redding to visit a relative and see the Sundial bridge, a $23+ million structure over the Sacramento River. We crossed over to see the Arboretum on the other side, but it was so hot (109 degrees+) that we went down to the riverbank to dip our feet in. Boats floated by as boy skipped rocks across the river and girl looked for shiny stones. A large salmon, about the length of my forearm swam by. After about an hour in Redding we hit the road, passed Mount Shasta (below) and Shasta Lake and spent the night just north of the California border. As the sun set, to the East, we saw streaks radiating from the horizon (picture below). No idea what this is - Northern Lights perhaps? Next day we stopped in Seattle to visit my 98 year old great aunt who is still doing fine and composing poetry. We spent that night and the next day in Sequim on the north coast of Washington with spectacular views of the Olympic mountains. We hiked out on the Dungeness Spit - the longest sandspit in the United States and possibly the world.
The trip back down the coast was a lot faster; uneventful for the most part except for a detour out to see the Oregon coast along Umpqua Highway (38) to Reedsport and then south to Bandon. The trip to the coast along a river was more scenic than the coast itself, so we turned around and came back to the 5 freeway to make good time. In Ashland, Oregon, the site of the Shakespeare festival, we stopped for lunch at Greenleaf’s at the side of a stream (pic lower right).
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