Week 4: California

I grew up in a small town on California’s Central Coast.  During my childhood it was quiet, a summer tourist town surrounded by grazing cattle.  For years, our big claim to fame was that Daffy and Donald Duck took a wrong turn in Albuquerque, ended up on the beach, and found a diamond in a clam.  (When I would tell people the name their response was often ‘I didn’t know that was a real place!’)  Sometime during the eighties it became a haven for folks escaping LA.  While the new food and wine culture is fabulous, sprawl has crowded out the small town feel.  Despite this it was nice to be home.

I spent the first couple days with my dad.  He spent his career in the math department of the local university.  For most of this time, he and his colleagues would meet at lunchtime for walks.  It is fun to walk with and listen to them, a group of physics, maths and chemistry PhDs musing about the topic of the day.  I can barely keep up, both physically and conversationally.  My dad was a bit under the weather during this visit, so our first walk was shorter than normal, to the campus Arboretum, which highlights plants native to Mediterranean climates such as Australia, South Africa and Chile.  I was surprised how many plants we had in the yard growing up are native to Australia.  I also got a great snap of my dad next to a ‘baby’ redwood.

After walks we have lunch and my dad naps.  During one of my dad’s naps, my stepmother told me an amazing story.  Her Japanese grandfather was the son of one of the Emperor’s advisors.  He came to the United States for the Worlds Fair, and stayed in New York to study at Columbia after it was over.  Her grandmother was an acrobat, so talented that she was invited to perform in Will Rogers’ vaudeville tour in the States.  Her grandfather was hired to be her translator on the tour.  They fell in love, married, and after years on the road, settled in upstate New York. During World War II they and their children evaded the interment camps, but her grandfather worked for a defense contractor and lost his job.  He was able to get another, but when they got a contract to support the war effort, he was let go again.  This happened several times, until by the end of the war he was washing cars to support his family.  My stepmother’s father was the third of their five children.

The next two days I spent with my mom.  On the first we want for a walk on the beach, had foot massages and a nice lunch.  On the second we drove up to Piedras Blancas, near Hearst Castle.  Hearst Castle is a large mansion commissioned by the newspaperman William Randolph Hearst. It is nestled atop a hill in the Santa Lucias, just south of Big Sur, and on clear days is visible from the PCH.  It was also the model for the mansion in the movie Citizen Kane.  At one time a zoo had been maintained on the property.  I had forgotten that after Hearst’s death, some of these animals were left to roam the surrounding hills.  Most open space in this area is ranch land, and you get used to seeing cattle and horses grazing in the fields.  Imagine my surprise when I came around a corner to see these ‘funny looking cows’ roaming the hillside.

When I was growing up Piedras Blancas was considered to have some of the best surfing around.  The one drawback was that in the spring (when the waves are best) it was a Great White Shark nesting area.  With the decline in shark populations it is now a popular rookery for Elephant Seals. This time of year they visit to molt.  It was early in the season; within a month or so there will be thousands.  Recently there have even been a few cases when a seal has gotten on the PCH and been hit by a car.  (Apparently they can do a good deal of damage.)  It was an impressive sight (my previous experience was the one or two who would surf the waves down at Point Conception) but let me warn you, nothing makes you want to take a nap like watching a beach full of seals bask in the sun.

After five days at the beach it was time to change direction and head east towards New Mexico.  Next stop, Vegas!