P See H

The PCH, Pacific Coast Highway. Been down before but a friend who has friends, one specific friend having never been on the PCH. So it was decided without too much colliding into each other with our own ideas and suggestions. Travelers coming in from Connecticut, Pennsylvania, up from Los Angeles, and me, waiting for my steady traveling partner Rick to come into Sacramento from PA.

Hey, here we go again, so many roads together. I could hardly cover here, so just a mention: Sacajawea way out West, Monticello in Virginia, Yellowstone, and I'll stop at Yellowstone. That's enough.

So we cut the distance to San Francisco, where we are to meet our two lady companions, to Pinole, Cali and a Motel 6 that sucks on my end noise, noise. We've had us some Motel 6's along our ways. You get what you budget for.

Starbucks simple breakfast, sun in and out, cool, beautiful SF Bay, beautiful Bay Bridge to usual Bay Bridge, SF city calm and covered in homeless. I can no longer, too bad, too sad on 101 South to some section of spread out San Francisco to some hotel/motel to pick up Jane & Lissa. As we go along, dear reader, I'll leave it to you to discern age and appearance.

Got us an Altima sedan, fit for four with enough trunk space for all our provisions.

We introduce fine. We go 101 South all stuffed with stuff and then we turn onto 92 West, rural ruled by all that grows, all so green from current rains we all have to exclaim, almost as openly as our newbie, Jane.

Half Moon Bay, still with its 60s Steinbeck, Jack London coastal, fishery vibe and history, surely more dense and growing, but with a short go-by and a left turn onto “the” PCH. It retains, remains.

Before you can say Jack Sprout, Jack Kerouac, turn outs, turn outs, spectacular sights, the mighty Pacific, pounding, pulsing, embracing the rocky coastline, rocks of ancient castles, surfacing submarines, Viking armor, Jane & Lissa cell phone photos as attached as speaking, selfies and groupies, tourists who know it with the eyes, a new set of. I dislike the term but O.K. Awesome!

Monterey is where we'll stay night one March 3 in the good year of 2024, alive for many Americas and now this, Cali vegetables and sand dunes, Monterey Bay with its whale tales and Sir Steinbeck and golf and wealth and Cannery Row and wealth.

Our Motel 6 is swell. Told ya, wealth.

Silent night, Spanish night, with the historic Spanish Customs House smack on the walk to the Crab House on carnival Cannery Row, fish and crab and all catches of the sea, smells of it, fishing boats of it, whale watching, Crab House fine, not exactly authentic but more than enough perfect, all of us still in moods perfect for our road ahead, stars and gray clouds overhead.

The sun of no real winter California I know, I know, foothills and mountain snow. But come on, it's wonderful. Cool. Cooler. Breakfast in Carmel By the Sea. Wow. We, appreciate the hell out of it, simple, vegetating, landscaping, luxury but still a Cali/Spanish reality, the rest of us trying to keep up with Jane's celebrating. Photos galore.

The road becomes Big Sur, salt white waves and rocks like the first earth, turn outs like pages in nature's book. And we are now booked at the Sierra Mars, Valhalla, Xanadu, Olympus restaurant, perched above the vast, vast, vaster Pacific out the broad windows from our somewhat exclusive table. Fixed luncheon menu. $100 for each, succulent beef & chicken, mushrooms, veggies and dessert like the pride of pudding. We swoon. We pay. We are humbled. Cell phones like six-shooters of photos and info.

Just cruisin' and I'm forgetting Robertson Jeffers home, poet, playwright, et all. His Castle Keep perched above the Pacific, a stone tower and stone home, now surrounded by well-to-do bullshit that ruins Jeffers unique, again, proud of our destination kept.

On down the “Sir,” that fling span of a PCH WPA bridge that's been filmed and filmed, an arch in its shape and natural in form across we go, wondering if up ahead any kind of slide of mud or stone that closes the road and please excuse my “duh’ from all the remembering and all the Cali legal Rick and me have consumed/reviewed and approved. I forgot to tell of our first stop back up the road. Pigeon Point Lighthouse and Ana Nuevo State Park, the lighthouse a tall white Eiffel Tower of a lighthouse, perched where it could do the most good, sailor's light, delight, being restored, with museum, with hostel in its wooden out buildings, a treasure of almost pirate's chest. “Yo-ho-ho,” and on we go.

Ana Nuevo for elephant seal sanctuary. No go. The wicked-witch park ranger at the entrance says we need a tour but her attitude and it's a two-hour tour, gets us on down the turn outs, turn outs, maybe whales, maybe seals and orcas, grandeur for sure.

Pie. We can't find a coffee shop, so we settle for a Pie Shop on the PCH. An old red barn like New England for cider, with a young hipster asshole who sort of goes about giving us service. Hey, bearded, long hair hippie/hipster, we created you. Regardless of attitude we enjoy the hell out of our unique stop.

PCH Closed, some slide, so we have to turn back and pick up 101 through veggie valley until we can return to PCH.

O.K.? Now on down to San Simeon as the sun sets on that vast Pacific and our day, days, daze of leisures.

Great setting for the Sea Breeze Motel. Not exactly on but near enough to hear the Pacific's incoming waves. We eat,

Everything closes at 8:00 PM. so we have to hustle to a nearby Mexican restaurant where we celebrate our ongoing good fortune and friendship. Next day in Hearst Castle. Why 8:00 PM? Just guessing: Covid still?

Breakfast in Cambria with its still 60ish, small town Main Street vibrations, good vibrations, good local cafes for our continuing sumptuous breakfast feasting. Best meal of the day, culinary sinful excess. The French may have given us cuisine but we Americans gave the world breakfeast like this, these, big and brash.

Elephant seal preserve just up the coast. These elephants also never forget, the same rocky beaches, the same breeding grounds, big bucks, smaller ladies, smaller pups, in their natural setting, rocks and waves, seals on the rocks, sand bathing seals, gulls, clear as a bell, great white sharks just out there awaiting the return of the seals to the ocean. We celebrate our good fortune.

Fortune on top of fortune. William Randolph Hearst. Hearst Castle. I would never, but one of our group has it on her bucket list. I should mention here that “bucket” list doesn't fit. So important: it should be “Chalice” list or something more suitable than “bucket.” So we must.

It's remarkable of course but also stupid and almost evil with all its overdone European worldly splendor, wondering how much was purchased or stolen, and he, Hearst, helped instigate the Spanish/American War and the total take overs to get him an almost exclusive publishing empire, the opening movie a soft approach, leaving out the rot which I guess has to be for the normal visitor, the rooms ridiculous, the Romanesque pool beautiful, with hint of Laurence Olivier and his short Roman scene from Spartacus., All in all for me, interesting in a bloated Citizen Kane “Rose Bud” setting; 82,000 acres of a view. And zebras! Don't ask. Phew. We did it.

Moonstruck, Moonlight, Moonglow something restaurant right on the coast minimal bites which turns into an almost dinner, eating, eating becomes very, very familiar. I left $340 bucks behind but it all returned fine.

Familiar Cambria for another mound of breakfast, feeling like locals, James Dean. Always feeling his presence, and the folks are willing to drive to his accident. It's Paso Robles and wine, wine, vineyards, vineyards until you reach the untilled rolling green hills to a detour we finally find that takes us down off the road work to a new side road to the defunct Jack Ranch Cafe to the Seita Ohnishi Silver Tribute to James Dean, all my memories of which sent me into Dean's world, from Fairmount, Indiana, his home, to Marfa, Texas, his “Giant” to so much more my comrades are glad to hear more of, stopping down at the intersection of 46 and 41 where it all came to an end, the silver memorial is back up the road, wrapped around an oak tree like an embrace, in need of restoration work. Will write to the Hearst Foundation (their land) to see about a clean-up detail. It, he, deserves the attention.

We deserve some wine. Lissa has friends who own a nearby winery, Paso Robles Winery, where next door at another winery where the nearby vines are refined we patio some fine whites. We are refreshed surrounded on all sides by vines and the young Mexicans who attend them. And speaking of Mexicans attending, every restaurant of any ethnic take is all Mexican staffed “not that there’s…” but as I've noticed and mentioned before, it's an unusual, somewhat unsettling normal. “Not that there’s…”

Staying in Solvang at the Andersen Inn of once Andersen Pea Soup. No pea soup but one lousy Italian dinner in a sort of high school pizza joint atmosphere. Can't win 'em all.

All Scandinavian, the whole town of Slovang. All the architecture to insure a Nordic take. Feels like Disney Nordic. A Viking Museum that wants five bucks. We peek in at not much, the dragon boat hordes reduced to a theme village with another big breakfast with a Scandinavian take on eggs and pancakes. Nice fake. Friend of Lissa's tells us it's all red politics here. Eric the Red, MAGA Red.

Blue, blue, deep blue, Santa Barbara, offshore oil wells appear as we smooth our way into limousine/liberal land to our Oasis Motel, our mission being the Santa Barbara Mission and way well-to-do Montecito up above the well-to-do below, but I must mention I had friends here, he a post office employee and she a mid-wife so normal also.

The Yankee Stadium of Spanish missions stands proud on its hill looking out over the blessed land below, still old, no longer general public open, but for tours. So we treat Jane to a tour while we, me and Rick (having left Lissa at the almost adobe train station, with its age old banyan tree all spread out all over its place) as we sit in the sun. I go back to Solvang and our first legal dispensary, another legal jewelry store of marijuana. Ahhh, legal. And here's Jane come from the interior tabernacle she and me former Catholics so the stuff still sticks, the Spanish version all serious and conquest of the native tribes, church is state, and if I may here, look back at Hearst. The house, the church, the guest cottages, the hillside villages, the pool, the Roman ruins. Almost ruins here, the old wash the clothes in an outdoors basin where I'm sure the almost captive natives toiled.

Chinese Dinner, after a few sips in a local wine bar, ocean breezes, yes, wafting through the open doors.

Chinese to-live-for in a sumptuous almost restaurant, China Pavilion, not near enough to the ocean but the food is very fine; Montecito large homes with no center we could find.

In the morning we find our way to Los Angeles by way of the PCH, with Jane's and our constant compliments to California's flora back at our journey to Solvang, the beautiful valleys ripe for the picking, ripe for the blooming, the sprouting, the feeding of a nation.

Coastline becomes beaches without boulders, surf riders, breakfast at the Paradise Cove Cafe, Malibu, Jane addicted to all of it, Malibu of all places, Paradise Cove just that, restaurant on the sand, a Beach Boys song with a beautiful blonde Swiss server, surfer girl. What a world we've let in, falling apart, my ass up your ass cable TV with all your serious addictions to the ills of America, left & right. 

We met folks from Pakistan and everywhere who are here to stay because of coffee and eggs and omelettes beside the ocean with no anger or confusion about America's greatness. Of course, our problems, but nobody has noticed from S.F. to Malibu, to L.A. At the Malibu Creek Preserve a marsh of birds & brush and tides. We honor our pal Sal, gone, but two joints to remember him.

On to the rope twirler who knew America's greatness along with its problems. Will Rogers State Park. I always visit. It was where I first discovered Los Angeles, beyond just its beaches, into its history, its celebrity, always taking folks there.

And here is where he was, the guy who said he never met a man he didn't like. I’ll get to that later, but in this setting, the eucalyptus almost waving from the nearby breezing Pacific, Pacific Palisades, ranch, polo field covered in those celebrities from Fairbanks up to Sly Stone. A stroll on a gorgeous day, far from the freeways mountains, hills, hiking trails, picnic lawns, on a bench just above the Polo Field, both my companions brand new, the usual proud for me. Been to OK for Will's home, but enough of me and my friend who was an interpretive type here.

The Visitor Center, still in wood the rope twirler built. Fine movie of Will the rope twirler, Mark Twain, Dick Cavett, Bill Maher lite, Will's “Ah shucks…” tip of his Stetson was the “Everyman” of the world.

We don't exactly appreciate tours so we just look in on Will's western et all, and his wife's separate reality quarters, “the sun was a-shinin'! Folks was enjoyin’…” Storytellin' as we rockin' chair it on Will's front porch. Maybe even Will would say “Ah, shucks, duh, with a capital duh…” As we look out on the Spencer Tracy polo field I am “Duh,” reminding myself that we had stopped at Pebble Beach.

Golf, golf, breath-giving beauty, down we go onto 17-mile drive, mansion alley, vegetation and landscaping so rich, so real, so stop using the word “surreal” to describe a “real” reality. Up a bit to the Lodge, the glowing green fairways and greens, the ocean, pure, parked, into the Lodge, bar windows of the 18th green above the ocean, worthy of a curtains up, splendor, wealth, comfort, public if you got it. We kinda don't but we get it. Standing beside the 18th green and fairway, empty, golfers in the distance, tales of our own golf. We find it hard to take ourselves away. Due at other destinations.

From Will's to Marilyn's, Marilyn Monroe that is. Her home, her grave. I always wanted to, so with Jane's attention to, we do. Off of Sunset in Brentwood, upscale and almost normal, beautiful then not. We found her address but no house, just a mega-mound house on what should have been her almost normal Spanish Colonial. But, nahh, some bigger is always better and a lot of local and state officials let it go. We're only speculating, but it sure seems like a not a memorial to her just a residence, but that fits, long before this blob.

Her grave, Westwood Memorial, UCLA & Westwood neighborhood, tall, tall buildings casting frowns down on the neighborhood and the green grass cemetery, headstones flat on the green grass, mausoleum stacks, and there she is, Marilyn Monroe dead at 36 - much too bad and still much too sad she still can't shake it - she's next to Hugh Hefner, a disgrace to all her talents, again, all body and no talent up next to that skin merchant (“not that there’s…” as a youth or young adult) but give her a break. How about next to Natalie Wood or Kirk Douglas or anyone of the other heavy celebrities buried or enshrined here, or next to the Queen of Iranian songstresses, a couple we don't interrupt because we think they are mourning a family member but no, somehow we learn of this great, great songstress how she got out before the holy shit men took over. Here she lies among the other greats. Her name doesn't escape me, it lets you participate in our surprise at finding out. Hear, Hear! for Marilyn Monroe. What if Dean & she…?

Here we sit in Westwood Plaza, sipping' our home brews from a bank, a temple, a mosque gone to patio cafe, UCLA young life all around.

Neon night L.A. coming on as we head to Canter's big deli on Fairfax, CBS and Jewish, my co-driver Rick eatin' L.A. traffic like a Reuben sandwich, which we will certainly order in Canter's own parking (first born then look for parking) with a hero, Sandy Koufax, front and pitching on the wall of Jews mural. Home field of a sort, no computer screens up, noise of humans, smells of delis and bakeries, night before Passover? Sure. Booths and other booths, real, cheesy comfortable, softball of matzah ball soup, Reubens and brisket beef do not disappoint, nor the pickles, the onion rings, the potato salad and chips, and the all-around busy business. Pastry exit counter. No, no, already cheesecake. Sleep, Lincoln Inn, Venice, California. Pounds of fresh.

Fresh sun, fresh places to be done. Book Soup Books, Frank Lloyd, Scenic State Park, breakfast IHOP, like a return to the sock hop. Reloaded we talk on and defeat the surface streets, big billboard L.A. now, Book Soup like a book-shop, wooden and books, no franchise, no bullshit, thinkin' the three alive Doors performed here for 50th of them. And since, I have a novel, “Yellowstone,” on Amazon. Not in here but you play with the guy with the ball. We all browse and sip at a local pub, Sunset Boulevard doin' its best sports cars and Mercedes dark, up the blocks to Highland to Hollywood & Vine, where the Oscars are, road still open, Jane out on the Walk of Fame, photo-shootin' the famous names.

Don't get more famous than Frank Lloyd Wright, his Hollyhock House at the end of Hollywood Blvd, Little Armenia, up on its hill, Aztec, Mayan, with a lawn and a view of Hollywood sign and Griffith Observatory, a special view among all Los Angeles views. The house open to view. Me and Rick have seen some Japanese, Japanese, Mayan, wooden, real, natural, inside out, outside in. We sit and savor the privilege before we head to the hills, Baldwin Hills, the Tetons of L.A. If you haven't you better. You'll never find a better 360° view.

As we drive up from the pronounced “black” neighborhood, I haven't forgotten some more Will Rogers. He never met a man he didn't like. Well, lots of men in OK, Ku Klux Klan types, didn't like him campaigning for Catholic Al Smith in OK. At a whistle stop in OK Will wasn't :Ah shucks,” more like “Ah shit…”

Ahhh, holy shit! The view from up here is clear, mountains and coastal, homes and homes and spectacular, neither one of my companions, gawking and glad, filled to our brims and then some. Then some rooftop bar drinks in Venice, the ocean and the sands in cinemascope. Fill up for dinner at In & Out Burger in Venice, lots of food money coming out of our wallets so a break in the over-budget action, the place absolutely packed, cars and customers, a bus station with burgers. Yumm!

Breakfast where we find it near Griffith Park and its Observatory, through the WPA tunnels that say Pasadena, the L.A. cement river with some trees and some rocks, Mulholland statue, water as miracle. Miracle phone finds us Los Feliz Cafe, smack up against a par 3 nine-hole, all deep green and a common course for the common golfer, hacker. We have a green side table. Good fortune and the warm sun have smiled on us. Rain. Somewhere along our travels but just a touch, a rinse, a shower, praying all for more with all its drought implications and mudslides and floods, along with tales of wild Topanga Canyon around Malibu from a lady at another table, even a mountain lion video, a Cali somewhat untouched with the little golf course still just enough untouched.

Touch the real stars. The Griffith Observatory, WPA like space ship, space command, commanding the top of Griffith Park, Commanding view of the Hollywood sign above the bust head of James Dean, his “Rebel Without a Cause” all over the Griffith lot.

Lots of folks from all over the world on a sun-soaked Sunday in March.

The cosmos, the planetarium's heavenly show, the motions and the telescope, the knowledge and the wonder, galaxies and asteroids, planets and astrologers, all above your lean back head, in a masterful display and depiction, one of the finest presentations I've ever experienced. We sit in the cafe and gift shop and gather our thoughts on the big bang, the big journey of ours through the Milky Way, ways, of California. Enough. McDonald's, because we're too done-in and up for anything but.

One last stop before we take the free bus back down to the free parking. James Dean my must, around the corner of the Observatory, where Rebel's knife fight was filmed. Real action location. Our cause for coming complete.

Not quite complete yet. Cannabis Cafe on La Brea, West Hollywood. Legal weed cafe. Been once before but now with Sacajawea and Yellowstone Rick, to share and share a-like. Who would have ever thought? Legal wolves in Yellowstone and legal weed where you can eat and drink, in its comfortable, wooden and vegetation and order, ahhh pot, we sit at an almost wooden bar counter and gaze out on the eatery, patrons smoking joints and bongs and meals, big overhead vents the color and metal of a gold rush, taking the hefty air and cleaning it up before it hits the neighborhood. Legal eagles.

We order a ten-pack at $32, slim doobs in a sleek package. No single rolls at this time, sun going in, folks coming in, servers young and lovely and tattooed of course. We sip and toke the world, our fill of lobster, at ease with our time in life when we can look back at our 60s and Voila! legal reality. Get the Feds out of it and complete liberty.

As you've read I've been at complete liberty to go back and forth a bit. So, as I sit in the scented glow of legal smoke (do employees get second-hand highs?) let us wonder back a bit. “I can see for miles and miles and miles…”

Coastal Redwoods of Santa Cruz. An avenue, an all roads led to the surrounding giants, silence, ancient, the earth ripe with moisture, hallowed earth ripe with moisture. hallowed earth, humbled us slowly making our way beneath the cathedral roof. You can't whoop your good fortune. You can only whisper in the earth's given Cathedral. And somewhere we saw a brand new, gold union, Russian Orthodox wooden church. Russian seal hunters and fur trappers. The Redwoods knew them. About the “Santa Cruz Banana Slugs” I'm not sure, but Santa Cruz and the University campus sure to remember and retain the surfer 60s town, village and sensuous campus. We stop for a “Slug” T-shirt.

We also stopped in Morro Bay for the great Gibraltar Rock, cathedral itself, a loaf of former lava, a big bold Buddha you can just about walk up to. We keep a respectful distance from “The Night on Bald Rock.”

We rocked some Irish coffee, martinis and other selections here and there in as local as we could get.

As local as it gets. “Pink’s” on La Brea of L.A. Famous? You bet. Jay Leno says yes, as do a host of other celebs. It's Coney Island on a corner, a good line (always) formed up. We join the line at the almost seaside shack of it, a list of dogs as long as two dachshunds, the staff bustin' ass, progress, progress, a Carl Reiner for each of us. Kraut & mustard. Coney Island where we are from. Sit in the sun and breathe in and shake our heads and our hands in a certain wonder that we did all we came to do.

Time to go, home. IHOP one last sausage and eggs and French toast load.

LAX to fly home. I'll drive rental back to Sacramento on the quicker 99 North, my eyes only on the road, visions of all we'd done like those scented clouds surrounding my head.

Hold my thoughts.

Hold on. The Polo Lounge, Beverly Hills Hotel after the Oscar telecast which was compact, just one real disappointment. Robbie Robertson for music for “Killers of the Flower Moon” which got shut out surprisingly.

The Polo Lounge all swank and welcome to all with no net worth check, the hotel its own palace up on its own short hill, elegance, comfortable, martinis in the lounge, no celebs to speak of, or see of, just some wealth on the deep carpeted flower arranged lounge, the three of us dressed up just enough. Not enough yet, the Santa Monica Pier by night, carnival on the ocean, almost cotton candy, festive, reaching out into the Pacific Terrific. All of it, even this last remembered bit. 154? from Solvang to Santa Barbara, a two-lane of splendor, mountain sides and valleys and meadows glowing deep green, some deer, sumptuous, natural, twisting and turning, gazing in wonder. Done. I promise.