Santa Barbara: two castles

 We are now in Santa Barbara.  San Diego and the end of the road tomorrow.

One day while we were staying in Bodega Bay, Carol drove us an hour inland to Castello di Amarosa, a replica of a Medieval Tuscan castle near Calistoga.  The ‘love’ in the castle’s name is love of wine, not women.  Carol had been there a few years ago on a corporate trip while she was frequently flying to San Francisco overseeing the development of a cancer research center.  They produce very good wines which they only sell at the castle and online.  We have enjoyed both their reds and whites.

It is a remarkable building and took years and millions before there could ever be a return on investment.  I wondered where the money came from, and of course return on investment is secondary to obsession.

https://castellodiamorosa.com/

This morning we toured Hearst’s Castle at San Simeon.

I had been there fifty years ago.  This was Carol’s first visit.

We know where the money came to build that edifice.  Actually several edifices, including guest houses. 

I don’t believe William Hearst was an admirable man, and I certainly do not want to live in his castle, except for the specular views of the land far below and the ocean beyond.  But he did leave something unusual and interesting behind and his family gave it to the State of California.

https://hearstcastle.org/

If you pass this way, both castles are worth viewing. 

I took some uninteresting photos.  The two here have come from the Internet and if anyone tells me to remove them, I will.

Carmel Highlands: another ocean view

 

This one is from the Tickle Pink Inn at Carmel Highlands, an exceptionaly nice place upon whose name I refrain from punning.

Carmel Highlands is a few miles south of Carmel-by-the-Sea, where Clint Eastwood was once mayor, and just north of the spectacular Big Sur coast.  It was our plan to drive that coast but a wild fire now burning for a week is still only 17% controlled and a section of Highway 1 is closed.   The last time we were here Highway 1 was closed due to a landslide.  I have seen the Big Sur, but Carol has not and we are unlikely to be this way again.

Last evening around sunset.

Sitting last evening on our balcony, sipping Buffalo Trace and listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter, I was looking out at the horizon and wondering why I like the Pacific so much more than the Atlantic.  Perhaps it is because as a child in a suburb of St. Louis my mind moved west and my teenaged body did after my grandparents bought a little beach shack on San Diego’s Mission Beach in 1953.  And perhaps it is because there is no place in the Atlantic to which I really want to sail, as in the Pacific there is New Zealand.  

What is odd is that, while the publisher of GANNET 6 is pushing the age at which I made my sixth circumnavigation, which I never even considered, a decade older I am still driven to try to do more and don’t know what that should be.  So it goes.  Perhaps he will cause some of my words to be read by people who otherwise would not have.

I look out at this vast ocean that I have crossed many times, and at 84, though I acknowledge I am weakening, I am driven to do more, with the ocean, with words, and with Carol.  Originals can’t ever retire, until time and chance retires them.

So I move forward into an uncertain, though certainly limited future, and tomorrow Carol drives us south to San Simeon.

Bodega Bay: a new experience

Carol and I were sitting looking out at the foggy ocean last evening when about 6 PM a large animal appeared just beyond the golf course.  At first we thought it was a very big dog, but then the size of its paws and thick tail and the way it walked clearly showed it was a mountain lion.  I googled and learned that ‘mountain lion’ ‘puma’ and ‘cougar’ all are the same animal.  Neither of us had ever seen a mountain lion in the wild before.

This one stopped and sat and looked around for a while, then continued south walking on the paved golf cart tract.

Fifteen minutes earlier two deer had been grazing on the hillside.  They avoid the golf course and graze on the vegetation beside it.  Good timing for them, bad for him.  

Bodega Bay is a small place with great areas of wilderness around it.

I am pleased that we have not yet forced other species out.

Bodega Bay: living here and a poem

 

This is unexpected, but we would like to live here.  We won’t for several reasons.  Property is expensive.  Taxes are high.  Carol would have to drive me to the boat.  And the hassles of moving.  But we both would like to.  The place is beautiful; there is no hurricane season; and at this moment Bodega Bay is 30ºF cooler than Hilton Head.

The photo above was taken just in front of the house in which we are staying overlooking Bodega Bay.  The land to the right is Bodega Head.  Barely visible on the left is Point Reyes.  The small town center is a mile from here and off to the right of the frame.

A dense marine layer covered the area with fog and low clouds since our arrival.  The sun burned it away an hour ago.

Yesterday Carol drove us to Bodega Head where we watched long lines of cormorants flying past and waves crashing against cliffs.  

On the way back we stopped at two small marinas with fishing boats and pleasure craft, both of which charge less than a third what I pay for GANNET’s slip on Skull Creek.

We also stopped at The Tides Restaurant, which shares only the name and location with the one in THE BIRDS.  This version is huge with a gift shop, a fish market, and a dining room.  

The view from bed.

A poem by William Butler Yeats.

Bodega Bay: Bodega Bay and MPG

 

The view from our AirBnB.  Not as dramatic as Shelter Cove, but very pleasant and we are pleased to be here.

As I have noted I have never seen northern California before.  It is beautiful and has few people.  I googled ‘What percent of California’s population lives San Francisco and south?’ and AI told me 90%.  I googled ‘What percent of California’s land is north of San Francisco?’ and was told 58%.  Both numbers surprise me.

Today we passed over more than a dozen rivers and creeks running almost dry.  Riverbeds two hundred yards wide carried water a tenth of that and often even less.  Some creeks were completely dry.

Because we knew California gas prices are high, Carol rented a Toyota Camry hybrid.  Neither of us had any experience with hybrids.  We have now stopped for gas twice and are getting an impressive 47 mpg.

Shelter Cove: seen on our walks and a plant

 Yesterday.

Shelter Cove is misnamed.  There is no shelter here or any where for fifty miles north and more than forty south along this unforgiving coast.

The population is said to be about 600, but many of the houses seem to be vacant second homes.  

In addition to the three deer above, which we conclude are a mother with her two fauns, we saw three more deer yesterday.  Another mother and faun munching another yard and a single deer eating at the side of the street.  We saw three more deer today.  The mother yesterday kept her eyes on us constantly as we passed.

The red boat being steered by a fish smoking a cigar is a yard ornament.

Today.

The aptly named Black Sand Beach

Looking back at the hotel which is the green building on the very right of the frame.

We also saw hundred of pelicans in flight.  More than I have ever seen at one time before.  And watched seals sleeping on Seal Rock and some frolicking in the water.  It was interesting to see how graceful they are in the water and how awkward out.

Our room is large and includes an interior hot tub and an interior sauna, neither of which we find compelling amenities. 

  

It also contains this curious plant.  Carol thinks it a species of bamboo.  I find it quite attractive.

There are only a three or four eating places and a general store a mile or so away on the approach road.  

The essence of being here is simply being here and that is a beautiful and dramatic experience of the continent’s very edge and the ocean.

We move south tomorrow two hundred miles to Bodega Bay.

Shelter Cove: The Inn of the Lost Coast

 

This is the view from the balcony of our room at The Inn of the Lost Coast.  It is accompanied by the constant sound of waves breaking and swirling around the rocks below us.  Lovely.

On our way here yesterday Carol drove us on what is known for obvious reasons as The Avenue of the Giants. through Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

The birds on the rocks are mostly pelicans and cormorants, though there are a few small dark birds I can’t identify.

We had dinner last evening on the balcony.

The Inn is at Latitude 40º 02’ N.  I like looking west and knowing there is no land until Japan 4,200 nautical miles away.

Shelter Cove, California: the end of Oregon

 

We are now in a room on the edge of the Pacific Ocean with spectacular views which will appear in a future post, but this is about yesterday in Oregon.

Oregon for us was trees, offshore rocks, a lot or RVs, massive driftwood, and though it does not show in the photos constant strong cold wind from the ocean.

In the photo of Brandon Marina you can see whitecaps in the distance.  It was much more serious than that.  All day the wind blew 20+ knots and it was very cold.  As Carol drove us south we wondered that there were no windsurfers.  Finally at one point we found them.  A half dozen and a kite surfer as well enjoying their skills.

The wind was cold.  The water colder.  I admire them.

Coos Bay: between Newport, Oregon and here

As is well established this is a serious coast with no natural harbors of any size between San Francisco and Seattle.  Astoria claims, I expect with truth, that the entrance into the Columbia River is the most dangerous in the world with more than two thousand ships wrecked there.  While in Astoria we visited the Columbia River Maritime Museum which exhibits videos of bar pilot boats going out to ships and the pilots climbing up rope ladders, extraordinary men simply doing their jobs in survival conditions.

The trees beside HIghway 101 are all bent thirty or forty degrees east from the wind.

I have never seen Tsunami Hazard signs before.  They are frequent in Oregon, telling you when you are entering and exiting such a zone.  Oregon is like New Zealand anti-flat and so there are countless hills, mountains, and valleys.  Many homes have been built in the tsunami hazard zones.  I expect that their owners are like those of us who live in hurricane zones and hope it will not happen in their time.

Much of the coast is more dramatically beautiful than my iPhone can convey. 

However, we have learned that we are traveling the Oregon coast at the wrong time, the height of a very short peak season.  We had hoped to amble and stay wherever we found a pleasant spot.  It does not work that way on the Oregon coast in August.  Last night we stayed in Newport in the worst $300 a night room I have ever experienced.  In October it would be an $80 a night room, which even then might be over priced.  So we are speeding up and slowing down.  Carol has found The Inn on the Lost Coast.  We will be there in two days and stay three at the same price per night as last night’s hovel.  I am looking forward to that.  You don’t always get what you pay for.

Astoria, Oregon