El Camino Real

Along the highway are the bells on a sort of shepherd’s crook post, the sign for the King’s Road. I wondered at first if we were supposed to ring them as we wandered on our pilgrimage, but they are too high. We are also following the trail of De Anza, one of the first conquistadors to come through here.

We spend the next night at Pismo Beach, where cars and trucks and even RV’s can drive on the flat packed sand. We didn’t take our RVs out there, duh, but toyed briefly with the idea of taking Darth Vader out. Instead, we just walked and walked. The mountains pull back right here and then the next day, bam there they were trying to fall into the ocean again. The road goes up inland to San Luis Opisbo, up a steep grade and them out on the top of more lovely rolling grassy hills, with big trees and cattle fat and sleek. Very lush, the morning fogs off the ocean dampen everything.

A beautiful drive, with the ocean breakers, and soon some rocks poking out of the surf and the tops of the hills. In Morro Bay, a great huge rock that looks like a turban. We are in some promotional movie for buying an RV. At this point, CA route 1 becomes two lanes and turns into one of the most beautiful blue roads in the world. We have come to San Simeon to see William Randolph Hearst’s Castle.



George Hearst came to CA in the Gold Rush days, and found silver instead. He went on to be the richest hard rock miner in history, owning the Comestock Lode and the Anaconda Mine, among others.He bought up thousands of acres of ranchos, including the one at San Simeon. His son William Randolph went on the Grand Tour with his mother, and was determined to bring it all home and put it up on the top of the mountains here, with the great grassy sweep down to the sea. The location is superb, but the pile is pretty over the top. Too many different periods and countries, too many patterns, too many colors, just too much stuff. He was here for 3 or 4 months total out of the year and invited scads of the beautiful to come and enjoy it. Interesting from a logistics and engineering standpoint, and a symbol of the excesses of the period ( think Spanish cathedral Newport RI “Cottage”), but rather needy and insecure. Julia Morgan, his architect, was the first woman to be admitted to the Ecole des Beaux Artes in Paris. She certainly knew her chops, both engineering and decorative, but it looked more like she was enabling his ego and ever changing vision than a consistent design. Still, a fabulous playhouse, two pools, tennis courts, private zoo, vine trellis covered 2 mile riding path, naked marble and antiquities everywhere. Some is good, more is better.

We stayed at San Simeon State Park, way up on our own hill, and had two nights of no hookups, sitting by the campfire, watching the sun go down over the ocean. Another RVing ad come to life, and now our sweaters smell like wood smoke.

A walk on the beach here had us picking up rocks all rounded and polished by the sea. Agates, clear ones are the local moonstones, blue green jasper, jade in black and dark green, red cinnabar fillagreed with white sparkly quartz. They used to mine these stones and truck them to construction projects, I was reminded of Nikki St. Phalle’s mosaicked serpents, and the paving in the courtyards of the castle was made with these stones as aggregate.

California Highway 1 from here north is a roller coaster ride along the edges of the mountains, hanging over the sea. Tight corners, tricky switchbacks up canyons, narrow lanes, it was a drive of a lifetime. Every turn was more spectacular than the last, it took all my concentration to keep my eyes on the road instead of the scenery. The mountains are trying even harder here to get into the sea, and there are slides and repairs everywhere. In January and February the rains make everything slump down the steep places, and sometimes the road has to be closed for long periods to fix it all again. Where the mountains draw back, the grassy hills of cattle take hold, but only for a bit. At the end, the mountains are truly huge and rocky and towering over us.

Houses reappear, clinging to the cliffs below the road, and then the road turns up into the canyon of huge redwoods that is Big Sur, with coffee shops and galleries and Mercedes and Porches and BMWs. Back to civilization, alas, down the coast to Monterey.