Calif., Mexico, Death Valley
Dec. 12-16
Still in Columbia, Calif. While here, we take in some of the local culture – dinner at the Lick the Skillet restaurant – which is indeed good enough to lick the plate – and a performance by the renowned (truly) local theatre company of Bell Book & Candle, a 1950s era play. Both are unexpectedly good. Who knew that Columbia (pop. 2,405) could produce big-city quality dining and entertainment? On top of that, there are a number of wineries in the area – we visit one of them, Ironstone Vineyards, and discover that tucked away in these rocky hills are superior vintners with large tasting rooms and beautiful grounds – and impressively good wine as well.
Dec. 18-19
From Columbia we head to Salinas, California. We spend a couple of days here, visiting the Cannery Row in Monterey (a tourist trap with nothing of its history retained), taking the 17-mile drive in Carmel (much of the spectacular view is hidden behind gated multi-million dollar residences), and enjoying an incredible meal with wine for the sum total of $41 at a cozy little French restaurant called Em-Le’s tucked away around a corner in downtown Carmel. I love it when we find a spectacular bargain like this!
Next, it’s on to Paso Robles, Calif. by way of Highway 1 – the jawdropping coastal drive that’s not designed to be traveled in 38-foot motorhomes. The 120-mile drive takes 4 hours. We pull into Wine Country RV Resort in Paso Robles in darkness. It will be our home for the next 3 days. From here, we visit Hearst Castle – an overblown homage to one man’s wealth – and several wineries. We have a friend who for years had been telling us how great the wineries in Paso Robles are – now we believe him. Not only does this area produce good wine, the countryside is a pastoral landscape of lush green rolling hills strewn with huge boulders, sliced by primeval crevices, and edged in places with rugged cliffs. Cows graze peacefully; it is an impressionist painting in real life.
Dec. 23-Dec. 28
We leave Paso Robles in a rented Jeep Liberty for Christmas with family (Steve’s and mine) in Tucson, then a few days in Phoenix for errands and doctors’s appointments. It’s a long driv e – we depart at 8:45 a.m. and don’t pull into Tucson until almost 9 p.m.
Dec. 30
A long drive today from Phoenix to Paso Robles. We make the mistake of bypassing the gas staqtions in Blythe, CA because it's too expensive at $2.69 a gallon, thinking we'll come to cheaper gas at another town on the interstate. Not a chance - we end up pulling into an isolated station between Needles and Barstow and paying $3.49 a gal. We get only enough gas - 2 gallons - to get us to a more reasonably priced station. The place has a creepy air - even Steve says the people who run it are wierd and he can't pull out of there fast enough.
Back in Paso Robles – it has rained steadily while we were in AZ. The motorhome is stuck in a mud bog; with shovels, rocks and boards, Steve and one of the RV park staff dig it out. It continues to rain the next few days - too wet to go anywhere but the movies.
Dec. 31 – Jan. 3
We left Paso Robles at 10:30 a.m. heading for Palmdale, Calif. - "Gateway to Southern California." HA! We're at the Californian RV Resort (they're all called 'resorts' no matter how modest or nonexistent the amenities or the landscaping.) The Californian is pretty bare-bones: concrete slabs and a slender stretch of sodden turf to each site. No picnic tables, no bbqs. There are trees - one per site, skinny, small and leafless. And oh yes, we have internet! - 28k dialup modem in the office. Not even! It's freezing cold here, and windy. This is truly a pit stop because Palmdale is a pit. We determine the reason people live here - cheap land; they can't afford to buy houses in LA so they commute for 2 hours in order to own a home. Meanwhile, we're waiting for UPS to deliver our mail, which we've been chasing since Dec. 23, when it was supposed to be delivered to my sister in Tucson.. They screwed it up twice in Tucson, then sent it on to the Phoenix address of a friend at whose home we were staying - but it arrived after we had already left, so now it's supposed to be delivered here. But the folks at the Californian can't find it, even though according to UPS records, the manager signed for it.
Since it's New Year's Eve, we go to Trader Joe's and stock up on munchies for dinner, 2-buck Chuck Shiraz (actually surprisingly good - and it really is $2 in California), and staples. At home, I drink 1 glass of champagne and go to bed at 10:30 p.m. Steve stays up watching something on TV. New Year's has never had any special appeal for either of us . . .
We sleep till 9 a.m. - LAZY! After breakfast we march down to the office to get our mail, only to discover the office is closed for the holiday. This would be humourous if it weren't so frustrating.
Today's a lazy day all day. I make bread; we go to Palmdale to get RV supplies and a b ook on the national parks at Barnes & Noble, and we have dinner - the traditional New Year's day feast of baby back ribs. :-)
Our mail finally shows up two days later - it was at the office all along, but UPS had put my Phoenix friend's name on the package when they forwarded it from Tucson to Phoenix.
Jan 3-4
We leave Palmdale with no regrets, heading for Malibu. It's a short drive - only 65 miles. Malibu is a small celebrity-studded community (pop. 14,000). The beach where we are staying (Malibu RV Resort - naturally!) is minimal and, due to a week of rain, the surf is muddy brown. We get together for dinner at the home of former HSM co-worker, Leslie (Kim) Scott and her husband, Jerry, the Zits and Baby Blues cartoonist. They have 2 daughters - 11-year-old Abbey, sweet and smart, and 3-year-old Caidie Lane, who is a curly-haired doll. Kim and Jerry tell us about renovating (really a gut and rebuild) their Malibu home, purchased 8 years ago from an elderly couple who divorced but neither would move out. The house was divided down the middle and a series of walls, doors, fences, locks and Rube Goldberg addons was built over the next few years in testimony to the couple's hatred of each other. But Kim and Jerry have turned it into a beautiful home.
Next day, Steve goes to the Peterson Automobile Museum and I go to the Los Angeles County Art Museum where there's a fantastic exhibit of impressionist art - and lucky me, while I'm standing in line to buy a $9 ticket, someone walks up and offers me one for free. Later, we go for a walk on the historic Santa Monica Pier, where we get the feeling it's history on the decline.
Jan. 10
Got up this morning and made phone calls to Cigna trying to straighten out the ongoing insurance mess. Cigna still claims we have no coverage even though we've paid $1,200 a month in Cobra premiums for the past 3 months. Frustrating! Steve meanwhile calls Regence Blue Shield to get coverage initiated with them and he is successful. Thankfully, we can dump Cigna, although I know there will be many more equally frustrating phone calls to get them to pay medical and Rx claims incurred during our three months of "non-coverage."
We are heading to Ensenada, Mexico on the Baja peninsula. The drive is scenic - rolling hills lushly green from all the rain. The ocean is on our right - beautiful rock-strewn sandy beaches, surf rolling in lazily, almost seeming not to move at all. The sun is glowing timidly through the clouds - but at least there is sun and blue sky, welcome after so many weeks of rain and clouds.
Jan. 11
It's cloudy in the morning, but the sun comes out by noon and we drive out of town to La Punta - the point - 20 miles to La Bufadora. It's a deep crevice in the cliffs into which the surf flows and during high tide, creates a blowhole of spouting water. Unfortunately we're there4 at low tide, not knowing that timing is critical for this performance. Oh well -the drive is interesting- another winding road with mountains softly folded and furrowed and clothed in green. We pass houses and farms that seem poverty-ridden (by U.S. standards). Some have old inoperable cars buried up to mid-wheel in the earth as if they were planted like spring bul bs, with the hope of new vechicles budding with the coming of warm weather.
Jan. 12
We drive around looking for a sandy beach but all of the sandy beaches are private - anything accessible is rocky and forbidding. We travel the scenic highway - a toll road - and on one side are the Mexican homes - built on hillsides out of corrugated tin, leftover bits of wood, stone and brick, pasted together with cardboard, chicken wire and stucco. Some of the homes are 50s-era buses or trailers sunk in the ground. On the other side of the highway are the "Ocean Front Condos - only 6 Lotas left!" and beachfront homes with names like Las Olas, Mission Viejo, La Mar . . . .- huge by any standards, palatial by local comparison. I wonder how the Mexicans feel about los americanos coming in and buying their prime real estate? They must resent us even as they woo our dollars.
Jan.13-17
La Ruta de Vino - the wine route, along Hwy 3, the road to Tecate. We knew Baja was wine country? We visit LA Cetta, which seems to be the biggest and most well-established winery along the route. The wine - esp. the reds - is surprisingly good. We sample 2 whites, then switch to red - cabernet, petite syrah and an Italian grape called Nebbiolo for which the winery is known. We buy all 3. Then we drive further down a washboard road to Dona Lupe's (there should be tilde on Dona's 'n' but I can't find it on my keyboard). At Dona's, the marmalades, jams, cheese and salsa far overshadow her wines. We buy 2 jars of apple-raisin sauce, limon-naranja marmalade, salsa piquante, queso and raisins. Yum!
We leave Ensenada on Saturday for Rosarito beach, where there truly are white sandy beaches. The surf sweeps the beach and leaves a lacy edge in the sand - here it is a heartbeat wave, there it is a softly scalloped edge. I admire the texture and the delicate pattern in the damp gold-flecked sand.
Jan. 18-22
Pahrump, Nevada. The Little Drummer Boy song keeps threading through my mind - Pahrump-pa-pum-pum. Yes, Virginia, there really is a Pahrump; it's a native American word meaning Deep Waters. We're here because it's close to Death Valley. We go twice - on Wednesday we drive 125 miles to Scott's Castle in Death Valley. The trip to DV takes us through terrain that is bleak, desolate, colorless. It is God's country because no one else wants it. Even with all the rain, these mountains are dusty dry, toasted brown - not an eye-relieving spot of green anywhere. Scotty's Castle is a "rustic" $1 million version of Hearst Castle, built by a billionaire couple from Chicago who truly loved Death Valley - it was their vacation home to which they retreated once a month year round.
We go to Death Valley again on Friday to see the southern portion of the park. It's desolate, forlorn, subtly colorful, and beautiful in an austere way. The terrain changes continually - not in color but in texture - from salt-skimmed hills to ridged cliffs to mountains like melted chocolate. As we drive into Death Valley today, it looks as though someone splashed the landscape with a soft wash of green. The rare rains of this winter have given Death Valley something not often seen - the colors of spring.
Still in Columbia, Calif. While here, we take in some of the local culture – dinner at the Lick the Skillet restaurant – which is indeed good enough to lick the plate – and a performance by the renowned (truly) local theatre company of Bell Book & Candle, a 1950s era play. Both are unexpectedly good. Who knew that Columbia (pop. 2,405) could produce big-city quality dining and entertainment? On top of that, there are a number of wineries in the area – we visit one of them, Ironstone Vineyards, and discover that tucked away in these rocky hills are superior vintners with large tasting rooms and beautiful grounds – and impressively good wine as well.
Dec. 18-19
From Columbia we head to Salinas, California. We spend a couple of days here, visiting the Cannery Row in Monterey (a tourist trap with nothing of its history retained), taking the 17-mile drive in Carmel (much of the spectacular view is hidden behind gated multi-million dollar residences), and enjoying an incredible meal with wine for the sum total of $41 at a cozy little French restaurant called Em-Le’s tucked away around a corner in downtown Carmel. I love it when we find a spectacular bargain like this!
Next, it’s on to Paso Robles, Calif. by way of Highway 1 – the jawdropping coastal drive that’s not designed to be traveled in 38-foot motorhomes. The 120-mile drive takes 4 hours. We pull into Wine Country RV Resort in Paso Robles in darkness. It will be our home for the next 3 days. From here, we visit Hearst Castle – an overblown homage to one man’s wealth – and several wineries. We have a friend who for years had been telling us how great the wineries in Paso Robles are – now we believe him. Not only does this area produce good wine, the countryside is a pastoral landscape of lush green rolling hills strewn with huge boulders, sliced by primeval crevices, and edged in places with rugged cliffs. Cows graze peacefully; it is an impressionist painting in real life.
Dec. 23-Dec. 28
We leave Paso Robles in a rented Jeep Liberty for Christmas with family (Steve’s and mine) in Tucson, then a few days in Phoenix for errands and doctors’s appointments. It’s a long driv e – we depart at 8:45 a.m. and don’t pull into Tucson until almost 9 p.m.
Dec. 30
A long drive today from Phoenix to Paso Robles. We make the mistake of bypassing the gas staqtions in Blythe, CA because it's too expensive at $2.69 a gallon, thinking we'll come to cheaper gas at another town on the interstate. Not a chance - we end up pulling into an isolated station between Needles and Barstow and paying $3.49 a gal. We get only enough gas - 2 gallons - to get us to a more reasonably priced station. The place has a creepy air - even Steve says the people who run it are wierd and he can't pull out of there fast enough.
Back in Paso Robles – it has rained steadily while we were in AZ. The motorhome is stuck in a mud bog; with shovels, rocks and boards, Steve and one of the RV park staff dig it out. It continues to rain the next few days - too wet to go anywhere but the movies.
Dec. 31 – Jan. 3
We left Paso Robles at 10:30 a.m. heading for Palmdale, Calif. - "Gateway to Southern California." HA! We're at the Californian RV Resort (they're all called 'resorts' no matter how modest or nonexistent the amenities or the landscaping.) The Californian is pretty bare-bones: concrete slabs and a slender stretch of sodden turf to each site. No picnic tables, no bbqs. There are trees - one per site, skinny, small and leafless. And oh yes, we have internet! - 28k dialup modem in the office. Not even! It's freezing cold here, and windy. This is truly a pit stop because Palmdale is a pit. We determine the reason people live here - cheap land; they can't afford to buy houses in LA so they commute for 2 hours in order to own a home. Meanwhile, we're waiting for UPS to deliver our mail, which we've been chasing since Dec. 23, when it was supposed to be delivered to my sister in Tucson.. They screwed it up twice in Tucson, then sent it on to the Phoenix address of a friend at whose home we were staying - but it arrived after we had already left, so now it's supposed to be delivered here. But the folks at the Californian can't find it, even though according to UPS records, the manager signed for it.
Since it's New Year's Eve, we go to Trader Joe's and stock up on munchies for dinner, 2-buck Chuck Shiraz (actually surprisingly good - and it really is $2 in California), and staples. At home, I drink 1 glass of champagne and go to bed at 10:30 p.m. Steve stays up watching something on TV. New Year's has never had any special appeal for either of us . . .
We sleep till 9 a.m. - LAZY! After breakfast we march down to the office to get our mail, only to discover the office is closed for the holiday. This would be humourous if it weren't so frustrating.
Today's a lazy day all day. I make bread; we go to Palmdale to get RV supplies and a b ook on the national parks at Barnes & Noble, and we have dinner - the traditional New Year's day feast of baby back ribs. :-)
Our mail finally shows up two days later - it was at the office all along, but UPS had put my Phoenix friend's name on the package when they forwarded it from Tucson to Phoenix.
Jan 3-4
We leave Palmdale with no regrets, heading for Malibu. It's a short drive - only 65 miles. Malibu is a small celebrity-studded community (pop. 14,000). The beach where we are staying (Malibu RV Resort - naturally!) is minimal and, due to a week of rain, the surf is muddy brown. We get together for dinner at the home of former HSM co-worker, Leslie (Kim) Scott and her husband, Jerry, the Zits and Baby Blues cartoonist. They have 2 daughters - 11-year-old Abbey, sweet and smart, and 3-year-old Caidie Lane, who is a curly-haired doll. Kim and Jerry tell us about renovating (really a gut and rebuild) their Malibu home, purchased 8 years ago from an elderly couple who divorced but neither would move out. The house was divided down the middle and a series of walls, doors, fences, locks and Rube Goldberg addons was built over the next few years in testimony to the couple's hatred of each other. But Kim and Jerry have turned it into a beautiful home.
Next day, Steve goes to the Peterson Automobile Museum and I go to the Los Angeles County Art Museum where there's a fantastic exhibit of impressionist art - and lucky me, while I'm standing in line to buy a $9 ticket, someone walks up and offers me one for free. Later, we go for a walk on the historic Santa Monica Pier, where we get the feeling it's history on the decline.
Jan. 10
Got up this morning and made phone calls to Cigna trying to straighten out the ongoing insurance mess. Cigna still claims we have no coverage even though we've paid $1,200 a month in Cobra premiums for the past 3 months. Frustrating! Steve meanwhile calls Regence Blue Shield to get coverage initiated with them and he is successful. Thankfully, we can dump Cigna, although I know there will be many more equally frustrating phone calls to get them to pay medical and Rx claims incurred during our three months of "non-coverage."
We are heading to Ensenada, Mexico on the Baja peninsula. The drive is scenic - rolling hills lushly green from all the rain. The ocean is on our right - beautiful rock-strewn sandy beaches, surf rolling in lazily, almost seeming not to move at all. The sun is glowing timidly through the clouds - but at least there is sun and blue sky, welcome after so many weeks of rain and clouds.
Jan. 11
It's cloudy in the morning, but the sun comes out by noon and we drive out of town to La Punta - the point - 20 miles to La Bufadora. It's a deep crevice in the cliffs into which the surf flows and during high tide, creates a blowhole of spouting water. Unfortunately we're there4 at low tide, not knowing that timing is critical for this performance. Oh well -the drive is interesting- another winding road with mountains softly folded and furrowed and clothed in green. We pass houses and farms that seem poverty-ridden (by U.S. standards). Some have old inoperable cars buried up to mid-wheel in the earth as if they were planted like spring bul bs, with the hope of new vechicles budding with the coming of warm weather.
Jan. 12
We drive around looking for a sandy beach but all of the sandy beaches are private - anything accessible is rocky and forbidding. We travel the scenic highway - a toll road - and on one side are the Mexican homes - built on hillsides out of corrugated tin, leftover bits of wood, stone and brick, pasted together with cardboard, chicken wire and stucco. Some of the homes are 50s-era buses or trailers sunk in the ground. On the other side of the highway are the "Ocean Front Condos - only 6 Lotas left!" and beachfront homes with names like Las Olas, Mission Viejo, La Mar . . . .- huge by any standards, palatial by local comparison. I wonder how the Mexicans feel about los americanos coming in and buying their prime real estate? They must resent us even as they woo our dollars.
Jan.13-17
La Ruta de Vino - the wine route, along Hwy 3, the road to Tecate. We knew Baja was wine country? We visit LA Cetta, which seems to be the biggest and most well-established winery along the route. The wine - esp. the reds - is surprisingly good. We sample 2 whites, then switch to red - cabernet, petite syrah and an Italian grape called Nebbiolo for which the winery is known. We buy all 3. Then we drive further down a washboard road to Dona Lupe's (there should be tilde on Dona's 'n' but I can't find it on my keyboard). At Dona's, the marmalades, jams, cheese and salsa far overshadow her wines. We buy 2 jars of apple-raisin sauce, limon-naranja marmalade, salsa piquante, queso and raisins. Yum!
We leave Ensenada on Saturday for Rosarito beach, where there truly are white sandy beaches. The surf sweeps the beach and leaves a lacy edge in the sand - here it is a heartbeat wave, there it is a softly scalloped edge. I admire the texture and the delicate pattern in the damp gold-flecked sand.
Jan. 18-22
Pahrump, Nevada. The Little Drummer Boy song keeps threading through my mind - Pahrump-pa-pum-pum. Yes, Virginia, there really is a Pahrump; it's a native American word meaning Deep Waters. We're here because it's close to Death Valley. We go twice - on Wednesday we drive 125 miles to Scott's Castle in Death Valley. The trip to DV takes us through terrain that is bleak, desolate, colorless. It is God's country because no one else wants it. Even with all the rain, these mountains are dusty dry, toasted brown - not an eye-relieving spot of green anywhere. Scotty's Castle is a "rustic" $1 million version of Hearst Castle, built by a billionaire couple from Chicago who truly loved Death Valley - it was their vacation home to which they retreated once a month year round.
We go to Death Valley again on Friday to see the southern portion of the park. It's desolate, forlorn, subtly colorful, and beautiful in an austere way. The terrain changes continually - not in color but in texture - from salt-skimmed hills to ridged cliffs to mountains like melted chocolate. As we drive into Death Valley today, it looks as though someone splashed the landscape with a soft wash of green. The rare rains of this winter have given Death Valley something not often seen - the colors of spring.
posted by Anne-Marie | 10:19 PM
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