Day #48 - 4/29/2011 - Santa Monica to Monterey - 393 miles

You can see our route from Santa Monica to Monterey by way of the Hearst Castle here.

I don't think I'm ever happy to be leaving Santa Monica, but I did manage to end on a culinary high, stopping at Donut King for another chocolate chip bar.

When I walked into the Donut King, the chocolate chip bars were still in the oven.  The donut/pastry cook/chef/deity saw me and rushed out two fresh ones, placing them in a protective insulated case (see picture) and presented them to me.  Warm, fragrant, intoxicatingly chocolate...the thought still makes me smile.  I guess it's good I don't live in Santa Monica as this would become an hypercaloric habit.

Six weeks since I had last seen Russell and a month since seeing Susan, it was great having the two of them with us.

I don't know what's with the sunglasses, but at least Russell is smiling.  Sort of.

Coffee and chocolate chip bar in hand, we headed north on the Pacific Coast Highway, leaving Santa Monica, passing through Malibu towards San Simeon.


San Simeon, about halfway between LA and San Francisco, population 462, was Mexican territory that was sold in 1865 to George Hearst, the father of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst.  San Simeon is special because of what Publisher Hearst did with the land: he built a castle.

Visible from a distance, the castle has a commanding view of the coast.

Lani and Russell had been to the castle when they were children but had little recollection.  There are several different organized tours.  Susan and I had done the basic tour twice, but as it was essentially the first time for the kids, we opted for the intro tour again.  It is still way cool.

Casa del Sol, one of three guest houses at the Castle, has 8 bedrooms and 2604 square feet.  How many bedrooms does your guest house have?  Or, for that matter, the house you live in?

Construction on the Castle began in 1919 and continued through 1947 when Hearst stopped living at the estate due to ill health. 

The Neptune Pool looks like it would be at home next to the Roman Forum.

Hearst Castle featured 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms, 19 sitting rooms, 127 acres of gardens, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, a movie theater, an airfield, and the world's largest private zoo.

This facade is actually part of an ancient Roman temple, transported from Europe.

Invitations to Hearst Castle were highly coveted during its heyday in the 1920s and '30s. The Hollywood and political elite often visited, usually flying into the estate's airfield or taking a private Hearst-owned train car from Los Angeles. Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, the Marx Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, James Stewart, Bob Hope, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill were among Hearst's A-list guests. 

Florida tourists at the Hearst Castle

In addition to the physical scope and grandeur of the castle is the unimaginable collection of art and antiquity transported from Europe and the Old World that was incorporated into the castle, such as the Roman columns by the Neptune Pool.  Every room was an art gallery and museum in its own right.

The ceiling of the dining room is from carved wood from 16th Century Spain and the tapestries date to the 15th century.

There are at least five separate tours of the Castle.  This was my third time on the "basic" tour...always impressive.  A visit here is a "must see" if you're along the California coast.


Continuing to Monterey, the coast highway was closed in two areas from landslides, so we turned in-land.  What should have been  a scenic 95 miles along the coast became a 150 mile trip through San Luis Obispo county and 50 miles of wine country on historic California highway 101.  Not as iconic as the Pacific Coast Highway hugging the Pacific, the vineyards and rolling hills made it a special trip.  There were enough wineries in the Paso Robles region to make it a tourist destination.  And, it is.


One highlight on the road trip to Monterey was a passing through the charming seaside town of Cambria, CA.  We stopped for lunch and would make an effort to come back.  Oddly, Bob has no pictures.


A few hours later, we landed in Monterey, CA and settled down.

Day #47 - 4/28/2011 - Santa Monica and L.A.

You will want to click on some of the photos, like that of the SR-71 BlackBird.  It is so cool.

Two days ago, Lani and I were at the Japanese-American National Museum so Lani could look up on microfilm records of the internment of her grandparents. An hour of research with the librarian turned up the original records, including the imprisonment of her great grandfather for suspected espionage, all of which she left behind at the museum.  So, we headed back downtime, taking some time to stop at the California Science Center, a great science museum with an attached IMAX where we took in Hubble 3D.  Adjacent to the museum and parking lot was a new outdoor display, the SR-71 Blackbird.

Maybe it's a guy-thing, but this excites me.  Doesn't it look incredibly fast just sitting there?

The successor to the U-2 spy plane, the SR-71 is considered by many to be the greatest plane ever made.  More like a steerable rocket, it flew at 80,000 feet at Mach 3+.  It avoided threats, like missiles, by out-climbing and out-running them.

32 were built with 12 lost in accidents with one pilot death.  The pilots wore a pressurize suit and, in the event they bailed at 80,000', would free-fall to 15,000' before the parachute would deploy.

Returning to the Japanese-American National Museum, Lani repeated her research on the library microfilms.  Meanwhile Russell, Susan and I went to the nearby Go For Broke monument, dedicated to the exploits of the 16126 Nisei (2nd generation) men who comprised the all Japanese-American Army units: the famed 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team, as well as lesser-known Nisei units, the Military Intelligence Service, 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, 232nd Combat Engineer Company, and the 1399th Engineering Construction Battalion.

The inscription reads: Rising to the defense of their country, by the thousands they came – these young Japanese American soldiers from Hawaii, the states, America's concentration camps – to fight in Europe and the Pacific during World War II. Looked upon with suspicion, set apart and deprived of their constitutional rights, they nevertheless remained steadfast and served with indomitable spirit and uncommon valor, for theirs was a fight to prove loyalty. This legacy will serve as a sobering reminder that never again shall any group be denied liberty and the rights of citizenship.

The combat units of the 100th Infantry and 442nd Regimental Combat Team were made largely of Japanese-Americans from internment camps given the opportunity to prove their loyalty.

All 16126 Japanese-Americans are named.  The 100th/442nd were combined and went on to become the most decorated fighting unit of WWII, with 22 members receiving the Medals of Honor, the military's highest combat decoration.  "Go For Broke" was the motto of the 442nd.

We ended the day at Santa Monica Pier, a popular destination that screams "tourist".  We blended in.

The Pier opened in 1909 and is home to the historic Santa Monica Pier Carousel.

The Pier also features the LA branch of the Trapeze School of New York.

The student in the belly flop position missed the instructor by a mile, but she looked pretty good on her way to the net.

...and another day in Santa Monica wound down.

Day #46 - 4/27/2011 - Santa Monica with Russell and Susan

As usual, clicking on a picture should get you a better look.

Oh no...not another day in Santa Monica and, on top of that, it was Wednesday...Wednesday!, the day of the downtown Wednesday Farmer's Market, the biggest and best market I've seen this side of Arusha. 

I love this place, and so do about 9000 people each day.  A random tragedy struck here in 2003 when a confused elderly driver plowed through here at freeway speeds, sending pedestrians flying and 10 to their death.

Each week, a different Santa Monica restaurant sets up shop in the midst of the market.

The ultra-successful Border Grill is the creation of Chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger.  I met Mary Sue (and her husband, Josh) in 1990, or so, in my scuba certification course when the Border Grill was still young.  If you're a TV-watching foodie, you've probably seen Mary Sue and Susan somewhere on TV.  With my newly-found love for Mexican cuisine, I'll have to go the next time I'm in town.  The Border Grill truck was launched in 2009.

 There were tables with an endless array of preserves and sauces in irresistible colors.

No honey here, enabling me to resist.

 The market attracts a broad, often colorful, crowd.

I'm thinking this looks like ribs attached to the spinal column...

Many of the growers come from the California's central San Joaquin Valley,  one of the most productive and diverse agricultural areas in the known universe.

In addition to boxes of blueberries, red raspberries and black raspberries, yellow raspberries (with their own distinctive taste) add to the variety and color.  And, as the box indicates, they're California grown.

 I have a weakness for dried fruit...they can be as sweet as candy and almost as calorie-dense.

I bought some dried strawberries, apricots and white peaches.

One of the things Lani and I have missed along the trip is the access to fresh produce, especially fruit.  This was definitely not a problem here.

The Bing Cherry was created as a crossbred graft from the Republican cherry in 1875 by Oregon horticulturist Seth Lewelling and his Manchurian Chinese foreman Ah Bing

 Not everything at the market screams "I'm healthy, buy me."

No...some things pretty much scream their siren song, "I'm sweet, junky and go well with coffee.  You shall eat me."

With so many vendors selling the same variety of produce, free samples allow you (and me) to try before you buy.

The only problem with this visit to the farmers market is that we're living out of a car.  We bought a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

This almost breaks my heart...tables and tables of vine-ripened tomatoes.  I've been obsessed with home made pizza and penne with tomato sauce for some time; being to start from a whole, ripe, flavorful tomato is wonderful.

Most store bought tomatoes are picked green and gassed with ethylene to turn them red, but not ripe and sweet  Most of the countries tomatoes come from Florida where the growing conditions for them are terrible.  For a brutal indictment of industrial tomato growing in Florida, you'll want to read Tomatoland.

There are about 4 blocks of vendors in the market.  For me, this is the market by which all others are judged.

Toting our haul for the morning, Susan and Russell prepare to head on out...just one more stop before we go...

 I fell in fruit-love with the Cherimoya in the early 90s, back when we lived in Santa Monica and I discovered the cherimoya in the market.  It is native to the high altitude tropics of the Andes where it can get the necessary chill it needs without freezing.  It also grows well in parts of California where it has to be hand pollinated as its usual pollinator, which has not been clearly identified, is indigenous to the Andes.

The Annona genus (as in Annona cherimola)  is a close runner-up to the Passiflora genus as my all-time favorite non-Homo genus.  When we lived in South Florida, I successfully grew sugar apples (which ripen to the most amazing violaceous hue) and atemoyas.  Mark Twain described the cherimoya as "the most delicious fruit known to man" and as "deliciousness itself."  What's your favorite genus?

Santa Monica's downtown, which surrounds the Farmers Market, has a nice feel.

It was nice to be together again with Russell and Susan.

We finished the day with what we expected to be a nice dinner, returning to a long-time favorite Santa Monica restaurant, Michael's. Oh man, were we disappointed.

Let's see...how should I put this...the dinner pretty much sucked.  In a restaurant where you expect excellence - especially for what you're paying - the service was mediocre and the food variable.  Susan and I first came here 28 years ago for our first anniversary dinner and have been here more than any other area restaurant...we'll never come back.  Never.  Never ever ever.  And, you know what, Michael?  My TripAdvisor review says it like it was.  On the other hand,  I love the picture.

And, with that, in spite of the sucky dinner, another great Santa Monica day came to a quiet end.

Day #45 - 4/26/2011 - Santa Monica

What's better than two days in Santa Monica?  Three, of course.

 

Let's see what else there is to eat around here...one of the other food items I pine for when I leave L.A. are the burritos from La Salsa, a chain of fresh Mexican grills.  What sets them apart are the fresh ingredients, fresh salsa and meat grilled fresh (rather than pulled from a stainless steel container that's sitting over steam.) 

There have been times when I've eaten here in 3 times over 36 hours

Even after passing through Texas and New Mexico, no burrito has come close to the Grande Burrito  at La Salsa.  If I'm going to spend more than the $3.50 to get a chili-cheeseburger at Tommy's, I'll spend $8.50 for a grande burrito.

Grilled chicken, rice, beans, jack and cheddar cheeses, fresh salsa, guacamole, lettuce and sour cream all stuffed into a flour tortilla.

Los Angeles is as much of a melting pot as any city.  There are at least 224 identified languages in Los Angeles County, not including differing dialects.  My wife, Susan, is a 3rd-generation Japanese-American.  As I mentioned previously, both of her parents were interned during WWII.  Anxious to explore some of her heritage, Lani and I went to the Japanese-American National Museum.

Lani's primary interest was reviewing the microfilms of the original government records that logged the biographic information of each Japanese-American before they were bused to an internment camp.

The library in the museum contained an extensive collection on the history of the Japanese people in America...more books than I could have imagined.

The librarian was incredibly helpful and patient as she and Lani reviewed microfilm records from 65 years ago.  The librarian printed off several pages of documents, which Lani proceeded to leave behind.

The museum had several other exhibits that I wanted to see, but we were short on time.

Prior to the opening of the current modern museum with its sweeping lines, the 1925 historic Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple building-used in 1942 to process Japanese and Japanese-Americans for wartime internment camps-housed archives of the Japanese-American experience.

The museum is in L.A. Little Tokyo, once an area of 30,000 Japanese Americans, but now mostly a collection of stores, shops and offices.

Little Tokyo is just a little too civilized for me.  Give me Chinatown and its disheveled hustle.

What else do I miss about the LA Westside?  For one, I miss the competitive and deep wine market.  The 2020 Wine Merchant has a vintage wine room that makes me want to kowtow each time I enter.

This is where I go to find a special bottle of wine for a special dinner.  I am enologically humbled whenever I come here.

Returning to Southern California allows all of us the opportunity to meet up with old friends.  Lani, through the Book of Faces, arranged to meet up with a childhood friend, Amy Louff, a graduate of Cal State-Northridge and currently working as a CSUN administrative assistant.

Amy and Lani go back to pre-nursery school days.  I last saw Amy about 20 years ago.  She was about 5 and a lot shorter.

The best part of the day came late that night, when Susan and Russell arrived at LAX.  I had not seen Susan since New Orleans and Russell since before Lani and I left Gainesville on 3/13/2011.

Russell is so excited to see us that his cheeks are about to burst.

Susan and Russell were going to spend a week with us in California.

I was happy to see Susan, too.  Photographically, I shot this at ISO4000 which allowed me to get away without using a flash at the expense of increased grain.  Russell remained ever-jubilant to see us.

 It was late, 11pm, and we returned to our Santa Monica motel.

Day #44 - 4/25/2011 - Santa Monica

My legs were killing me from my run yesterday, my first long run in three months…but I had to do it again.  I took an ibuprofen (800mg, I never leave home without them), strapped on my iPhone, queued up my Pandora station (Eclectricity...check it out), and retraced my 5.25 mile route from yesterday. Again, I was slow, was passed by many, but finished without stopping or incident.  Running on the beach/bike path is the best...would I ever tire of it?  Would you?

Turning from one Santa Monica pleasure (running on the beach) to another (eating at favorite places)  I wanted another Tommy's chili-cheeseburger for breakfast followed by a Donut King chocolate chip bar, but Lani insisted on another Santa Monica favorite, Izzy’s Deli.  I like Izzy’s…the atmosphere is special and the food is good, though overpriced.  Izzy's is one of those long-standing institutions that has framed (usually signed) photographs of all the celebrities that have eaten there over the decades, posed next to Izzy in the Deli of Izzy.

We split a bagel/lox plate…then off to the Donut King.

Nestled in the strip mall around Tommy's, Donut King is operated by a Cambodian family.

I take food - even junk food - very seriously.

Even though I live in Gainesville, I've been to Donut King so often that when I stepped in there one day in February, the woman behind the counter said "We're out of your favorite."  I was honored.

And then, with bellies tight, we took off for Six Flags-Magic Mountain, our favorite place for fast rides.  Magic Mountain had been a family tradition for years- even after we left California in 1995 - making an annual pilgrimage on 12/24, a day when the crowds are light. Our children grew up on the fastest coasters they were allowed to ride.  A few years had passed since we were last there and Lani was anxious to go.  I was, too. 

The park opened at 10:30am that morning and we were mostly on-time. I had purchased, as well, their “Flash Pass”, allowing us to essentially walk right onto any ride at anytime

The oldest amusement park in the world (opened 1583) is Bakken, at Klampenborg, north of Copenhagen, Denmark. In the United States, world's fairs and expositions were another influence on development of the amusement park industry.

Six Flags pioneered the currently popular "pay one price" format, rather than pay as you go.  This allowed families to budget their trip more effectively.

Magic Mountain’s newest ride is X-2, the latest in a series of extreme roller coasters.  The ride is short, but incredibly intense, thrilling from start to finish.  I laughed nearly continually, but did feel a little wobbly at the end.

Remember when all you had to do in a coaster was sit down? 

We continued to Déjà vu, another intense coaster and walked right on…as expected, it was a blast, but now I was feeling a little nauseous.   The third coaster totally did me in, ready to become a one-man barforama.  I was done for the day.  Then I remembered: I was supposed to pre-medicate with Dramamine (for nausea) and ibuprofen (for headache). 

Superman-The Ride launches at 100mph.

Lani, on the other hand, had a great time, taking in one coaster after the next with virtually no waiting time.  By 3:30pm, she was satiated and we took off.

After being launched at 100mph, you eventually come to a gentle stop...then fall down backwards.  Pretty cool.

My nausea slowly fading, we headed back towards Santa Monica, stopping in Culver City at the Sam Johnson's Bookshop.

By this time, we had found that bookshops in small towns offered a greater chance of finding something interesting.

Lani looked around with interest, but found nothing.

Just as well that she didn't find anything  because, by this time, we had about 30 pounds of books to ship back.

By the time my Six Flags-induced nausea had abated, I had heard again from Steve Lerner-one of my great friends from internship-through his wife, Lisa: he should be able to meet us for dinner at 9pm (a typically late day for him).

I don't think any get-together with Steve has been without good food, good wine and great times.

We met at NY&C Pizza in Santa Monica.  No one I know has a better knowledge of where to eat than Steve.

We've been wearing the same clothing for 6 weeks.

When we stayed in a Rome apartment in early 2009, our landlord recommended Pizza Baffeto as the best pizza in the city (a powerful statement in Rome).  I've been obsessed since then with thin crust pizza and sometimes make it 5x/week.  I think I've got it down.  What's really made the difference is using a pizza stone on the grill and covering the grill cover with fiberglass insulation, raising the temperature to the 600°-700° range; the pizza cooks in 2-3 minutes and gets a nice char on the crust.

A little more cheese than I prefer, the pizza was good, but the company fantastic.

It was great to spend another evening with Lisa and Steve.  The 90 minutes passed quickly.

With restaurants serving, in general, a hypercaloric meal, Lani and I split virtually all of our meals and desserts.

Even though Steve and I were going strong, by 10:30pm, Lani and Lisa were ready to call it an evening, so we did.

Not knowing when I would see them again, it was sad to see evening come to an end.

...and another great day in Santa Monica came to and end.