movie set towns

Just off the 101, something else that has struck our English eyes are the various towns that look as if they could be movie sets from another era.

Understandably, there's always a few places that are preserved and maybe have a tourist bias, but for parts of this trip we've skipped around some of the well-known places that we've visited on other occasions.

There's a compressed kind of history, with many places developing in the 1800s and sometimes there's the story of their greatness and then decline. We saw that in some parts of Oregon and can see similar now in California.

Somehow everything keeps going and in a few places we can't help but wonder how it all works, with small prospering towns miles from anywhere.

the sidewinder sleeps in a coil

As well as the tourist places we've been suitably off the beaten track.

I'm used to looking out for scorpions in the desert (shake out the boots), bears in the hills (bring a bell) and even the coyotes on the beach (don't go out after dark).

The sign about rattlesnakes was still a helpful reminder to be vigilant, because the adjacent area did look tempting for a stroll. Combined with the 110F temperatures (43C) we decided that maybe we'd leave that particular excursion.

Mad dogs and Englishmen, out in the midday sun.

livin' on the fault line

We noticed a few signs for roads with names like San Andreas and decided we were pretty close to the fault line.

At the next interesting intersection we headed further inland to take a look. There would surely be some signs of the San Andreas Fault.

We didn't expect to find a restaurant perched on its edge, nor that the old Camino Real skirted the edge of it, including one of the missions being perched right above the line.

We could see an internal marker which was a way to check for subsidence.

I've been in a couple of reasonable size earthquakes around Seattle and San Jose, but these folk really live on the fault line. Queue an old Doobie Brothers track...

Along the Santa Cruz Boardwalk

We had to do some proper candy-floss type seaside too, so stopped off at Santa Cruz.

It's got all the traditional seaside ingredients, a pier, a boardwalk, a massive wooden big dipper, arcades and general raucousness.

We explored the big rides, the stalls and the places selling salt water taffy.

Near the middle is a place called the Cocoanut Grove. There were various tales of the events and spectacles of this place from earlier times.


Perhaps a simpler type of amusement, but some spectacles that can't be repeated in the modern world.

Mission Ranch

We'd worked out that Clint Eastwood's ranch was only a few minutes away from where we were staying. We were almost neighbours.

So we decided to pop around.

It's on Dolores, and known as the Mission Ranch with a rich and varied history and some 17 owners.

Juan Romero was the original owner, a native American, who deeded the property for $300 to a storekeeper. Then it became a dairy with the owners running it for around 60 years. Later it was a private club and then an officers' club with a lively reputation in World War II.

Clint Eastwood bought the ranch in 1986, stopping it from being redeveloped into condominiums. Instead he sought craftsmen to restore the style of the original buildings, now each showing a different architectural period.

It's a popular venue now, with a patio and restaurant that can't be booked. We arrived at around 3:30pm to see people already waiting to grab a table on the patio for 4pm. There's a great view which includes an appropriate old horse-drawn wagon, on this occasion surrounded by sheep.

Pebble Beach concours et tour d' elegance

It turns out that this week includes the Pebble Beach Tour d' Elegance car event in Carmel. That's why there have been so many fancy cars around. The stakes increased today with about a humourously large collection of Bentleys and a few unidentifiable supercars.

There's also Packards and even more Ferraris. We saw a few Alfa Romeos and Porsche spiders, although the more run of the mill Ferraris, Porsche and Maseratis are all fairly common around the Sloaney parts of London, as well as in certain well-known car parks of the area. Someone I chatted to was amused that I thought the rental Mustang convertibles were more unusual than some of the German cars.

We meandered around, hearing car talk and being surprised that we'd accidentally turned up on the day that they paraded through Carmel.

At lunch time we unwittingly stopped at a cafe, took an outside table and had all of the cars drive right past us. All totally unplanned.

Later, we accidentally found ourselves inside the main enclosure where a kind of trade show was being run for the possible buyers of their next flashy cars. Time to find the emergency casual cream jacket to wear over the tee shirt.

And later still, as we travelled to our next stopping point, we chanced upon a regular car park with some of the overspill. Unusual (even in London) to see two gull wing AMG supercars parked a few squares apart.

Carmel

I get the feeling that Carmel is quite well-heeled. After we'd found our Inn, which looked out onto the Pacific, we made our way along the beach and into the bustling village. There were already fire pits being dug on the beach as people prepared for an evening around the campfire, but it was the yacht party that caught my attention.

I say yacht, but it was something with multiple decks and a enough people travelling to mean that they could decide to come to the beach for a small soiree. And that would be with a local chef. And tables. Maybe some music. And a P.A. system so that everyone could hear properly.

Then into the town. A Ferrari flicked noisily past us. Then another one. Both red. The third one was a few minutes later, but driven by an owner who didn't feel the need to rev it continuously. Still red though, although the Lamborghini a few seconds later was bright yellow.

We carried on our walk towards a lovely French restaurant but were struck with the notion that there was something unusual about this town.

Later, before we headed back, we stopped at Doris Day's pretty Inn, which is a well known landmark in the middle of town. We'd still need to visit Clint Eastwood's ranch, but that would need to be tomorrow.

Naked Wines in Sonoma

Sonoma is a quaint little town, mainly comprising a square which includes cafes and wine tasting stores. It is also the far northern end of the chain of mission bells that run from deep in South America, and I guess it should also be the end of the related Camino Real.

We'd attempted to snap mission bells from the car on a previous journey as we travelled north along Camino Real, but the camera at the time had very sluggish response and we kept missing them. This time I took no chances.

As we were deep in Sonoma Valley, naturally we had to spend a little time at a vineyard. There are signs everywhere and a huge number to choose from. We decided to be purposeful and had noticed, on the way into Sonoma, the logo for Naked Wines, which is a collective to create wines via sometimes up-front funding to vineyards and mainly marketing into the U.K.

Because I'm a member (a so called Angel), and have pretty much bought wine from them for the last couple of years, we thought it would be fun to drop around to their tasting rooms in Kenwood. They don't have anything similar in the U.K. and we thought it would be a quick way to get an overview of wines in production.

We were helpfully shown a selection with overlap between their UK market and the US one. Although they carry global wines, we asked for it to be limited to Californian. Not surprisingly the Americans keep quite a few of their wines for local consumption.

My plan had been to order a few from their system but have them shipped from the U.K. Unfortunately, they are not able to do this. I wasn't sure if it was because the US wing had only been set up for a short time, or whether it was some kind of trade restriction.

Anyway, we sat in the sunshine. I watched wine being tasted (I was the designated driver) and then we made a list of a few to order when we are back in Blighty. Oh, and we bought some "for the trip".

welcome to (another) Hotel California,

Welcome to another Hotel California. This one is even an ex Mission, although as a difference from the song lyrics, I can't hear the mission bell. It's a fine place to stay a couple of nights, here in the wine country.

I've taken a photograph of the famous Eagles album cover art in the past. The original was by David Alexander featuring the Beverly Hills Hotel. We're in Sonoma, so still some few hundred miles from L.A. where the original is situated.

However, there's enough of a similarity to make me reach for the iPod. And maybe a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.

we explore the avenue of the giants

We decided to head away from the main 101 to look at the Redwood forest more closely. The main road skates across the top of the forest on an elevated section.

As soon as we slipped onto the side road, we were immediately deep into the forest, which twists along for about 40 miles.

It's spectacular, with tall trees along both sides, some of which are many hundreds of years old. I can vaguely remember a picture from childhood of this area, monochrome, from a magazine, with old looking cars tripping through the forest.

I guess only the car models have changed through to today's view; fortunately the National Parks took a slice of the area under its wing to stop it all from being cleared back in the late 1960s.

More recent references would include the area's use in Return of the Jedi and one of the Jurassic Park movies.

There's a few small towns along the route with signs saying 'Population 59' and similar. They still resemble something from an old movie, with the addition of 'Visa accepted' and 'Wi-fi available' signs in the windows of the stores.

Oh, and another one of those trees to drive through. This time we did.

εὕρηκα! I have found it!

A couple of weeks ago, blogger Nikki-ann asked me if I'd try a meme about things I wanted to do.

I didn't get around to completing it at the time, but one of the items I thought would be fun to include was to "Discover a Zoltar fortune telling machine". That's the very rare almost mythical type of machine that Tom Hanks found in the film 'Big'.

Astonishingly, after a couple of weeks, I can tick that item off.

I was in the small Californian town of Eureka when I could not only discover the machine, but also utter the Greek word like Archimedes did when he discovered displacement.

Yes - Eureka - I have found it. The Zoltar.

It produced a fortune for me too. Maybe more of that another time.

look this way

The 101 might be over 1500 miles long, but it's not all serious driving. There's plenty of quirky points along the way. Whole towns that look as if they have been updated from a Wild West set and there's plenty of points places where there's images shouting to drivers from the roadside.

"Stop! Look at me! Come on Over!"

Okay, we did drop into this one, the 'Trees of Mystery', but almost reluctantly drove past the "Tour Thru Tree" which was off to the side of the 101, but incredibly well advertised.

Yes, we're in Redwood country now and they are giants. And I'm expecting to see more tomorrow as we head further south in Northern California.