A LITTLE BIT O GREEN
ODE TO ST PATRICKS DAY
When one hears the words Land of the green most will think of Ireland first. Romantic Ireland with their beautiful rolling hills, Sheep grazing lazily, coastlines that seem to never end and folklore that includes leprechauns and pots of gold.
Living in California is the land of green in the US. It is beautiful. If you stay in the North, to be clear. The southern portion of California has past its prime now and has been altered by society and its uncompromising quest for more to a point that it will never return to its lush and beautiful days. Still beautiful, it is like an aged woman who is paled in comparison to her former glory. If one wants to see California in its prime you need to go north of Santa Barbara, on the highway 1 coastline. The populations thin out. The land becomes wilder, the Ocean still has uninterrupted views. So, join me for a verbal tour of some of my favorite places along highway 1.
Let’s start in Cambria. Cambria boasts moonstone beach. It is a place that the ocean waves are blue and iridescent they have small stores and the best Olallieberry pie in California. It is a place to take off your shoes and wander whether in or out of town. If you want a relaxing day away Cambria is your place and if you want a nice place to enjoy an AIRBNB, as they have many. It is a short distance to one of my favorite places in the whole world, Hearst Castle.
Hearst Castle is a phenomenon as a place to see encapsulated history. For me it is all about the land. The beaches are beautiful, untouched. The sand is that beautiful, wonderful sandy sand. You can experience wildlife there as seen nowhere else, for example the Elephant Seal. The drive up to Hearst castle is a feat. The winding paved road that we take for granted but when you think of what it took to make that road it is awe inspiring. Passing what remains of Hearsts private zoo and then coming out from under the shady trees and into the sunny escalation to breathtaking views of the ocean. It is worth the money to take the tour just for that drive and those views. My favorite view is inside Hearsts bedroom where there is a full view window of the green and rolling hills of the tops of the Santa Lucia mountains. As far as the eye can see, just green and rolling hills. I love to close my eyes and think of the young Hearst roaming in those hills and thinking about all that he had seen in the world. See he did and brought it back for all of us to enjoy. For all of the grandiosity exhibited there, they have achieved a marvelous feat in making the State of California keep it intact as one of the most accessible examples of the raw beauty of California.
Today one cannot drive uninterrupted to Big Sur from Hearst castle, but when you could it was so beautiful because it is an escalation to the top of mountains that ride along the ocean, producing a fear filled ride that is both exhilarating and amazing. Big Sur is beautiful in its own way with redwood trees and forests, the ocean side yields excellent camping cliffside for viewing of the whales and large fish abundant in the waters in California. It is worth seeing the iconic McWay falls, once the home of Julia Pfeiffer Burns. Standing where the ruins of her house stood is so beautiful, feeling the peacefulness of the land, the gentle sounds of the falls and the ocean that is so unpredictable. Under the area of the ruins one can view the wide beautiful beaches where horses were ridden when the Burns family lived there. A bit further along highway one is beautiful and breathtaking cliff views that open to wide green vistas on one side and ocean views that make you believe you have entered into heaven by car. And then you round the bend and see the mossy green cliffs and the Bixby Bridge in the horizon. On a sunny day it is stunning, eerie in the fog and oh so melancholy in the rain. 10 miles on the other side of these stunning vistas you come into the area of the Highlands and Point Lobos. I will leave Point Lobos for another day. It is truly a one-of-a-kind walk as is the city of Carmel.
I want to wind this up by talking about the Mendocino coast. I loved to go Fort Bragg and taking the shortcut road 128. This road winds through vineyards and meadows, redwood forests and then brings you to the actual beach level. The road drops down to the beach with a river running on the coastal side and it is breathtaking. It is also terrifying as it is a true Sunami area, then winds up the cliff to take you up to an area that is rugged and open to the sea. It is uninhabited for the most part, with tiny enclaves here and there before you come to the city proper you find a quaint town with a nice beach called Albion. An author’s paradise, eclectic and bohemian with a flair for understated elegance.
Mendocino and Fort Bragg are nice towns with good stores for shopping, wonderful lodgings and a nice marina. There are wonderful restaurants, and it boasts one of the only sea glass beaches in California. It has a wonderful railroad ride so that you can see the area from the original train tracks. It also has a good walking trail. Fort Bragg and Mendocino have copious amounts of picturesque places to take photos, and you will never have a bad sunset. In the rain or fog it is as beautiful as a it is in full sun. Leaving Mendocino and heading to Eureka will find the road meeting the beach again in the most beautiful setting with Medows flanked by forest on one side, a river running through it and the beach on the other. A curved bridge spanning the distance only to wind back up the cliff to rocky cliffs. This is California, the real and green California. It is romantic with its stunning green hills, beautiful vistas including sheep and while you can meet a real leprechaun (single and dating) on any day, the pot o gold still eludes me. Ode to California, my green land my soul connection.