California: A 2023 Roadtrip North and Back

 

The top of the Golden Gate Bridge disappears into the coastal
fog (known as "the marine layer" in California). We crossed it
northbound after driving through the western part of 
San Francisco on 19th Street.

California is a big and surprisingly diverse state: mountains, canyons, beaches, deserts, endless farm fields, dairy pastures, redwoods and Joshua trees. Since moving here from Maryland in 2017, Jane and I have tried to experience as much of California as we can. We've visited at least 30 of its 58 counties. 

Our 16-day July-August 2023 trip was from our home in San Diego to Lassen Volcanic National Park near the northeast corner of the state.  We stopped at some places we had visited before as well as explored areas entirely new to us. Lassen is covered in another post, so this is just about the stops along the way and back.

First was Los Angeles, a relatively short drive from San Diego although L.A. traffic can turn it into a crawl. We stayed at the Palihotel on Melrose Avenue. We explored L.A. on foot on a previous trip. This time we drove from our hotel to the Hammer Museum at UCLA, the Norton Simon Museum, the Huntington Botanical Gardens and to the iconic Griffith Observatory (which we saw only from our car as we couldn't find a parking spot). Both museums are rather small and can be toured in a couple of hours. The Hammer has a very good cafe, Lulu, and the Norton Simon has a snack bar on the edge of its sculpture garden, which has several Henry Moore works. The Huntington is in Pasadena, so we got to see a bit of that iconic community, too. We've seen a lot of fabulous gardens around the world, in Cape Town, Zagreb, Marrakesh, Christchurch and more, not to mention in Brooklyn and the Bronx. The Huntington ranks at the top and its Chinese Garden should be a must-see for any flora-loving tourist.

 We walked to dinner our two nights at the Palihotel, once to an unremarkable Chinese place where we were the only people not getting takeout, and once to Connie and Ted's, which is a bustling and decent seafood place on nearby Santa Monica Boulevard.

Next was another place we had visited before, Morro Bay on the coast in San Luis Obispo County.  We had enjoyed Morro Bay on a previous car trip just as California was reopening after the worst of the covid pandemic, and this time we stayed two nights at the same hotel, the Anderson Inn, and ate at the same places, the Galley restaurant at the Anderson Inn, and the Stax Wine Bar. The main attractions at Morro are Morro Rock, which dominates the waterfront, and the sea otters, which practically pose for photos near the shore.  A large and popular state beach is within walking distance, too.  At Morro Bay your car can stay parked since everything is either on the harbor or a block or two away. 

After a long drive up U.S. 101, through San Francico, over the Golden Gate Bridge and through Marin and Sonoma counties, Calistoga was our third stop. Twenty or so years ago, when we lived in New York, we were touring the tasting rooms in Sonoma County and crossed over to Napa to try the mud baths at Dr. Wilkinson's. The baths were fun, hot peaty mud, not muddy mud, and followed by massages  This time we stayed at Dr. Wilkinson's, which has changed owners (now part of Marriott) and has gone from somewhat run-down to a chic boutique hotel. We didn't bathe in mud this time (the prices have more than doubled) but we did enjoy all three thermal pools.

We ate at two notable places here, an outdoor lunch at Buster's, a BBQ and music venue that was comfortable even in the 90-dgrees-plus weather, and dinner two nights at Evangeline's, a New Orleans-themed restaurant with a Court of the Two Sisters-style patio. While my steak frites was wonderful the first night, the "gumbo" the second night was not. I don't think it could be legally sold as "gumbo" in New Orleans or anywhere else in the South (I'm from Mississippi). But I imagine that everything else on the menu would be OK. 

We stopped at a couple of in-town tasting rooms, both pet projects, I suspect, of wine enthusiasts. One was Lawer Estates, where tastings (we each did one) are $35 to $55.  The cabernet sauvignons, the syrah and the pinot noir were all quite good, and the tasting room server was able to recommend wineries for later in our trip.  Unfortunately, this early in our car trip, we weren't ready to buy wines to take home, which would mean lugging them in and out of hotel rooms for the rest of the trip to keep them from overheating in our parked car.  The other tasting room was adjacent to Evangeline's. At Olabisi (tastings $40 each) we thought the wines were not at the level of Lawer's and weren't tempted to buy at all. 

We left Calistoga after breakfast at Dr. Wilkinson's and were at the Highland Ranch Resort near Lassen Volcanic National Park in time for a late lunch. The ranch's restaurant is just about the only place to eat  there, and fortunately it's pretty good. We had three dinners and three breakfasts there.

Heading south toward home, our first stop was Plymouth, a small wine town in Amador County a few minutes east of Sacramento. Just south is Sutter Creek, a larger town and ground zero for the 1849 California Gold Rush. It's also a wine destination, but our focus was on Plymouth. The Lawer tasting room guy in Calistoga, who once worked in Plymouth, described the town as just a traffic circle, and that's fairly accurate. Rest, where we stayed two nights, seems to be the only hotel still in business, and its associated restaurant, Taste, is the best place for dinner. The menu in the dining rooms at Taste is a set, fixed price affair, but you can order a la carte if you sit at the bar. 

The county fair was under way while we were there, and apparently its wine-tasting venue had attracted almost all other wine tourists, so we had many tasting rooms almost to ourselves the Friday afternoon and Saturday that we were there. This is zinfandel country, but there are other red varietals as well. We came home with a mixed case: zins from Turley; tempranillo, zin and barbera from Jeff Runquist, two zins from Andis, and a zin and a port from Scott Harvey.  None are very fruit-forward and all have loads of secondary flavors.  

We headed west to the coast for our next stop, Carmel.  We stayed two nights at Tickle Pink in Carmel Highlands, which is not part of the more famous Carmel-by-the-Sea.  This is Monterey County and there are wineries and tasting rooms, but here we wanted to sight-see.  We had previously stayed south of Carmel at Big Sur, and north of Carmel in Monterey, and had driven Carmel's vastly over-rated Seventeen-Mile Drive (which is mostly on residential streets with hotel-size homes), seen the Pebble Beach golf courses and the iconic Point Lobos State Reserve. This time we revisited Point Lobos and toured around picturesque Carmel-by-the-Sea.  

Paso Robles, another place we had visited before, was our last stop. We stayed two nights in a room fashioned from shipping containers and dropped into the middle of a vineyard, the Geneseo at Cass Winery. Our first visit to Paso was in 2020 and is covered in another post. This time we were 10 or 15 minutes out of town but within easy reach of good tasting rooms. At Eberle we met Gary Eberle, now nearly 80, who was the first to bring the French syrah grape to California. We left with one of his syrahs and a red blend called Full Boar Red.  Tablas Creek is one of Paso's best-known wineries, and we left its tasting room with a mourvedre and the red blend called En Goblet. We didn't get to the tasting room at Cass, where we were staying, but we did enjoy a Cass marsanne (a white) at the inn's happy hour. 

The drive from Paso to home in San Diego took about six hours. 

Here are some photos from the trip: 

"The Castle of Perserverance," a 1978 work in particleboard by Roland Reiss, at the 
Hammer Museum. It was partially funded by the actor and comedian Will Ferrell.

Van Gogh's 1888 oil "Portrait of 
a Peasant (Patience Escalier)"
at the Norton Simon Museum.

Henry Moore's 1952-53 bronze "King
and Queen" at the Norton Simon.

"Patching Up the Sky" at the Huntington Botanical Gardens' Chinese garden, which is 
called the Garden of Flowering Frangrance.  The paths, water features and pavilions of this
area are just a small fraction of the sprawling park.

Morro Rock as seen from our room at the
Anderson Inn in Morro Bay. Most of our 
time there the rock was at least partially
hidden by fog.

This is one of the many dozing and active sea otters that we saw
 from shore as we walked out to Morro Rock.

As it was on our previous visit to Morro Bay, Stax Wine Bar
was a favorite on this trip, too. We had a lunch and a
dinner here. Best wait staff in town.

Dr. Wilkinson's is at the eastern end of Lincoln Avenue, Calistoga's main street.

Guests can choose from three pools at Dr. Wilkinson's, heated to different
temperatures. The warmest is in a covered spa area and prohibits children.

It wasn't open when we were there, but the 
Calistoga Depot promises shops, caviar, wine 
and more in repurposed old passenger cars
parked at what once was the end of the 
railroad line in Napa County.

Blues are served along with barbeque at Buster's
in Calistoga. A pretty cool place even in
90-degree weather.

Happy hour at the Rest in Plymouth.

We walked by but we didn't go into the
Amador County Fair.

Tickle Pink is a very 1950s hotel overlooking a cove and the Pacific Ocean in 
Carmel Highlands. The room could be a set from a Doris Day movie,
complete with a telephone beside the toilet.

The view from our balcony at Tickle Pink.

Residential streets in Carmel-by-the-Sea proudly do not have sidewalks. The
path on the right here is part of a shoreline trail and has cove and ocean views.

A sea otter at Point Lobos State Reserve.

Harbor seals at Point Lobos.

Driftwood along the rugged shore at Point Lobos.

Shipping containers were used to create eight rooms at Genesea at the Cass winery and
vineyards outside Paso Robles. Each room has a pop culture name: Bohemian Rapsody,
Easy Rider, etc. We stayed in White Rabbit, which was playing on a loop
in the room when we arrived. 

Our small deck at Genesea overlooked vineyards.