North from Los Angeles, and a visit to the “Ranch House”

June 21

I had a nice week in Los Angeles staying with my sister and brother-in-law (thanks, guys) and visiting family.  I was glad I had rushed through Baja California a bit to get to LA before my mother and her boyfriend Jerry left for a trip to Italy. 

I spent one day with Mom and Jerry visiting the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.  Although I’m not of the Reaganish persuasion (remember… I went to Berkeley in the 60s.  Enough said), it really is an interesting and well done museum.  Lot’s of displays about the cold war, an Air Force One, and I even got an opportunity to make a speech… undoubtedly to the Republican Convention.  Imagine what I told them.  However, Nancy and Babs (to my right) seemed appreciative)

The rest of the week was spent visiting, running errands, and doing maintenance work on the bike.  I had ordered a number of parts to replace stuff that broken on the trip and so was able to get it all installed.

On June 19 I was ready to get on the road again.  The Call of the Wild, and all that stuff, so I headed north.  While I expect this part of the trip will be very different (they speak English, right?) I’m looking forward to it.  I’m from California, but I don’t think I’ve traveled up the California coast in about thirty years so it will be very different to do it as a tourist.

First stop was Solvang, just north of Santa Barbara, where I stayed with Patty and Dan Simon.  Patty was a good friend in high school who I hadn’t seen in forty years when we met up at our 40^th high school reunion in 2006.  I had promised to bring some Cuban cigars (smuggled TWICE across the US border!) which we enjoyed with much single malt Scotch on the deck of their gorgeous property in the Santa Ynez Valley wine country. 

Then (June 21) it was up to San Simeon and Hearst Castle.   This was William Randolph Hearst’s  “ranch house”, Despite the early morning fog, it was a fascinating place and it gave me some great ideas for future projects at our cabin in Cerro Azul.  

I really like this fireplace, and may do something like this on the patio.  I've been searching the base of Ancon Hill for the right marble to use.

I also got some great ideas for the new pool that we’re planning.   Don't you think this would fit in well at the cabin?

Just north of San Simeon there is a beach where elephant seals come to mate and raise their young.  If you’ve never seen elephant seals, they are quite something.  The adult males get up to 4000 pounds.  The females weigh in at a svelte 2000 lb. 

The males, jealous buggers that they are, tend to fight a lot for the right to a (ok, many) female and this is not something you want to get in the way of.  However, it is really interesting to watch.  The males start practicing this fighting when they are adolescents… just like humans do in high school.   Only we call it football.

The females raise the babies until they are toddlers (at about 400 pounds) then they all take off into the sea until the next year…  breed – rinse – repeat.

From here I continued up the coast.  I had forgotten how beautiful the California coast is.  It’s also a pain in the ass to drive, as it is all curves generally full of tourists from Iowa driving (to the minimal extent that they are capable) rented RVs at about 12 miles an hour.  Highly frustrating!

It is, however, good for the merchants. At one point (obviously the only gas for miles) they were happy to charge any hapless tourist who hadn’t filled up in time a whopping almost seven dollars a gallon for fuel!  Take that, you damn tourists!  Oh yeah, and thanks for visiting J 

Finally I arrived in Monterey, where I spent the night.  I ran into a couple of Harley riders that I had met in San Simeon and we had a fun night on Cannery Row listening to music, drinking beer, and talking politics (OK, I lied about the talking politics being fun).