on my way home

Having spent Wednesday morning of my LA trip doing library research at UCLA, I was able to get as far on my drive home as Pismo Beach to stay overnight. ("What's in Pismo Beach?" asked my LA hosts, wondering why I was going there. "Hotels," I replied.)

That gave me enough time on Thursday to do something I'd only done once before: drive along the narrow and twisty coast road, the Big Sur highway. This is often closed for extended periods because of landslides or storm damage, but it's open now. Lots of lovely scenery, visible through the intermittently intense rain that fell that day, and the number of stretches of road covered in loose rocks that had fallen from the cliffs above were notable. I stopped at Willow Creek, where you can drive down below the bridge to the tiny stone beach where the creek hits the water. Despite the dicey weather, lots of surfers plying their trade out on the waves. Also, much further north in Big Sur, the Henry Miller Memorial Library, which is not a library but a bookstore specializing in literature with moral content. Both Tolkien (The Two Towers and The Return of the King) and Lewis (The Screwtape Letters and A Grief Observed) made appearances, as did Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick.

And one more stop. I'd made a reservation to tour Hearst Castle, which I'd also been to only once before, many years ago. Checking their menu of tours, I'd found one designed for the walking-disabled, with no stairs. I am able but very slow on stairs, so that was the one for me. There were only three of us on this tour, guided by a Bryan Cranston type named Phil, who talked very fast and rather quietly. He kept leading us into rooms occupied by a much larger regular tour group (the same one each time), so he'd huddle us into a far corner and talk even faster and more quietly, so I didn't absorb much of what he was saying. I did gather two things: first, that the not particularly devout Hearst was fascinated by collecting medieval Christian iconography; second, that his expectations of what visitors should do and how behave meant I would not have enjoyed a visit here in his time.

B. would find the decorations fascinating, but I'm not taking her here. Opportunities to sit during the tour were few, and the shuttle bus going up to the castle from the visitor center took the winding and twisty road at breakneck speed. Even I was a little nauseous.