Getting a taste of California

By Christopher Reynolds
Los Angeles Times

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My new year's adventure was to drive California from toe to top, cling to the coast, sleep only in lodgings along the water.

I'd cover 1,136 miles in 10 days. Of course, unless you can spend a month on a trip like this, you have to leave out places.

I blew off La Jolla, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach -- didn't even stop the car in Orange County -- and never considered a theme park.

I spent no time in Santa Monica or Santa Barbara and only a few minutes in San Francisco -- just long enough to jot down adjectives for the winds raking the Golden Gate Bridge observation point.

You could say my itinerary was half-planned. I mostly would stick to Interstate 5, then California 1 and U.S. Highway 101, skirting the sea. There would be no 200-mile days, and I would allow myself detours. But you already know this was a sweet trip, because you've probably nibbled at it yourself.

Mile 15, Coronado: Ridiculous, meet sublime. I penetrate the perimeter of the Hotel del Coronado, inspect the seasonal ice-skating rink and the wide, sandy beach, then climb on the jetty rocks. No rooms for less than $300. I settle for a $3.75 cup of coffee.

Mile 40, Point Loma, San Diego: A moment of reverence, please, for Juan Cabrillo, the European explorer who landed at Point Loma in September 1542 and claimed the coast for Spain. By many measures, he was a failure: He didn't find gold, didn't find an easy route to Asia, didn't find a passage to the Atlantic and didn't complete his mission. He died three months later.

But the six days he spent here made him California's first documented tourist. Although nobody knows what he looked like, a sculptor's imaginary Cabrillo stands atop the hill, gazing heroically out toward all the top-secret Navy submarine stuff at the foot of the point.

Mile 177, Hermosa Beach: Bam: the sound of a volleyballer ending a rally.

Whoosh: the sound of an early-bird surfer, zooming dangerously close to the pier.

Tick-tick-tick: the sound of two bicycles and a low-slung trailer, rolling north on the Santa Monica Bay Trail, a foot-and-bike path that runs 20 miles from Redondo Beach to Santa Monica.

Mile 411, Morro Bay: The best thing about the Inn at Morro Bay, apart from paying $59 a night, is that it sits within Morro Bay State Park, just a few miles from Montana de Oro State Park. So the next morning, I can hike up 661-foot Black Hill in time to see the sun's first beams spilling over the hills to the north, the wetlands to the south, the creamy dunes to the west and, of course, the 578-foot Morro Rock itself. A few hours later, I'm down on the docks getting ready to rent a kayak.

Mile 505, Big Sur: It's almost the law. You can't visit Big Sur without stopping at Nepenthe, the bohemian clubhouse, tourist restaurant and community icon that's been perched 800 feet above the surf since 1947. So I stop and spoon up a great bowl of chili.

Mile 683, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco: The wind is bitter, evil, nasty and lacerating.

Mile 741, Valley Ford, Sonoma County: First, the slopes of Mount Tamalpais. Then an absurdly great Parkside Cafe burger and walk on Stinson Beach. And then the fault lands of Point Reyes and the green hills of West Marin take over. Scattered black cows. Long fences. The rising and falling road, the becalming scrim of fog ...

North of Bodega Bay, the mist thickens. With visibility down to about 30 feet, I creep along from hairpin turn to hairpin turn.

Maybe I'm surrounded by meadow. Maybe I'm teetering at cliff's edge.