Travel coda

HH drinks espresso from a monkey cup on Fisherman's Wharf.

Travel blather, the final chapter

It's the first day of the Monterey Jazz Festival but the gates don't open until 6 p.m. so we have time for a few more sights. Early last week I read an article about Tor House in the Los Angeles Times and made a reservation for an 11:00 tour.

Tor House was poet Robinson Jeffers' home in Carmel (not Big Sur, as the article says). He built much of it with his own hands, using boulders gathered from the shore of Carmel Bay. I don't know much about Jeffers' poetry; his best-known poem is probably "Shine, Perishing Republic," and you can read it here. His work is thick, dark, often pessimistic and misanthropic, and when you stand in the low-ceilinged living room of his home, looking out at the ocean and Point Lobos, you wonder how anyone could be so negative with so much glory before him.

If you visit the website and look at the photos, you get the impression that Tor House is grandly situated all by itself on an isolated stretch of the California coastline. In fact, it's in a crowded neighborhood surrounded by multimillion-dollar beachfront homes (you enter from Ocean View Ave., but Scenic Drive is just on the other side). What was once a pristine view of Point Lobos has been scarred for the past 50 years by the so-called Butterfly House, which went on the market in 2007 for $19.995 million and apparently sold; it's currently undergoing renovation. Jeffers died in 1962 and watching that house go up must have made him crazy.

Tor House tours are limited to six people; as it turns out, we have the excellent docent, Sherry Shollenbarger, all to ourselves. We take our time hearing stories and poems, looking at photographs, asking questions, and just being in the rooms where Jeffers lived with his wife and muse, Una, and their twin boys.

Tor House was a lifelong project for Jeffers. He wrote in the mornings from his upstairs office, worked on the house in the afternoons. (Sherry tells us that when Jeffers wrote, he paced; when the pacing stopped, Una banged on the ceiling from below, where she was seated at her own small desk, to get him on track again.) The original house was begun in 1918 and built by a contractor; Jefferson apprenticed himself to the contractor, learned to build with stone, and added to the home over several years: a tower for Una, a dining room, a new wing. They had no central heating and used kerosene lamps; a tin tile (embossed with a lion) set into the wood ceiling above Una's piano was protection against rising heat and soot.

Tor House is managed by a nonprofit foundation affiliated with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. There are no buses, no T-shirts or key rings or snow globes; the only souvenirs you can purchase are books by and about Jeffers and simple notecards. Freebies include the foundation's newsletter and a teacher's guide to Jeffers' poetry published by the National Endowment for the Arts, also available online.

The house is filled with the personal belongings of Jeffers and his wife; their desks and chairs, shelves full of their books, quilted bench covers made from their old clothing (woolens ordered from the British Isles), the Celtic crosses Una loved, the unicorns people gave her. Carved into walls and lintels and doors are words and phrases they found inspiring. On the day Thomas Hardy died in 1928, Jeffers carved "Hardy" into a stone beside a door in the dining room. Seeing those shallow, uneven letters in the stone was a powerful experience. I could imagine the poet standing there, grieving and marking the stone.

We walk the garden, far more manicured now, Sherry tells us, than when the Jefferses lived there, and see the giant rock that became the cornerstone of the house (and is remembered in Jeffers' poem titled, you guessed it, "To the Rock That Will Be a Cornerstone of the House").

We climb the narrow, steep, uneven stone steps into Una's tower and look out over the ocean. (There's a second way up, an even narrower stairwell Jeffers created for his young sons. HH takes that one but it's way too claustrophobic for me. I can picture myself stuck and screaming.) Intrepid HH also climbs to the very top of the tower, even steeper steps with a chain handrail (in the Jefferses' time, we learn, they held onto a length of hemp).

You can read Jeffers' poem about his house here. Not thick, dark, or pessimistic, only slightly misanthropic ("fire and the axe are devils"), but tender, inviting, loving. Sherry read this poem aloud to us in the living room. What a pleasure.

If you enjoy visiting writers' homes, seeing where they worked and getting a feel for the environment that fed their creativity, Tor House is a worthy stop.

From there, after driving up and down Scenic Drive and marveling at the houses, we go to the nearby Carmel Mission, home of the Carmel Mission Basilica and the shrine of Father Junipero Serra (1713-1784), the Majorca-born founder of the mission chain that stretched across upper California in an attempt to solidify Spain's hold on the land. Here you enter and exit through the gift shop, which is full of religious medals and pendants, statuary, jewelry, crucifixes, crosses, prints, rosaries, cards, calendars, and more. The restored church is peaceful and beautiful; founder Serra's grave is in the floor near the altar. The gardens are lovely, as is the cemetery with its simple graves ringed with abalone shells.



The mission has an active school, which was in session during our visit, and several museums, which would be a lot more interesting if the information provided was better and more complete. The Harry Downie Museum tells the story of the Mission's restoration in hard-to-read script; the Munras Family Heritage Museum displays personal items that belonged to a prominent Monterey family (hence Munras Street and Hotel Casa Munras), but with little explanation. There's a room full of elaborate priests' vestments—from when? No clue. A gallery with a large cenotaph (a tomb without a body) which I guessed (correctly) had something to do with Fra Serra, and the Convento Museum, which contains the cell in which Serra died in 1784. (The real cell?) It's the final stop on a tour that leads back to the gift shop.

Photos: Tor House viewed from Scenic Drive. Graves with abalone shells at the Carmel Mission.

More travel babble

We thought we might take a whale watching boat cruise this morning but sleeping in (way in) was too tempting, given the cool Cali breezes blowing in our window and the fat Hyatt bed with its smooshy pillows. Why aren’t our beds at home as fantastic as some hotel beds?

So we got up late and went for breakfast at Kathy’s on Cass St. Avocado and mushroom omelet, pancakes, potatoes. The sort of breakfast that makes you want to take a nap, except we had just gotten up. We pored over today’s edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, an incredible shrinking newspaper (small trim size, small page count). Found many of the comics I like but no “Mark Trail.” Wondering WHAT Rusty is up to.

From there, the 17 Mile Drive. We’ve done this before but what's wrong with repeating a leisurely tour through the Del Monte woods with palatial estates on your left, the Pacific on your right, and golfers in the road? It’s mostly about doing nothing—drive a bit, get out of the car, walk on the path, listen to the waves, sit on a bench, listen to the waves, look through your binoculars at what you think might be seals but turn out to be weeds, watch a large bird with a long orange beak and big pink feet hop over rocks in search of food, try to stay ahead of the tour buses.

We couldn’t entirely avoid one, a blue Cardiff Tours behemoth that raised and lowered its air suspension (BEEP BEEP BEEP) to let people on and off. We noticed one family in particular and I wish I had snapped a stealth picture. Jovial dad, patient mom, two sullen teenage girls, one expressionless, the other with her legs covered in tattoos, wearing a hoodie with kitten ears, angrily smoking a cigarette. You could tell the parents were trying but the girls were in hell.

We spent a lot of time admiring the Lone Cypress, the official trademarked symbol of the Pebble Beach Corporation. You can walk down several steps to a deckish landing with benches and sit there if you want, watching groups of people come down the stairs and pose for pictures in front of the famous tree. A group of Japanese tourists posed in front of the wrong tree. We thought about telling them but didn’t.



Back in Monterey in time for the weekly Farmers' Market on Alvarado St. Fresh Cali produce, jewelry made from rocks, candles, musicians, babies, street food. Lots of street food. Lebanese pockets stuffed with potatoes and spices so hot they make your whole head burn. Tamales. Gyros. BBQ. We sat at a picnic table eating chicken with our fingers as the street grew dark and the people running the booth doused the coals.






Photos: John's Bonsai Lone Cypress. Farmers' Market crowd, musicians, orchids.

Travel ramblings, if anyone cares

HH and I are in Monterey for the 52nd annual Monterey Jazz Festival, which doesn’t start until Friday. Until then it’s vay-cay-shun. Which begins with our annual stop at the Swanton Berry Farm on Highway 1 for strawberry shortcake. Organic strawberries and real whipped cream on a sweet biscuit.

Changes to Swanton’s this year include more furniture inside, more jams (which you can sample by spooning them onto animal crackers), and a young plaid-shirted employee who claims to be the biggest Vikings fan born in L.A. He asked if we had seen the day’s game. We had not. We were on a plane, squashed like sorry sardines among the other pleated, folded, pressed and compressed passengers on the full flight.

At the hotel we talked first to the check-in person and second to the concierge. A concierge is someone you want to know and treat with utmost respect. The one at the Hyatt Monterey has been here for 20 years. So you can say to her such vague, nonspecific, beetle-brained things as “I picked up a card at a small Italian restaurant in Pacific Grove last year but left it on my desk at home” and she’ll say “Oh, you mean Joe Rombi’s, would you like me to make a reservation for you?” Crab cake followed by the Sunday spaghetti-and-meatballs special, with meatballs the size of cannonballs, and a nice chianti.

On Monday we drove to Moss Landing, which (according to the Insiders’ Guide to the Monterey Peninsula, an extremely detailed and useful book) is supposed to have a lot of antique stores. Maybe it used to but it doesn’t anymore. The recession seems to have kneecapped this little town on the shore of Monterey Bay. We were the only people in the shops we visited and the café where we stopped for liquid refreshment.

Moss Landing is, as of 2008, the new home of the Shakespeare Society of America, where we spent an hour or so talking with CEO Terry Taylor and where HH got his picture taken in two Your-Head-Here life-size cut-outs, one a knight and one a king. (See above for the king; the knight's on fb.) Taylor’s background includes a passion for the Bard, a degree from Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, and a career in consulting and cell phone sales. The Shakespeare Society building is full of prints, paintings, costumes, busts, scripts, books, and models of the Globe Theater. It is a charming, strange, and fascinating find in this town of 300 people.

Taylor pointed us up Hwy 1 to a dock that was installed for visitors in 2008 but was almost immediately taken over by sea lions. Posted signs warn against trying to rescue any and explain that overpopulation has led to disease and starvation. I’m not an expert at estimating the size of crowds but am guessing the dock held more than 1,000 sea lions. They were packed tighter than we were on our flight from Minneapolis. When the wind shifted, they smelled very bad. Make that very, very, very, very bad.

Back in Monterey, we walked the Monterey Recreational Trail from Fisherman’s Wharf along the ocean to the Seven Gables Inn in Pacific Grove and back again. Then dinner at the Monterey Fish House, another tip from Her Holiness the Concierge. Oysters on the half shell, crab ravioli, grilled artichoke, calamari Sicilian (in red sauce with calamata olives). Noisy, crazy, packed, delicious.

We sat at the bar. The man seated to our right was a physician who had worked at the free clinic in Haight-Ashbury during the 1960s, when patients included people like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. He urged us to spend at least one day in Big Sur, something we plan to do anyway, and offered specific suggestions: Buy chocolate-chip cookies from the Big Sur Bakery. Sit on the deck at the Ventana Inn. And walk barefoot along Pfeiffer Beach where, he promised, the surf sounds like jazz.

More photos--sea lions, houses in Pacific Grove, whatever--may come later once HH downloads his camera card.

Slow Travel

HH and I are slow travelers. We like to go somewhere and stay for several days. Unpack, stow our suitcases in the closet, hide all the hotel literature, and pretend we live, for example, at the newly and nicely renovated Hyatt Regency Monterey in a second-floor room overlooking the golf course. (Which this week we do, thanks to my sister Cindy.) Then wake up each day, decide what we might want to do, do some of it or all of it or sometimes none of it, and end the day by discussing what we might want to do the next day without committing to anything in particular. Time takes its sweet time.

Yesterday was the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Today was breakfast (brunch, actually) at Parker-Lusseau on Hartnell in downtown Monterey, a trip to Taste of Monterey in search of a map showing local wineries, and a drive into Carmel Valley with a lengthy stop at the Heller Estate Vineyards tasting room. Rather than drive back the way we came, we continued southeast on Carmel Valley Road (Highway G16) to Highway 101, a journey of about 110 miles. Many were twisty, turny miles with spectacular views of canyons and ridges. Vineyards sparkled in the late-afternoon sun; growers tie strips of Mylar to the vines to keep birds away.

We returned to Monterey in time for the last hour of the Tuesday farmer's market on Alvarado Street. Had a fig lesson from a fig farmer (I had no idea there were so many different kinds) and bought figs picked earlier today. For dinner, street food: samosas, spinach and portabello pie, a tofu and avocado roll from a sushi vendor.



Tomorrow, maybe Nepenthe in Big Sur. Earlier this year, when fires blackened almost 400,000 acres in northern California, I scanned area newspapers to learn if this famous restaurant survived. It did.

Susanne, if you're reading this, thank you for your hospitality at the Heller tasting room. Kevin, freelance writer and novelist and French teacher, we hope to see you on Saturday at the jazz festival.

More about slow travel.

A bakery in Monterey

Parker-Lusseau is the place to go for delicious coffee, exquisite French pastries (the chocolate eclair! Mon Dieu!), and perfect egg salad sandwiches on buttery, flaky croissants with crunchy sprouts and not too much mayo. They now have two locations; we like the one in the historic building on Hartnell next to the P.O., with the cozy front porch and side garden.

Fresh Cream

The Insiders' Guide to the Monterey Peninsula says this about Fresh Cream: "Since its opening in 1978, Fresh Cream continues to be recognized as one of the Top 100 restaurants in the nation. The stylish interior, dazzling Bay view, and impeccable epicurean reputation make this a distinctive favorite."

Our corner table gave us floor-to-ceiling windows to the bay and views all the way to Santa Cruz. The food was exceptional. Five-mushroom soup topped with an intricate lattice of creme fraiche and aged balsamic...mushroom velvet. Heirloom tomato caprese...classic. Lobster ravioli...perfect pasta stuffed with lobster mousse in lobster butter with caviar. Rack of lamb with fingerling potatoes. Grilled filet mignon with truffle madeira sauce. A local pinot. Grand Marnier souffle with hot rum sauce. All served perfectly by the lovely Emily, who acted as though we had all the time in the world even though most other patrons had left or were leaving when we arrived for our 8:00 reservation. This is an early-bird town.

The guide book gives Fresh Cream four dollar signs but the bill was less than we expected...and probably a good deal less than we would have paid at La Belle Vie. If you go, get good directions and avoid driving back and forth on Pacific and getting sucked into the Lighthouse Ave. tunnel.

Back at our hotel, we went to the bar for a nightcap. A jazz trio was playing. The bar, so dead for the previous three nights that they closed early, was full. Gerald Wilson was seated at the table in front of us.