California Subduction Tour

 

Drawn by the irresistible gravity of sun, surf and wine it’s off to the west coast for a trip to be forever known as the California Sub-duction Tour.   Scientists tell us that California averages 102 earthquakes per day so I expected the trip to be a moving experience.



Air Travel

The obvious method of travel would be to fly.  Flying is safer than driving, especially if I’m the one doing the driving.  My personal speed limit occurs when paint starts blistering off the car.  Nevertheless, I wanted to drive, see all the county, take all the back roads and meet he people.  Then  I remembered that special feeling you get from two days of highway hypnosis.  Reluctantly I bought two airline tickets to Orange County. 
 

On Christmas day we jumped out of the cab at O’Hare airport and stood in the skycap line.
I knew these  guys work for tips but would they also collect baggage fees?   I never found out. The skycap grabbed my bags, refused to collect a bag fee and wished us a Merry Christmas.   I tipped the guy ten bucks to make sure our bags didn’t end up in a flea market somewhere on the outskirts of Bratislava.

You might think airport security screening has become too invasive.   I look at it as a free medical checkup.  I'm sure they'd mention it if they saw something, you know, abnormal,  on the body scan.  At least they don't ask you to bend over and cough, at least not yet anyway.  All this extra probing doesn't come cheap.  Extra fees are the new normal in the airline industry.  Things we used to take for granted now carry a price tag.  Window seats are extra.  Aisle seats cost even more.  Would you care for a snack?  How about a drink?   Don’t worry, they accept credit cards.  Soon safety briefings will be optional extras?

At least they didn’t charge extra for an on time arrival.  Four hours later we landed in sunny California and I do mean sunny.  The rainy season never arrived this year.  That’s a big deal in a place where it only rains during the rainy season.  Apparently all wine in California this year will be dry. 

 

We rolled our luggage including golf bags out of baggage claim, past the sliding doors, across six bus and passenger pickup lanes, and looked in vain for a bus to take us to the compromise that would be our rental car.   Since the Porsche 911 I fantisized about driving along the Pacific Coast Highway cost as much to rent as one of Donald Trump's alimony payments, I settled for a Buick Regal.  It‘s based on the  German Opel and promised European handling, not the marshmallow ride that had been Buick's trademark

We collected out luggage waited a while for the rental car bus that never arrived.  It seems the rental cars are located in a vast, dimly lit underground parking garage beneath John Wayne Airport.  As we dragged our bags out of the elevator and over the gray concrete we had to dodge drivers whose eyes hadn’t had time to adjust from the glaring sun above to the subterranean dim of the parking garage.  Eventually we found our rental company only to discover they were out of Regals!  Disaster was averted at the last minute when a Regal came in off rental.  

 

Suitably equipped with our quasi sports sedan we boldly launched into the California sun and onto an impossibly wide freeway.  Twenty minutes of 75 mph weaving among the eight southbound lanes, we were soon off the freeway and on Oso Blvd.  California Boulevards offer a unique combination of a 55 mph speed limit with sudden stops for traffic lights that usually mark the entrance to a strip mall.  They encourage an unorthodox driving style characterized by flooring the gas pedal, then jumping on the brakes to avoid restyling the rear end of the BMW that’s abruptly stopped in front of you.  Remember, brake heavily, stop, count the number of Starbucks in the mall, then nail the gas.

Lifestyle

For many Midwesterners it’s been impossible to resist the siren’s call of Southern California.  The stark aesthetics of Wisconsin’s kettle moraine or the glacier flattened bounty of Illinois loam just can’t hold a candle to the cascade of blue rollers that sweep in off the Pacific or the perfect sky and month-long stretches comforting warm sun.  Because so many of us joined the migration, Southern California needed a MASTER PLAN to deal with the flood of humanity.

 

Coto de Caza, quite possibly the mother of all gated communities was developed according to the MASTER PLAN.  So it was that when we arrived at Coto’s gate our name was on the list assured our allotment of the California dream.  After a few turns on streets named after migrant workers, we arrived at my sister's home.  It would serve as a base camp for the California Subduction tour.  From here we would drive to the Monterrey peninsula, on to Napa, a brief stay in Sacramento, a return to  Napa and then back through Monterrey, with the expectation we would be dodging earthquakes, mudslides and brush fires all along the way.

 

We found ourselves having Christmas dinner on the Newport Beach harbor in a a home decorated like a French country villa squeezed right up against the edge of America.   The dinner was excellent and veritable tsunami of pinot noir I swilled was enough to make the characters from “Sideways” look like Mormons.  Harry, our host, shared some cigars on the patio.  I puffed on the cigar and pulled on my wine, all while enjoying the scene of boats bobbing in the harbor against the backdrop of the lights of Balboa Island.  What great combination smells: a good cigar and the scent of the sea.  Suddenly it was time to leave.  We tossed our half smoked cigars into the harbor.  

California Golf

When I should stay shackled to my typewriter, battering away at the doors of American literature, I slink away to play golf.  After all this slinking you’d think I would be an accomplished player.  You'd be wrong.  My golf swing looks like Jerry Lewis trying to dance the Bossa Nova.  I justify the hours I waste on the game by telling myself there's poetry in golf.  If you don't believe me just listen to the TV commentators at the Master's Tournament wax poetic about azaleas and such.   Warning: golf is highly addictive.  As evidence this, even though I had to buy my clubs a round trip plane tickets and had to buy a little house for them to travel in,  I lugged them along on the subduction tour. 

Camel Back Mountain

Our first round would be the day after Christmas within the walled village of Coto de Caza.  Aptly named the Coto De Caza Country Club, it's more than a golf club; it’s a social and the nerve center and raison de etre for the walled village.  For a mere $125 per round guests are welcome.  They have two courses: a hard one and a harder one.

In the winter the grass on the golf course goes dormant and turns brown so you feel that you’re playing out of a closely mown hay field.  Since it had been a while since I had played golf, I shanked and hacked my way around the course.  I offered as explanation of my sorry exhibition that my golf clubs were suffering jet lag..   While it was a long and embarrassing round, we did enjoy the scenery highlighted by views of Camel Back Mountain.  There seems to be a number of Camel Back Mountains in America's West.  This is odd given the American West’s distinct lack of camels.

After the round it was necessary to soak my bruised ego in several Dos Equis.  I believe it made me more interesting.  Go figure.

I had a day to myself  before setting out on the next leg of the tour so I ventured out to play on the public links in southern California.  My first stop was Trabuco Canyon. 

Beware of the Cougars

The course was so packed it seemed everyone else in the western hemisphere felt the best way to celebrate the birth of the christian savior was by playing a round of golf.  After an hour cooling my heels on the driving range, the red flashing pager vibrated in my pocket. Even though the  long wait put my tee off time into twilight the folks in the pro shop stuck me for 75 bucks greens fees. Holiday rates they said. Merry Christmas. 

Along with three other golf vagabonds, I set out under the setting desert sun.  By this time my golf clubs had overcome their jet lag and began to work according to design.  Part of the challenge was to avoid hitting the coots,  A.K.A. Mud Hens, that infested the course.  So bountiful were the coots that the city of Laguna Beach pays kids 50 cents for every dead one they turn in.  Mud Hens weren’t the only wild life present.  Signs warned of cougars on the course and rattlesnakes in the hazards.  At least my overpriced greens fees offered me the chance to be mauled by a cougar.  After playing 14 holes of mediocre and overpriced golf the sun went down and night fell quickly like some dropped a curtain.

Big Canyon Country Club

Big Canyon

It was all arranged.   I was to play golf at Big Canyon, one of the most exclusive country clubs in SoCal.  My ride dropped me off and I wandered through the impressive clubhouse for a while without seeing a soul.  After a few wrong turns I eventually found the grill and my host.  I’ve never felt comfortable at fancy country clubs, and this one was as fancy as they get.  My host had a brief conversation with one of the members, an older woman who was dolled up to look like an embalmed Hollywood starlet.  Once we got out on the course, we had a great time, talking about Hunter S. Thompson and other writers of the lunatic fringe.  After the round we bailed on Big Canyon and headed toward the Ocean.  We found a hopping beach bar that was worlds away from the country club scene.

Pacific Grove, and the Locals

Pacific Grove Deer

 

Just north of Pebble Beach lies another golf course that never makes it on TV and you never hear anyone talk about it.  Your buddies will never come back from a golf trip and brag about how they paid 500 clams to play it, but it’s there, it offers incredible views of the Pacific, and unlike any other course in the area it’s cheap.  Pacific Grove had a nice little clubhouse and restaurant but you can’t sit at the bar.  Bars have a way of getting loud and they didn’t want to scare away the dining crowd.

Point Pinos Lighthouse

We stumbled on the Pacific Grove golf links because it was just a few block away from the Sea Breeze motel/refugee camp my Priceline low bid stuck us.  There we got a glimpse of the young tattooed crowd that was the life force in Monterrey.  A fat girl and her kids were permanent residents next to our room.  Judging by the screams,  one of the children in the next room was repeatedly shoving their sibling's finger into a light socket.  We asked for another room.  Jackpot!  Our white trash tenement was upgraded to a luxury cottage, or least as much luxury as the Sea Breeze could muster.  We’re talking fireplace, tastefully decorated, two king beds and a kitchenette. 

We went to look at the coast and the lighthouse and noticed a few duffers with pull carts walking past us.  After a few minute’s conversation I decided to reserve a tee time at the poor man’s Pebble Beach.

I loved the feel of the place, the golf carts rusted by the salt air and the stunted deer that roamed the fairways, oblivious to flying golf balls.  The front nine was rolling through canyons and a neighborhood with only a few peeks of the coast through the trees and houses.  We spotted a few stray butterflies from the Monarch Preserve around the corner.  That saved us a visit to the Monarch Sanctuary.

12th Hole Pacific Grove

On the back nine is where the mind-blowing happens, where the fairways reached down to the coast road, across which the sea rises up and flails against the rocks.  Hole after hole, your round is played to the backdrop of the ceaseless visual poetry of the sea.

Pacific Grove Scenery

We played along with a local who lacked occupation or explanation.  His mellowness bordered on catatonic.  What he lacked in conversation skills he made up for in eyesight.  “Look at the whales.” he said pointing out across the Pacific.  I looked and saw nothing.  “Sure I see them,” I lied. 

Can you see the Whales?

Wine Country
 

On the flight to California I buried myself in a Wine country book I bought in a second-hand bookshop.  It was a well-researched book with lots of insider info on the industry and the tasting rooms.  I particularly liked the advice about being friendly and asking lots of questions, as that might elicit some extra pours in the tasting rooms.  Naturally, I forgot the book on the plane.  I memorized the fact that there were two Stags Leaps vineyards, and one shouldn’t confuse where the apostrophe falls if you want to tell them apart.  Over the few weeks that I had been reading it, I came to understand that there are LOTS of wineries.  I was blown away by the sheer number of them and I felt sad I couldn’t visit them all. Add to that the fact that everyone we met gave us suggestions of other wineries to visit.  My only hope is we could find that special winery that would make up for missing so many others.

View from Corison tasting patio

The first night in Napa we dined at Brix; nice restaurant, helpful bartender. Try as I might, I couldn’t stop myself from inquiring which wineries would he recommend I visit.  Even though my head was already swimming with the names of wineries from the Wine book and names of must-visit wineries  from friends and acquaintances, I asked anyway.  Some of the wineries were tiny, off-the-beaten- track places that required an appointment, and reportedly made the most complex and exquisite wines.  But really, with so many tasting rooms offering walk-in hours, the whole appointment thing seems a bit too complicated.   

Dormant Vines

When we first arrived, the valley was busy.  After all, it was still the New Year’s weekend, but the crowds were bound to fall away on Monday.  You see, normally it rains steadily this time of year. The vines sleep and the crowds are thin.  Not so this year.  While the weather was cool there was no rain and the shortage portended a summer drought.  The rain that lulls the vines into a deep slumber was absent.  Instead they dosed on the verge of a calamitous awakening. 

Corison Barrels

Sure enough, when Monday arrived the crowds were gone.  The tasting rooms had a handful of people, at most.  The restaurants, if they were open, had plenty of availability.  There was plenty of sunshine.  It was great for us but the locals were worried that the rain deficit would never be made up. “If we haven’t gotten it by now, it won’t come.” said a winery worker.  “The vines are confused. They need cool air and rain to stay dormant.”  Don’t wake them too early or there will no crop.
 

Terroir

There is a religion in wine country.  Its called Terrior.   The angle of the sun, approach of the fog, where the rain carries the nutrients...are a few of the factors that make one wine different from the next.  At Stag’s Leap, Adrian--the tasting room manager--was delivering the terroir sermon from behind the counter, full of fire and brimstone, as if they too were part of the terroir.  We were willing converts and the pours kept coming.   The wine from this vine can be different from that vine grown 50 feet away due to infinitesimal variation in the terroir.
 

To illustrate his point Adrian produced two glass vials of soil from different parts of the vineyard.  In one vial the soil was bleached and barren because the creek didn’t drain into that part of the vineyard.  In the other the soil appeared darker and richer because it did receive nutrient from the creek.   Naturally the poor soil made the best wine.  It seems if you torture the vine it makes a more complex wine.  We studied his vials of dirt, asked lots of questions and drank more wine. 

Tasting with the sleeping vines

New Year's Eve day finds us in Napa.  What could be more fitting than a visit to Mumm’s Napa to get a little bubbly at the source.  The glasses of champagne come with noise makers and funny hats.  We all seek the source, the place where it where it all begins, purity.  What begins as a spiritual obsession ends as a faint and distant prospect.

Mumm's New Year Eve

The back door between Napa and Sonoma is a narrow twisting road that meanders though the hills.  Just as you start the descent in Sonoma you come across the Jordan winery.  The winery resembles a fortress built by wine, for wine, of wine.  It’s a place where appointments are required to taste the wine because they pair it with food prepared in an outdoor wood burning oven.  It’s their way to capture the hearts and minds of the wine-buying public.  Upon entering we are stopped by a hotel style reception desk and informed of their appointment policy.  We plead our case and told an old story about cases of 1976 Jordan lost in a basement flooding and were thus granted an unscheduled tasting.

Jordan Oven

Jordan Clock

In downtown St. Helena you’ll find the tasting room for Tamber Bey.  Inside television screens show unending loops of the owner’s Arabian horses on cross-country endurance races.  The deep dark and mysterious Tamber Bey Cabernet binds with me on a molecular level.  They pair the wine with cookies such as Lemon LOOP Cookie, Cherry Pepper Popper Cookie, Red Turk Cookie, Black Bacon Cookie, Cardamom Crunch Cookie, Triple Threat Cookie and Midnight Moon Cookie, all specially baked to highlight the characteristics of their Oakville wines.

 

Pacific Coast Highway



Who are these people?

 

The Pacific Coast highway had been calling to me out of car commercials  How many times had I watched a sports car driven over some snaking road that I IMAGINED MUST be the Pacific Coast highway.   Finally the day arrived to actually to drive it.  Sure there were obstacles.  First we had to drive through LA on the freeways.  Sitting in LA traffic would be considered cruel and unusual punishment in some countries so we decided to get a late start.  No sense ruining your day in rush hour traffic. I expected to pull my finger nails out in frustration but the traffic jams never happened. Before long, we were in San Luis Osbispo looking to get on the coast highway.  

Regal vs. PCH

Since I’m not exactly on a first name basis with the governor of California, Hwy 1 would not be closed for my benefit.  One thing I’ve noticed is how most people, when faced with a twisting, undulating two-lane road running along precipitous cliffs, tend to observe the speed limit.  Not  ndowed with that measure of common sense,  I could only envision power sliding around the corners like a Finnish rally hero.   It become painfully obvious traffic would not allow it.  It seems some other folks had heard about this road and the views, so they wanted to drive as slowly as possible.  Driving was made even slower still by the construction crews that would flag traffic to a stop every so often just to make sure we were spending enough time taking in the views.  There was a sense that we were travelling along the edge of the world, the only question was which world?  The panaormas could have been cover art on the type of sci-fi novels I read in 6^th grade.   Just add another moon and a ringed planet or two above the Pacific to complete the effect. 

Pacific Coast Hwy

The Car

It was a European sport sedan of sorts.  Sure it was heavy with a four-cylinder motor that provided all the aural delight of a cement mixer full of squirrels.  To make matters worse, it was front-wheel drive.  Needless to say it wasn’t a candidate to compete in next year's 24 hours of LeMans, but it was a solid driver based on an Opel design and it was entertaining enough to motivate me let the traffic train get well ahead of the cars in front.  Let them get well ahead and then bomb the corners until I caught up again. 

  

Return to Monterrey

So it was that we drove along the PCH both ways because somehow we couldn't get enough of the intoxicating, comforting and threatening Pacific.  It gave me the same feeling as when I watch a thunderstorm approach and am overwhelmed by its awesome presence.  On the return trip we stopped in Big Sur and hiked along Panoramic Trail, high above the Pacific.  We watched the blue rollers crash relentlessly onto the geology of Big Sur.  As retaliation a stream spouted out of the side of a cliff as if Big Sur was pissing into the sea. 

We never felt any of the 102 daily earthquakes.  Perhaps they were too subtle, just as California can subtly seep into your bones and dreams.   We boarded the plane back the the cool gray of Chicago knowing we will continue to be moved by the memories of cliffs, beaches and vineyards.  Perhaps we will, one day, abandon our Midwest roots to join the westward migration?   Wait,  did you feel that?

 

Loose notes

The Sea Breeze Motel  If there was a sea view, that would be one thing,  but there wasn’t a view, hence Sea Breeze. 
 

Europeans in California?  Seems odd.   Hell it is odd!

Travel from Monterrey to Napa through the garlic capital of the world. Got bad breath just passing thru.

Wine tasting with a cold is nothing to sneeze at.

1/2 million dollar shack and I mean shack in Monterry.  It used to be a 1 million dollar shack.

Wine barrels, French oak and what to do with them.   The barrels were showing up everywhere.  Their great purpose accomplished and their usefulness to the winemaker gone, they are consigned to be trash barrels and foot rests. 

 

The Crab Cooker restaurant, in a sea of smoke and mirrors it stands like a beacon of truth, a testament to just enough.

Our destination for the night was Monterey, home of Pebble Beach, Carmel by the Sea,  cannery row and the vast reservoir of life soup,  Monterrey bay.

Hula Island grill,  the tattoo parlor owner drinking at the bar and me without a tattoo.

Traffic Jams in Montery.  The melting pot aquarium.  Octopi in the dark.

 

The LA freeway has plenty of humans for such an inhumane place.

The mystical dividing Line in the Russian river valley.

Goodyear blimp practicing how to be blimpy.  Used to be the Blimp, now its just a blimp.

 

Wax logs in Sonoma, fat man in the hot tub with his smart phone,