THE WEEKENDER-EURO STYLE

FRENCH, OR ITALIAN, OR CALIFORNIAN

    Admiring what I call the old "buck board bench" at Giovanni's Harmony Cafe, warmed by the coastal sun, reading a note from our pal Bruce about recipes from Provence' as we await the latest offering from our local master chef, the aromas of the kitchen mixing with the roses, my cocoon of well being is bumped by a realization. 

    Lana and I have been chatting about the joie d'vivre of the Susan Loomis book ON RUE TATIN as she recounts her move to France to write a cookbook as her husband rebuilds a centuries old home in a northern town.  It strikes us that our life here in what some have called the "American Provence'" is authentic provincial joy itself. The cafe for example, guests reflect that with the alfresco setting, the climate and cuisine they could be in Tuscany or Provence.  Indeed! The culture here is younger than Loomis's Louviers in Normandy, but it is unique, as in 

ART ON A LADDER

    Art Van Rhyn that is.  Artist, gallery owner, musician, founder of the whimsical 927 art show, cartoonist of the weekly From the Beach cartoon in The Cambrian and personality unique is one of the pantheon of  "Cambria Characters" this village is known for. Emphasis on "character!"

CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THIS IS?

     30 minutes down the gorgeous Pacific Coast Highway is the beautiful small city of San Luis Obispo.  Truly Mediterranean in look and temperament, S-L-O, as many call it, is a university town, full of playfulness, as in the scene above. Bubblegum Alley.

   Yep, that's all gum.  It's a changing work of art, as generations have created their own morphing images, words, messages and etc. Bet they don't have one of these in Normandy.

    So later I'll slip into my easy chair, crack open ON RUE

TATIN, peak out the window at the Santa Lucia mountains and start thinking about what we're going to do for dinner.

The whir of the mixer as I write this is the reminder Lana is making pasta.  We'll probably pick a few tomatoes from one of the raised beds and likely find the other items to round it out at the Farmer's Market underway in the village. Many of the characters will be there. In fact the longer one stays here, the more we all transform, or aspire to our niche in the ways of eccentricity.  

    Oh yea, we'll be using olive oil, but then, which type?  While this region produces great wine, we have a burgeoning olive oil market as well.  So, perhaps, there is a place for our version of this fellow---enjoy.  

Have a fun, delicious and sexy weekend!

   See you down the trail.

DO YOU JUST STORM THE OFFICE? & AFTERNOON MELLOW

HOW ABOUT AN OLD FASHIONED PUNCH IN THE NOSE?

    For those of you who riddle life's frustrations with the  old chestnut "WWJD-what would Jesus do?" or who seek a Taoist path of "going with the flow," my questions are out of your comfort zone.  

      But growing up on the south-side of Muncie Indiana taught a direct course of action gets results. My ire is simply one of a chorus who legitimately ask are there any thinking people who manage or supervise in CalTrans? (For readers outside California, CalTrans is the agency responsible for highway planning, construction and maintenance)

      Since last year a 25 mile stretch of iconic Highway 1 north of Cambria to the Monterey County line has been the object of puzzlement, frustration, controversy and anger. It's been the cause of broken bones and windshields. We can attest to the windshield issue. Bicyclists have been injured.

      Caltrans resurfaced the road and they blew it. Man, did they ever?!

      Apparently because it was cheaper, they used a larger than normal crushed rock in what they call a chip and seal repaving.  The San Luis Obispo Tribune reports the rock they used was twice the size of normal.  

       Twice the size?!  Hello CalTrans?  Anybody with a measurable brain wave in there? Did the Caltrans District 5 Director Tim Gubbins personally look at, approve or maybe even think about the implication of that?  Did anyone called a supervisor ever take their brain to work during the long repaving project?

       You probably know the Pacific Coast Highway is one of the most visited, scenic and bicycled roads in the world. Since the idiot job was first done, bicycle riders, clubs, organizations, federations and race planners have all tried to reason with Caltrans over how they have practically ruined a highway.  Caltrans, to whom we give hundreds of millions of tax dollars so they can maintain our highway has put on one of the best shuck and jive, obfuscate, divert attention bureaucratic bull shit Stepin Fetchit fests in history.  Sorry, I apologize to Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Perry)  and his fans. Though controversial his laziest man in the world character made him a millionaire. Unlike Caltrans, Perry had talent. Caltrans is foot dragging because they are real fools.

       What are they doing about it?  Studies, they say they will do.  Analysis and comparisons, they say they will do.

      How about dragging your public dollar paid fannies out to the road where you can walk it, drive and bicycle it?  I suspect the rough ride might even jigger on a synapse or two in your apparently dimwitted and certainly intelligence starved cranial cavity, which I hesitate calling a brain, because so far there has been no evidence of such higher  function.  Other than to collect your salaries that we paid while you have tried to ruin a highway and evinced nothing but arrogance since, that is.

     Well, the battle is being stepped up.  A Chamber of Commerce, hotel and motel owners, travelers and visitors bureaus, antique car owners and their associations, even organizers of the public service Best Buddies bike ride are chiming in.  Business owners say they are in jeopardy of loosing seasonal income.

     County government representatives and state assembly men are getting involved.  As one county supervisor who has been on this for months told the Tribune, Caltrans response has been "frustrating?"  Frustrating?  How about like something from cold war era Russian government.

     So, back to riddling questions. How to get through to these dunderheads?  Reason seems to be a skill set they are not capable of.  Back on South Ebright Street, back in the cinder alley, we found that a few rounds of bare knuckle logic could work wonders as a motivational device and behavior modification.

      But, let me take a few deep breaths, look at the rolling green mountains and cobalt blue sky and trust that enough citizens, groups and local government officials can, figuratively, draw a little blood from Caltrans and get them to repair their mess.

AFTERNOON MELLOW

    See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER-PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY

ON HIGHWAY 1

     This was the scene this week on our most recent drive through Big Sur. It was that magic stretch of Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, which took hold of our hearts on our first journey in 1969.
      As our pal Jim, who introduced us to Big Sur, said, "It never disappoints."

      There is something new along America's iconic coast highway.

   The extraordinary construction between Lime Kiln and the 

Bixby bridge continues.

   The shot below shows the massive bridge like cover that is being built in an area prone to slides and washouts.  The stone edifice is being connected to the mountain wall.

    It was just north of there where we caught up with the past.  Our Weekender Video shows you something you likely have never seen.  Enjoy.

A UNIQUE SCENE

    See you down the trail.

A BOY THING

FOREVER YOUNG

      Late spring/early summer means it's car show time
in California.  From the central coast south and north, the fabled Pacific Coast Highway will vibrate with the creations 
that are classically California.

    California is holy ground for the car culture.  Customizing
is never out of fashion.

   Even though we begin to notice "age" on some of the boys and their gals, it's lost in the shine and gloss of chrome and paint and like so many other things about playful California everything is forever young.

FOR THE REAL FAN

SEE THEM MOVE

See you down the trail.

NURTURE THEM OR A SHOT TO THE HEART?

  A RANGE OF SENTIMENT

     I'd heard that packs of wild bucks had been rampaging through open spaces and through gardens on this side of the Pacific Coast Highway.

      This morning Lana spotted a pack working on the green space just north of our place on the ridge.

             As you view these inhabitants of Cambria please understand they evoke a wild swing of reaction from their two legged neighbors.

            There are some who feed the deer, a practice generally frowned upon by most, including wild life experts.

         There are others who fantasize about deer steaks and other cuts.  

                  If only we could "thin" the herds, some say.  Bring in hunters they clamor.  Too dangerous in a village others will counter.  Then bring in bow hunters is a response.

                 Listen carefully in the grocery, coffee shop or on the street and you'll hear people recount how their gardens have been trashed and what can or should be done about it.  In the meantime the herd is growing and we've seen larger packs than in years past.

              So far our deer fence has worked.  Were it not for the fence, this pack of bucks would have been all over the blooms Lana is, this year, being able to enjoy.  
         In the meantime we co-habitate, sharing roadways and green spaces, natural and cultivated.  And the discussions
continue. 
         This is the old west and there are ways of controlling an over population.  Ways that some would be eager to employ.
        I've enjoyed a dinner of deer on many occasions. The secret, a great bow hunter told me, is to fell a buck with a single shot to the heart, causing them to die rapidly without fright and without pumping adrenaline into the meat. 
         I suspect this last paragraph may earn me an upbraiding from some.  And a plaudit or two from others.  And likely I'll hear it at Lilly's Coffee Shop, or the Cookie Crock Supermarket, or on the tennis court.  Wherever, I will have had to drive carefully to get there.  Guys like the fellow below are all over the place and seem to love to dash into the road.  Does that say something about their intelligence?  

      Or is it just the verve and swagger of a young buck in the spring?

      See you down the trail.

A WORLD APART

TORO CREEK ROAD

This new walk offers great vistas. You might find it hard to believe it is only a mile or so from the Pacific Ocean.

"It's the California I grew up in" was the comment from a

couple of hikers.

It's cowboy country to me, like scenes

from the old westerns.

You can find it off the Pacific Coast Highway

between Cayucos and Morro Bay.

Whatever you are dealing with today,

take this walk in a peaceful valley.

 Accompanied by the sound of birds, the creek and wind through the trees.

 Post card scenes of California that many do not know exists.

 Below, the sun splashes off Toro Creek.

 An old ranch homestead.

 A combination of cattle country and agriculture.

Below, old gourds wait to enrich the soil.

 Typical to ranch and farm country-a kind of museum of

old implements.

Probably some life left in this old boy.  Just waiting till it is needed again. 

 I particularly like the frame below.

Five layers of mother earth

including a fault line.

See you down the trail.

FOUNDER'S GARDENING

DOING IT LIKE

THOMAS JEFFERSON

An idea launched itself in Lana's head

as she read Andrea Wulf's Founding Gardeners.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams used

kelp to enrich their fields.

 We now had a mission-collect

kelp from the shore.

 Chinese kelp harvesters worked these Central
California shores with great productivity.

 We didn't mind being the only modern

shore harvesters.  The Abalone farm in Cayucos

uses a harvest boat to work the beds in regions

for which they are licensed.

 We found a practical purpose for those

noxious plastic bags that never seem to go away.

 There was something else the Founders

used on their gardens. To collect it

we made a quick dash just up Highway 1 to a side road.

 In about a mile and half we were

entering a new micro climate as we drove

 into the Santa Lucias along San Simeon Creek.

 The road took us into sun and to

 the area of our next hunting

 with the prize being just

 across the cattle gate.

 The founders used manure and we knew of a

great field of cow chips.

 With a collection gathered, 

 we headed back toward the ridge

 and the awaiting compost

 about to be recharged,

first with the chips and

then with the kelp.

 I asked Lana if she thought TJ used a garden hose

to rinse his kelp.

 Now we have an enriched compost heap

thanks to offal of Pacific kelp beds,

 grazed open range cattle

and the Founding Gardeners.

See you down the trail