*********************
After two nice weeks with family, Barbara was pretty much her old self,
just with different eating habits. No grease. We made the long trip back
leisurely, seeing the sights. At Zion, I was amazed at the very tall cliffs. We
saw a tiny figure, two thirds of the way to the top. Binoculars proved it was a
climber, carrying his bed along. An overnight trip. In Death Valley, we saw a
giant black cloud just rolling across the sands to us. A huge sandstorm. Back
in Hollywood, we saw Paramount Studios. The emergency brake on our car just
would not release upon leaving, and we had to be towed. Again. A big comedown,
after just meeting Goldie Hawn, and seeing the other stars.
Back
home in our RV Park, we were awakened one morning by a young woman, knocking on
our door. When I opened up, she said, “I'm Cindy.” She started to sidestep me,
and come on in. I cut her off, saying, “I don't know you, Cindy.” She looked
puzzled, then walked back to a man who was waiting for her across the street.
They talked, he made a phone call, then she walked to the RV next door,
knocked, and was let in with a smile. She stayed there about half an hour, then
her and her Pimp walked off.
We
headed up the coast. We were on our way to the Hurst Castle, and being early, I
stopped at Moonstone Beach. The trail down the cliff was so steep, and it was
so windy, Barbara stayed in the car. The beach below was hidden from the
parking area. I really got into this moonstone hunting, and stayed a good
while. I found lots of pretty rocks, surely at least one was a moonstone. When
I finally walked out to where I could see the top of the cliff, Barbara was
waving her arms and shouting, but her words just floated off with the wind. Her
face told me a lot, though, and I quickly climbed up. She was scared, thought I
had just disappeared. I caught it pretty good over that. We may have been a few
minutes late for our appointment at Hearst Castle, but we still caught the bus
and headed up.
Hearst Castle was built by William Randolph Hurst, the Newspaper
Magnate. He went way over the top on everything. The grounds had many exotic
animals roaming about, from all over the world. The swimming pool was lined
with gold, and the castle itself was monstrous in size, and contained exotic
furniture and paintings from all over the world. William Randolph Hurst was a
man who could not be denied. In his travels, if he found something he wanted to
put in his castle, the price offer just kept going up until he had his way. A
big portion of the bus top blew off on the way back down. It can be windy in
California.
The
Remington Mansion was huge. The Remington Arms Company financed it. Mrs.
Remington, haunted by the ghosts of all the people killed by their product just
kept building on it as long as she lived. Stairways to nowhere, doorways with
no opening, On and on. As I was typing “Remington” the first time I wrote this
story, one of those ghosts must have came after me, because I just hit a normal
key, I thought, and the whole story just disappeared from the screen, never to
live again, leaving only the word Remington. I'm not a fast writer, and that was two day's work for me. Believe,
me, I am now typing this paragraph very gingerly, not wishing to anger anybody,
or any thing.
The
Big Sur coastline was magnificent, and we even walked on Pebble Beach Golf
Course. Years later, Corey and son-in-law Mickey paid in advance for a trip for
us to Pebble Beach. A week before, Corey hit his drive a mile at a course in
Florida, and as always, I felt I should swing as hard as I could to try to stay
somewhat close to his. My back went out, bad, maybe my worst. But there was just
no way around it. I had to play Pebble Beach. What else could I do? The course
of a lifetime, the chance of a lifetime. I left a lot of pain lying about on
Pebble Beach, and my scorecard overflowed. But I played it.
Next stop, San Francisco. As with many cities on this trip, with time
not being a limiting factor, we just jumped off into the city and quickly lost
ourselves. Actually, one cannot truly get lost if you have no destination, as
long as we eventually met back up with our RV. At lunch time, we stopped at
Little Orphan Annie's. Turned out, once we were seated, we realized it was
really “Little Orphan Andy's,” and we were the only straight people about. I
was trying to decide whether to stay or not, and my legs were out in the aisle.
The waiter walked up, looked at me, and said, “Are you STAYING?” I stammered
out, “Just long enough to eat.”
Once
we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, we stopped, debating about whether to take
safe highway 101, inland a ways, or tackle highway 1, in the RV, along the
cliffs. An old full time RV'er told me
once on Prince Edward Island, half a world away, that driving an RV on Highway
1 north of San Francisco was the ultimate test for driving an RV in the world.
“If you can drive it, you can drive anywhere.” Well, that was too much of a
challenge to pass up. After we started up the winding road toward the cliffs,
we stopped at a station. I asked the operator, “Have you seen many people
driving RV's past this point?” “Well, I have seen a few, but they almost always
come back in a few minutes.”
When
we went on up, It got bad quick. I had to sling the car off in the ditch on a
hairpin curve to avoid bikers coming down. Once out overlooking the ocean, the
road was just a tiny shelf along a high cliff, and if one is brave enough to
look ahead, it was the same for many miles. At least, I had the inside, going
north. Barbara tells me that drive was beautiful, but I didn't see it. All I
ever saw was ten white knuckles over the top of my steering wheel. After 50
miles, I was done in. We went inland to 101 and eventually parked it, driving
out to see the good view in the car. I began to realize Barbara was right. The
scenery was breathtaking.
No comments:
Post a Comment