So TS1 and I are in San Simeon for the weekend. We were hoping to go to San Diego but if you’ve checked the price of plane tickets lately you’ll understand that 400 miles of gas for Seven plus hotel (which we wouldn’t have had to pay in SD) is still less. This was the longest one day drive I’ve done in years but turned out to be not a problem; we left around 11, stopped in Soledad for lunch, and were at the hotel by 2:30. Yay, medicine.
Though it was nice and sunny in Mountain View and all along our drive, once we turned north on Highway 1 there were grey skies and low fog on all sides. Even though the Pacific was at points only a few dozen yards away the water was barely visible. Reminds me very much of the few weeks in 1996 when I worked in South San Francisco and lived in Pacifica–you hit Hickey Blvd. and the sunshine disappears like a black stage curtain dropping.
We were tired anyway and decided to take a couple of hour rest. Our package included dinner at one of a few local restaurants. We choose Mustache Pete’s, with a selection of meat-free pasta dishes, over in Cambria. Assuming there would be some stores to browse and window shop, with possibly a caramel latte for my sweetie, we headed over a couple of hours before dinner.
This was one of those times when assuming turns out to be wrong. Cambria is a tiny town and the main drag is fronted by art galleries, tchatchkie shops and real estate offices, with a few restaurants and bars. This was about six o’clock on a Friday night. Approximately four of the stores and several of the restaurants were open but not one of the coffee shops was.
People, this is a tourist town–there were no shoe, women’s clothing, book (okay, a couple of odd used/collectible book places) or office supply stores the length of Main Street! I’m not asking for Starbucks or Peet’s, just for some liveliness early on Friday. Essentially everything but the restaurants and bars were locked down by five p.m.
So we got a nice bit of soft exercise in, walking around in the chilly foggy air, and decided to head to the restaurant an hour early. As the place was less than half full, with most of the crowd a big fancy family celebration of some sort, the host was happy to seat us. He did have a big bushy mustache but turned out to be Neal and not the eponymous Pete. We had a good meal, very generous salads to start with vegetable lasagna and spinach stuffed shells in Alfredo sauce shared for the entrees. Other than a nice tip for the friendly waitress, no charge!
Still early but we decided to make an early evening, to get a good rest for the centerpiece of our trip, the Hearst Castle tour tomorrow morning. Sweetie’s never been and my only visit was in the summer of ’76. I hope to shoot a bunch of good photos tomorrow, maybe enough for a new gallery.
BillSaysThis 