When my photographer and his wife crawled out of bed on the morning of Sunday July 29, 2018, the sun was shining and the weather looked perfect, at least from my view through the apartment’s window. Tom and Vicki had high hopes that the weather was the same six miles away at the Golden Gate Bridge. During the first four days of our stay in the San Francisco area, fog had prohibited us from getting a good look at the historic and scenic bridge – at least in its entirety. That Sunday was our last full day in the Bay Area and we were headed for a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.
After my cameraman and his wife finished their chit-chat with Charles Ballinger and his wife in the back yard, the three of us headed for the bridge. As we got within a mile or so of the famous landmark, we could easily tell that the fog was in the air. We didn’t know how bad it was until Vicki parked the Mustang in a lot on the north side of the bridge. As we walked towards our starting point, which featured rest rooms, a bridge viewing vista, and the ‘Lone Sailor’ statue, we were disappointed that the top of the towers were still obscured by the damned fog.
The Golden Gate Bridge opened on May 27, 1937 to foot and roller skate traffic; almost a month after its four-year construction had concluded. The following day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed a button at noon in the White House that signaled the official start of vehicle traffic over the bridge. At 9:45am, we started our 1.7-mile walk to the south side of the waterway known as the Golden Gate. Although my photographer and his wife wore a sweatshirt and a windbreaker, the cooler temperature and breeze made them wish they had brought warmer clothes to wear. We stopped numerous times during our 45-minute southbound hike as Tom and Vicki admired the scenery and took shelter from the strong wind. Altogether we spent nearly two-hours on what’s billed as “the most photographed bridge in the world.”
When we got back to the Mustang, I had wondered if my photographer would take us back into Oakland to visit the U.S.S. Potomac. After all, it wasn’t quite noon yet and the Presidential yacht was less than 15 miles away. But that’s when I heard him say to his wife: “Do you want to just grab a pizza or something and go back to the place and watch the NASCAR race?” When she said that sounded good to her, I knew my Presidential sites were finished in the San Francisco Bay area. All I could do was shake my head – something I do quite well.
We found a pizza place somewhat close to the apartment; one that was self-proclaimed as the “most delicious pizza in Marin County”. Once we got the large Rocco’s Pizza back to the apartment, we tuned-in the television to the Gander RV 400 at Pocono Raceway that had already started. When the race was finished, Tom and Vicki’s favorite driver, Kyle Busch, had taken the checkered flag for his 49th career Cup victory. For me, I would’ve much rather visited the U.S.S. Potomac than to sit and watch grown men drive cars around in a circle. But at the same time, I knew that my photographer and his wife had been on the move since our arrival in San Francisco five days earlier and they needed the remainder of the day to sit back and relax. After the Commissioner of the Road Hog Fantasy NASCAR League had finished his stats for the race, the three of us hit the sack fairly early.
**********
Our alarm rang at precisely 6:00am on Monday July 30, 2018 and it was the day we were scheduled to drive south along the Pacific Coast Highway; leaving San Francisco behind as a fond and foggy memory. Before we actually got the PCH, however, we had a couple of stops to make along the way. First, we needed to ship Vicki’s Rae Dunn pottery back to Michigan as we had run out of room in the Mustang. After that two-hour fiasco at Staples in San Mateo, we made our second stop on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto.
At 10:40am, we arrived at the Lou Henry Hoover House – which was not only a private residence, it served as the home to the Stanford University president. Vicki remained in the car while my photographer carried me along Mirada Avenue until we were in front of the historic home. Upon first look, the house appeared to be a conglomeration of shapes and architectural styles. Built in 1920, President Herbert Hoover’s wife designed the home that became their first and only permanent residence. In 1928, Herbert Hoover was in the house as he awaited the election results when he beat Alfred E. Smith for the Presidency. He was also there in 1932 when he lost the election to FDR. During the Hoover’s time in the White House, they made brief visits to the house. However, when they left Washington, the Hoover’s returned to that Palo Alto home; while also maintaining their apartment in NYC. When Lou Henry Hoover died in 1944, Herbert immediately deeded the house to Stanford University and he moved permanently into the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
I posed for a few photos in front of the house; and as I stood there, I envisioned the Hoovers standing in front of the arched doorway. I wish that Tom would’ve placed me in the footsteps of Hoover where the President stood with his family in 1932, but for some unknown reason he didn’t. Even though my photographer knew that the residence was private, he also knew that we had to see what the back side of the house looked like. Tom carried me along a field stone pathway that led to the backyard of the house. I wanted to pose with that side of the Hoover home, but the foliage was so bad that we could barely see the building. After five minutes of walking around the back side of the house in search of a good place for me to pose, we gave up and returned to the Mustang where Vicki was waiting.
From Palo Alto, there was no easy and direct route to get to the Pacific Coast Highway – and that was due to the Santa Cruz Mountains. After a 43-mile drive that took us through the mountains and into Santa Cruz, we arrived at the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum that was located on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. The museum, located in the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse, opened in 1986 and was the first surfing museum in the world. The lighthouse was built in 1967 as a memorial to Mark Abbott, who died at nearby Pleasure Point surf break. After a brief look inside a museum that my photographer and his wife had little interest in, we walked around the lighthouse before we ventured south to the nearby Dead Surfers Memorial. The memorial to deceased surfers reminded me of makeshift memorials along highways where unfortunate motorists had met their demise; but the artistic renderings of this spot kept it classy.
From Santa Cruz, we were finally able to drive south along the Pacific Coast Highway. But during the entire 27-mile drive to Moss Landing, we never saw the ocean. My photographer and his wife started to wonder where all of the scenic views from the PCH were. For years they had heard about the beautiful drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles along the Pacific Coast Highway, but the only time we saw the Pacific Ocean so far was at the surfing museum – and that wasn’t located on the PCH. Once we arrived at Moss Landing around 2:00pm, not only were we around the water, we also got a close-up look at some oceanic wildlife. Vicki parked the Mustang along the dirt roadway that took us between the sand dunes along the ocean and the water of Elkhorn Slough. We walked to a nearby viewing area where we saw dozens of harbor seals sunning themselves on a beach. There were also hundreds of birds, including pelicans, gulls, terns and the ever-present black cormorants. The weather was hot, but the ocean breeze kept it comfortable for my photographer and his wife. I enjoyed watching the pelicans as they flew over the sleeping seals; while the terns and cormorants did their best to annoy the other critters.
After we had spent nearly two hours admiring the wildlife at Moss Landing, we were at a point in the day where we needed to figure out a game plan as to where we would spend the night. At one time during the creation of the agenda, my photographer thought we’d stay in Watsonville; but that well-named town was north of us and we’d have to double back. Vicki searched for a place on her phone and the only motel that seemed reasonably priced and was somewhat close to us was the Fairfield Inn and Suites in Hollister, California. Hollister was situated about 27 miles directly east of Moss Landing. When we arrived at the motel around 4:00pm, it was one of our earliest arrivals at a motel since I began travelling with my photographer and his wife in 2013. When it came time to hunt down dinner, my photographer and his wife had only two choices – fast food or Mexican, which was due to the fact that the area seemed to be primarily Hispanic. Since Tom and Vicki like to experience the local flavor, they compromised and ate at Taco Bell. Those two are so adventurous!
