Among the world’s most famous thoroughfares is the 100-mile,two-lane blacktop that snakes along the Big Sur coast from Carmel to Cambria. It offers up some of the most stunning views anywhere, regularly popping up on travel writers’ bucket lists and at the head of top driving destination lists. Its official name is the Big Sur Coast Highway, but it was originally the Carmel-San … [Read more...] about California Highway 1
Travel
The Good Old Days, Every Day
No other Monterey Peninsula city has as many nicknames as does Pacific Grove. A sampling: “Butterfly Town, USA,” “Pagrovia,” “A Piney Paradise,” “God’s Kingdom by the Sea,” “The Last Hometown,” “A Dreamy Seaside Sanctuary” and “The Most Romantic City in the U.S.” Those are the Chamber of Commerce-style monikers…most local residents refer to the cheerful town simply as, … [Read more...] about The Good Old Days, Every Day
Big Sur Magic
It's a vast paradox... a landscape breathtakingly beautiful yet unsparingly harsh; a climate equally bucolic and brutal; a community simultaneously insular and warmly welcoming; a spirit both ruggedly realistic and dreamily ethereal. It’s Big Sur. If ever a region were appropriately named, this is it. It’s huge, encompassing some 75 miles of California coastline extending … [Read more...] about Big Sur Magic
It’s Always Sunny in Carmel Valley
There’s a buzz in Carmel Valley. Not too many years ago, that buzz would probably have emanated from the flies hovering around the horses on one of the Valley’s numerous working ranches. Now, in the early years of the twenty-first century, that sound is the vibrant hum of commerce, the buzz of business, the happy hum of people having fun. And it is a happy place; a place of … [Read more...] about It’s Always Sunny in Carmel Valley
Destination: Holman Ranch
A collection of photographs and media clippings hang in the great room at Holman Ranch, chronicling the property's rich past as a working farm, guest house and centerpiece of the Carmel Valley social scene. Portraits recall past visitors Charlie Chaplin, Vincent Price and Clark Gable, along with actresses Cybill Shepherd and Theda Bara. There's also a blackand- white of Joan … [Read more...] about Destination: Holman Ranch