Southern Big Sur California Day Trip by Ruth Paget
My husband Laurent, daughter Florence Paget, and I began our tour of Southern Big Sur California at Morro Bay, about 5 miles to the coast from San Luis Obispo.
Morro Bay is famous for its oysters, portside seafood restaurants, cozy hotels, and charter deep-sea fishing boats.
There is plenty of public parking across from the portside restaurants that make it easy to dine, stroll, and shop. Morro Bay sits directly on Highway 1, making it an easy to go up the coast north to San Simeon and Hearst Castle as well.
If you turn right from Highway 1 at San Simeon, you can drive up the hills to Hearst Castle for a visit or just shopping at the gift shop, which has copies of the Hearst Castle cookbook.
The day we did our tour, we wanted to eat along the oceanfront and travel as far as we could in Big Sur before the highway closure point. We ate lunch at our favorite restaurant along the coast – the Cavalier Oceanfront Resort.
The Cavalier and hotel have been in Big Sur for the 30+ years that we have lived in California. We always went to this restaurant after visits to Hearst Castle when Florence was a child. Our main reasons for eating at the Cavalier are the excellent clam chowder and fish and chips with tart yet creamy coleslaw. I like the Cavalier’s comfortable booths, marble top tables, air-conditioning, and clean bathrooms, too. It is very enjoyable to eat at this restaurant.
On our day trip, we sampled the charcuterie platter, which came with locally produced ham and salume, slices of a cheese that resembled Manchego, dry toast, goat cheese, cranberry sauce, and large-grain mustard. That was a great start for the fish and chips Laurent and I ate and the turkey club sandwich that Florence ordered.
After lunch, we set out for the climb up along Highway 1 to Big Sur. Along the way, we passed a pullout for sea lion viewing. The sea lions roll in the surf and sun themselves on coastal rocks with occasional bursts of sea water showering on them from sea water crashing on the rocks.
Highway 1 begins to rise up at San Simeon and go from a two-lane highway to a single-lane highway with no passing just turnouts for slow drivers. Only 28 miles of Highway 1 is open from San Simeon due to falling rocks and repairs from landslides.
The fantastic views are worth the thrill of driving along the curvy highway. There are restaurants, hotels, gas stations, bathrooms, and general stores located at Ragged Point and Gorda Springs. Trees from Limekiln State Park line the way till you see sheer drops down to the ocean on the southbound lane side of the road.
We turned around at Lucia (28 miles from San Simeon) and took Highway 1 back to Highway 46, which cuts over the hills to Paso Robles and Highway 101 by the Firestone Walker Brew Pub.
Highway 46 goes through a good portion of the wine country of Paso Robles. Each inch of ground seems to have a winery on it. I looked at the wineries and thought they should all have markets with foods that go with wine and wine-related products like wine vinegar, picnic tables, bistros with live music, and maybe some artwork and books for sale.
I had fun thinking of wine country marketing ideas on the way back to ag capital Salinas, California with its 120+ agricultural products grown in Monterey County.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
