Top down on Highway 1, the decadence of Hearst Castle, the shortest dinner ever at Big Sur and taking it easy in Carmel.

There are many different definitions of being broke. For William Randolph Hearst being more than a hundred million in debt did not restrict the hedonistic and expansive lifestyle he enjoyed at his 'little ranch' in San Simeon.  The little ranch he alluded to was Hearst Castle.  

We'd taken a punt on visiting Hearst Castle without pre-booking our tickets because we hadn't been sure how long it would take us to drive up the coast via Highway 1 and because we couldn't make up our minds about which tours of the house to do. There are four tours on offer; upstairs suites, the grand rooms, the kitchens (note the plural) and the cottages. Standing at the visitor centre at pretty much sea level and scanning the skyline, it looks as if some stonking great church has been uprooted from the southern mediterranean and perched majestically atop the central Californian Hills. As you take the five mile drive up to the house (house does not begin to describe the extent of Hearst Castle) along a narrow and at times precipitous lane (I closed my eyes at the worst bends and put my faith in God and the mini bus driver) you are driving through grasslands and fields which were at one time home to some members of Hearst's private zoo. Imagine zebras  roaming the pasture land to your right and wilderbeest the hills to your left. Then as you turn the next corner coming almost face to face with a polar bear.  

Built between 1920 and 1948 and designed by an architect called Julia Morgan, the house is a study in how to spend money.  Different floors play host to different classical styles from baroque to renaissance to gothic. The refectory was visited by the producers and designers of the Harry Potter films for ideas on how Hogwarts should look and bits of Spartacus were filmed in the Greco/Roman inspired outdoor swimming pool. Visitors who came to stay are straight out of Black's 'Who's Who' of the twenties, thirties and forties of the twentieth century and included prominent Hollywood stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo.  The Kennedys stayed a while as did Winston Churchill, David Niven, Carey Grant, Johnny Weissmuller. At the cocktail parties of LA and San Francisco, you weren't considered to be a real star if you hadn't had the big invite up to the 'ranch'.  It seems to have been the American equivalent of the glamorous social world that in the UK we associate with Cliveden and the Astors. Coming to stay at Hearst Castle must have been a bit like living on a permanent film set.  The house was bequeathed to the state of California in the 1950s when none of Hearst's five sons could afford the upkeep despite their own significant successes in different spheres of professional life.  It was left on the proviso that nothing could ever be changed.  The furniture; the most significant personal collection of greek and roman pottery; the unique collection of art; the massive sixteenth century tapastries are all exactly as they were at the height of Hearst Castles place in American high-society.  It's quite unlike anything I have visited before.  

It had taken us about three hours to reach Hearst Castle from Santa Barbara having peeled off from highway 101 at Obispo and onto highway 1, which for the most part hugs the coastline all the way up to San Francisco.  A slow, winding road highway 1is a joy to drive and the view a joy to watch for the person who is not driving.  Having decided to hire a car at LA the deal was that we would share responsibility for driving but so far the task had fallen entirely to me.  The large and mostly empty car park at the visitor centre at Hearst Castle seemed the ideal spot for Janet to get behind the wheel and practice using the controls of an automatic and of driving on the right hand side of the road.  She was, it is fair to say, a little reticent. Five miles later I was back in the driving seat.

It was about another 60 miles to the Post Ranch restaurant at Big Sur (http://www.postranchinn.com/) which my friend Mikey had recommended.  We drove at a gentle and stately speed navigating regular hair pin bends and stopping from time to time to look at the views and give our legs a stretch. Now and then a group of motorcyclists would pass us going the other way and I would think how perfect California weather must be for a biker. We had planned to arrive at Big Sur an hour early to give us time to chill and freshen up before dinner. As we turned off the highway and on to the road leading up to the restaurant  a guard stepped out into the road and held up his hand. We stopped. It wasn't possible, we learned, to go up to the restaurant before the time of our reservation at 5.30pm. Despite our protests and pleading for him to take into consideration our wind-swept and dishevelled appearance that was the result of two hours with the top down on the car, he remained unmoved. We were eventually allowed to make our way up to the restaurant just before 5.30pm.  With a bag full of clean clothes under my arm I ask where we might freshen up before dinner. The hostess, slightly bemused pointed us to the bathroom.  Having driven for over four hours and having sat for nearly an hour in the heat waiting to be allowed in I was not, what might be called.... chilled and joining Janet at the table even the striking view from the hotel's position high on the cliff face did not help me settle.  Leaning over to me she whispered "there's only a four course tasting menu, it's $120 each and the steak is a $50 dollar supplement. Steak, on the long drive north with nothing much to eat since breakfast is exactly what we had both agreed we wanted for dinner. A good sized, succulent, tasty steak.  A hundred and seventy dollars seemed an awful lot to pay no matter how good the steak might be.  We looked at each other and then at the view and then back at each other.  We were torn.  The restaurant was lovely and the view stunning.  But one hundred and seventy dollars for a steak?  No way.  Not least because my birthday dinner at Nobu the evening before had also turned into a very expensive meal.  We grabbed our bags and stood up.    Heading for the door I tapped the hostess on the shoulder, "sorry" I said, "we're just not that hungry, we should have booked for lunch instead".  Ignoring the curious looks of the waiters and trying to appear like walking out of a very expensive restaurant was really the most natural thing in the world, once out of the door we flew down the steps and across to the car park before anyone could think to stop us.  Back on the road once more and heading for Carmel we laughed with relief.  So, thank-you Mikey if you are reading this, for the recommendation.  It was a truly beautiful restaurant and location but I am afraid we had to scarper.

An hour later we drove into Carmel.  As we made our way to the centre of the small town I felt instantly at home.  Instead of forcing itself on the natural landscape Carmel is designed instead to fit around the natural contours and habitat of the area.  Lovely houses sit nestled in the trees and, other than Ocean Street, a long straight esplanade leading down to the sea, the remainder of the thoroughfares are mainly narrow avenues amply populated with tall scotch pines and other evergreen shrubs and trees. Carmel has a large resident artists population and is famous for its fine art, sculpture and photo galleries. But amongst the exclusive boutiques and jewellery stores (there is a Tiffany on one of the street corners and a host of shops selling furs.  In September!) there are many small independent traders and lots of busy coffee shops and bakeries.   As we sat in a restaurant eating our $30 steak (expensive enough) and drinking a satisfying glass of local wine I said I thought I could easily spend a week here.  But San Francisco beckoned the day after next and another part of the trip would begin.

Breaking Waves - The Birthday

There are worst ways to begin the day than with a dip in the cool waters of the Pacific to counteract the heat of a California day which at 06:40 was already setting the sand in the distance shimmering with heat.  Sitting down on the edge of the beach where the surf gently broke and lapped around me and, in the absence of anyone else to talk to, I had a chat instead with the large colony of seagulls which congregated each morning on the short stretch of sand between our balcony and the water's edge.  It was, I explained, both a happy day and a sad day. It was a day which was in my mind a sort of watershed between what had been and what was yet to come.  Having submitted my PhD thesis a little over a week ago and with just the viva to come, I was here for a month, I told them, to contemplate the next major steps in my life. There were decisions to be made about work, and about love, and about how to raise sufficient funds for my Everest record attempt. The seagulls moved closer and settled in.  They appeared surprisingly interested.  But before decisions were made, actions executed and plans put into action, there was a very special lunch to attend.  Having finished my chat with the gulls, I walked back across the sand to the hotel but before I got there I turned and stood for a few moments looking out to sea, and couldn't quite decide how I felt about being fifty.

Janet and I had got to know parts of LA quite well. Mostly because we kept going round in circles. This was largely down to a GPS system which at one point came very close to being jettisoned. Forty minutes late for our rendeavous with Prof Bill I decided to ignore the sat nav which had taken us on some obscure tour of the LA freeways and was now directing us back to our hotel and rely instead on good old-fashioned natural sense of direction.  We arrived at last, apologetic, hot, and feeling a little bit crumpled. Bill, as ever, took everything in his stride.   Prof Bill is one of the founders of Anderson School of Management at UCLA and teaches entrepreneurial finance both at UCLA and at business schools and universities all over the world.  I had applied and was lucky enough to be selected as his teaching assistant two years running when he came to lecture at Warwick Business School on the MBA programme.  Having told me to look him up if ever I was in LA I did just that.  "Fabulous", his email reply had said, "we'll have a tour of UCLA  and then I'll take you to lunch at the Bel Air Country Club". I, in turn, said I thought that sounded just fine. And now I stood on his doorstep, stressed and hot and felt it was not quite the impression I had sought to make.  He just winked and gave me a hug.

UCLA is just a short drive from Bill's home which is in an area where, due to it's green and leafy avenues, nice homes and proximity to the university campus, many of the senior staff reside.  As we drove through the campus toward the business school he told us many interesting facts about the place and gave us a sense of it's history and stature.  The UCLA campus is beautifully maintained, accommodates modern and historic buildings which fit happily side by side and is generously dotted with mature trees and well tendered plantings. The business school is full of light, original art and plenty of places for students to congregate and socialise. Bill's portrait, along with those of the other benefactors, smiles benignly down at the students in the Entrepreneurs Hall. But the easy smile hides a tough and uncompromising and truly remarkable teacher. Never have I seen so many students raise their game in such a short length of time than when they take a Prof Bill course. Seeing him in action completely changed my approach to teaching.

Back in the car after our business school tour and on my part a little less crumpled and a little less stressed we made our way up the narrow winding roads past what I think it would be safe to call 'very desirable homes' and turned into the immaculately maintained grounds of the Bel Air Country Club (http://www.bel-aircc.org/).  Not a blade of grass out of place, not a flower beyond its prime. The greens were vivid and lush. Gardeners gardened and humming birds hummed.  As the valet parked the car we stepped into the rarified atmosphere and plush surroundings. "Come", said Bill, "let me show you the view".  Walking down the steps into the members lounge we stood for a moment and took in the panorama before us. Out, beyond the floor to ceiling plate glass which made up the whole of the far wall, the golfing greens stretched out and dropped away before us. In the mid-distance we could see the towers of the UCLA campus  and beyond that the city buildings of downtown LA.  You can see, I understand, for thirty-five miles.  It's some view.  Bel Air Country club is not really a country club but is actually a golf club and, as you might expect from the name, is rather an exclusive one at that.  As we head down to the restaurant for lunch we pass a 'who's who' of golfing memorabilia.  By this I don't mean a hat which has adorned a famous head or a golf club swung on a famous course.  No, the BACC has a series of original trophies donated by some of the biggest names in golf. There is an original Ryder Cup, an original Davis Cup, and many more too numerous to mention.  I understand it has the best trophy cabinet in the world. I nodded attentively as I was shown one remarkable golfing artefact after another. Who polishes them, I wondered, there's not a speck of dust in sight.

When we left a couple of hours later having been introduced to one of the programme directors at Anderson who was joining us for lunch ("my boss" Bill said with a wink, "she also used to be one of my students") we had talked about education, about how professional ethics had changed in the last fifty years and how alumni were becoming more and more important as sources of funding.  But most importantly we talked about what opportunities there might to work together again.  We'll be continuing that conversation in London next month.

Later, at Nobu, after drinking some fizz to celebrate my birthday, we learned that Janet does not like Sushi.......at all.

Breaking Waves - day 2 - Getting to know LA

In that brief moment between realising you have made a mistake and then taking divertive action it is surprising how much goes through your head.  Heading down a now much quieter Pacific Coast Highway towards downtown LA, we hit Sunset Boulevard in 20 minutes, drift into Beverley Hills by just following our nose; the massive houses; and the hundred foot trees,  and then are upon Rodeo Drive before we knew it.  Lucky for us it was labour day holiday, the shops were closed and the traffic very light.  Very lucky indeed as I missed a sign and found myself eye-to-eye with the driver of a large black sudan which was coming to a stop at a red light on a one-way street.  I say lucky because we, in turn, were driving the wrong way down the one-way street.  I looked at the driver who looked back at me. He didn't have to articulate "you're a dork" for me to know it.  It was, I am glad to say, my only major traffic faux pas.

Later, lost despite the sat nav which was turning out to have a somewhat idiosyncratic personality prone to mood swings and moments of petulance (not, I am sure down to operator error)  in our quest to find the Hollywood sign we stumbled off the beaten track and into the edges of an industrial district which majored in 'gentleman's clubs' and dumped cars.   Feeling the hairs on the back of my neck start to stand up, and recalling that all Americans have the right to bear arms (are they mad?) I cursed the hire car companies policy to stick bar codes on their car windows which clearly set us apart as visitors to the country.  Being thirteen shades paler than everyone else might also have been a giveaway.   

It is nearly seven years since I was last in the United States and I had forgotten what a strange country it is.  It is hugely entrepreneurial - there are small businesses and independent traders where ever you look and there appears to be no stigma attached to wealth and celebrity (but then we know that already).  But, scratch just a little on the surface and there is a parallel world which seems to exist completely independently. Having had trips in recent years which could be considered interesting but hardly relaxed or chilled (Argentina,  Cuba, Arctic Circle come to mind) I had picked a month in the States as much for a shared language as for anything.  Two days in I realise I should have packed my Spanish phrase book.

Post PhD - the Breaking Waves holiday, day 1

Arriving into one of the older terminals of Los Angeles International Airport yesterday lunchtime it put me in mind of arriving in Cuba about a year ago.  The worn-out decor, the abundance of hispanics, the litter.  How ironic really.  Having at last secured our convertible via a lengthy run-in with technology to confirm our vehicle reservation, we sat in the car pondering the Gamin GPS we had hired and wondered to whom might belong the dainty size of finger which might successfully hit the key at which we aimed. It took us 20 minutes to input the address and then an hour to drive the twenty miles to the hotel in Malibu in which Janet and I were booked.  As it said on my facebook page....the traffic. Though not helped by labour day holiday traffic, and an almost seemingly mental collective decision of the entire population of LA to head to the beach. Having worked out after a bit that the endless stationery lines of traffic were stationery because they were attempting to turn left across a likewise endless stream of traffic heading in the opposite direction, we learnt to stick in the slow lane and so grind our way along the Pacific Coastal Highway heading for Malibu. It was slow. At times very slow. But at least we were moving. Eleven hours in a metal can at thirty two thousand feet, nearly three hours to clear customs and get the car and now having to contend with holiday traffic, we so very, very much wanted to have a chilled glass of Californian white in our hands and to be sitting in the bar of the our beach front hotel whilst contemplating the evening menu. We found our hotel did not have a bar. Or a restaurant.

Websites must be taken with the merest pinch of salt.

It's important, I think, to approach all situations with a positive mind.  And having politely listened to the recommendations of the middle-aged receptionist who eventually dragged herself away from what appeared to be a lenghty ongoing conversation with a friend and who suggested that as it was labour day weekend we wouldn't get a dinner reservation anywhere, I ignored her and instead strode out into the California sunshine determined to find a fun and stylish venue for our first evenings entertainment.  I decided that the restaurant next door, which at 5.30pm already had $3m dollars worth of grand margues in the car park, might be exactly the place to start our holiday with a bang (not a euphemism, you understand) rather than a whimper. "You two scrub up well" the receptionist said as she showed us to the bar having blinked hardly at all as we had dragged our worn, tired, post-Atlantic-flight bodies through the door two hours earlier to ask about reservations. As we sat at the bar, watching the ocean in front of us swell and fold into waves which crashed onto the sand, the bar tender poured generous glasses of Californian wine and the restaurant filled up with glamorous and beautiful people. Flocks of pelican gently drifted across the skyline and small groups of curlews companionably searched for the food in the sand. As I sipped my wine, the month of post PhD recovery cum 50th birthday celebration stretched ahead of me.  I picked up my glass, raised it a little in the direction of the setting sun and thought about the future.

Finland Wilderness Training - Day 6: A real ice hotel

There had been plenty of bravado.  A night out on the ice in an emergency snow shelter built by our own hard work felt exactly like the sort of experience we had conjured up in our imaginations before this trip, which took us up close to the Arctic Circle in Finland.  At least I had.  At dinner, in the warmth of the dining room at base camp, we’d talked through how to arrange the space in the quinzee (the proper word for an emergency snow shelter) to create as comfortable a night as possible.  At 11pm, as we gathered our rucksacks and thin rollup mats, the mood was distinctly less macho.

It had taken 7 hours of hard shoveling to create our shelter which was essentially a great pile of snow about 8 feet high which you compress and then excavate, removing probably 60% of the stuff you just spent hours constructing.    You stomp about on the top of the pile at various points to pack it all down and then leave it to ‘rest’ for a bit. This provides enough time to have a cup of soup and attempt to thaw out and dry our kit around a fire.  Part two involves getting down on your hands and knees and burrowing your way in to the middle of it to create a kind of cave.  It is hard work and quite boring work and, because you spend much of your time in direct contact with the ice, you get very wet and very cold.  Hence, I think, the collective memory leading to the hesitation to leave the [relative] comfort of Basecamp after dinner and make our way down to the woods and back onto the ice.  There was also the chance we might suffocate during the night if we hadn’t made the air hole in the top of the structure large enough (the guide was smiling as he told us this so I figured that they hadn’t actually lost anyone that way yet) or that the walls might collapse if we had hollowed the space out too much. Both these things played on my mind as I made my way in the darkness across the ice.

We had worked efficiently and productively in the small team allocated to our shelter and this camaraderie continued as we discussed the best approach to organizing our mats and bedding on the ice-mattress inside the quinzee.  Arranging the sleeping bags we agreed who would sleep where and in what order people would settle in so that there was space to undress and slide into ones sleeping bag without inadvertently giving someone a black eye.  With the sleeping bags laid out, the rucksacks as pillows and with a small torch positioned as a night light it looked surprisingly cosy.   Shuffling  backwards down the tunnel and back onto the ice we stood in a small semi-circle looking up at the night sky. The moon was not yet up, the inky blackness above us was scattered with more stars than could possibly be counted and whch trickled in long strands down to the horizon.  Someone had brought a flask of Bourbon and pouring some into a cup, they chilled it with snow and passed it round.  As my turn comes I took a sip which was at the same time freezing cold and fiery hot.  As I tilted back my head and looked upwards the stars flickered and pulsed in tones of gold and green and blue.

We stood for quite some time, occasionally stamping our feet to keep warm. Then someone pointed out, low on the horizon, a haze of palest green and yellow light gently shimmering and fading, then appearing once again.  As we watch it changed slowly to a pale mulberry red and then to green and yellow again.  We think we are seeing a very minor display of the Northern Lights.  It is ridiculous how pleased we are. 

A little bit later, inside the snow-shelter it’s about minus five, which feels very comfortable compared to the minus fifteen outside.  It’s easily warm enough to shed all our layers down to our base fleece and take off our boots.  As we all lay there, in a row, in the gentle light of the torch, I realize that what seemed like an even floor is scattered with lumps and bumps of ice which stick into my shoulder and hips.  I turn over and face the wall but the air so close to the snow is too cold to comfortably breathe.  Turning onto my other side my hip falls into a depression in the snow which twists my back painfully.  I turn over again.  I listen to the rhythmic sound of breathing from the others but I still lay there, uncomfortable and unable to drift into sleep.  One o’clock comes and goes and I force myself not to keep turning so that I don’t disturb the others.  My nose keeps itching but the effort to get one of my arms out of the sleeping bag to scratch it takes too much effort so I turn my head and push my face into the strap of my rucksack which helps with the itch a bit.   At 2am I am still awake and trying not to listening too closely to the snow walls creaking and worrying about them caving in.  Somewhere outside the ice cracks loudly.  At 3am, knowing I have a long day out in the arctic tomorrow, I decide to bail out and see whether I can get a few hours sleep in my cabin so slowly I unzip my sleeping bag which sounds loud in the darkness. My arm grazes the wall and snow falls into my face and down my fleece.  I pull on my boots and decide, rather than dress in full and chance waking everyone up, I will put on just one layer over my base fleece and use my sleeping bag as insulation from the cold while I make my way back quickly across the ice.  I shuffle slowly off the ice mattress and down the tunnel into the open.  Standing up and holding my rucksack in one hand and clutching my sleeping bag tightly around me with the other, I stand for a few minutes gazing up at the night sky where the moon has risen and hangs like a beautiful silver medallion in the blackness. All is silent and still.  I feel like a tiny insignificant dot in this most amazing universe. The cold quickly begins to seep through my layers, my hands are cold through the gloves and so I turn, and make my way back the quarter of a mile to my cabin.  Just before I head into the trees at the edge of the lake, I turn around to take a final look, and see the fading end of a shooting star.  In the warmth of my cabin, under my reindeer skin, I fall quickly asleep.