Page 71 - 2014 Travel Guide to California

Coronado, where Marilyn Monroe frol-
icked in Some Like It Hot; classic surfing
beaches made famous by the Beach Boys;
star-studded Malibu; Riviera-like Santa
Barbara; Hearst Castle; Big Sur; Santa Cruz,
with its old-timey beach boardwalk; San
Francisco; Point Reyes National Seashore;
artsy Mendocino; Redwood National Park.
A few tips: Allow far more time than you
think you need; besides the frequent diver-
sions, the road is so winding in places it’s
hard to average more than 30 miles per
hour. If you’re prone to carsickness, this
isn’t the trip for you. Keep your gas tank
full and your bladder empty. In some areas,
particularly Big Sur, it’s more than 40 miles
between gas stations—and bathrooms.
The northern stretch traverses ranch-
land that was once—and sometimes still
is—the domain of Basque sheepherders,
and in the town of Gardnerville, just over
the border in Nevada, you have your choice
of excellent Basque restaurants. As you
drive south, keep an eye out for cowboys,
although these days they’re as likely to be
riding an all-terrain vehicle as a horse. Far-
ther south, as you approach Mono Lake,
you’ll probably encounter members of the
Washoe and Paiute tribes.
Highway 395 grazes the shore of enor-
mous Mono Lake, which is so alkaline
Mark Twain once joked he could do his
laundry merely by dragging it behind him
in a boat. In Bishop, the studio of the late
photographer Galen Rowell has become a
major attraction. Stop at Manzanar, just off
the highway, for a poignant visit to the site
of a relocation camp for Americans of
Japanese heritage during World War II. In
Lone Pine, the Indian Trading Post sports
HOTEL DEL CORONADO in
San Diego, left; Mono Lake tufa
formations, below; winter travel
on Highway 395 along the eastern
Sierra Nevada, bottom.
Cowboys & Indians
East of the Sierra Nevada the green, populated
West Coast ends and the brown, sagebrush-
covered West begins. This is the Old Frontier
of our imagination, a realm of real cowboys
and real Indians (and also, as we shall see, of
cinematic cowboys and Indians.)
Highway 395 hugs the state’s eastern
border, and the 264-mile stretch of high
desert from Reno to Lone Pine, which
passes tumbleweeds, swinging-door
saloons and ghost towns beneath the
breathtakingly sheer eastern wall of the
Sierra Nevada, is one of California’s most
iconic drives.
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