Page 30 - 2023-2024 Travel Guide to California

ROAD TRIPS
TCL CHINESE THEATRE
(formerly Grauman’s Chinese
Theatre), Los Angeles, below;
Victorian Hotel del Coronado,
San Diego, right; SAUSALITO,
opposite top; Anza-Borrego
Desert State Park, opposite
bottom.
erns, starring everyone from Hopalong
Cassidy to John Wayne, filmed in the nearby
Alabama Hills.
A couple of tips: Springtime, when the
Sierra is still clad in snow, is the prettiest
time for the drive, although some side trips
may be limited; for an overnight stop, the
town of Bishop offers the largest selection
of motels and restaurants.
Day Trips
You don’t have to spend days or weeks on
the highway to see the best of California.
Within easy reach of major cities are exqui-
site road trips you can do in less than a day.
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.
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
Museum of Western Film History pays
tribute to the hundreds of Hollywood West-
San Francisco
Head north, across the Golden Gate Bridge,
to sample some of Northern California’s
most bucolic scenery. Fortunately, most of
it was spared by the devastating fires of
recent years. Almost within sight of San
Francisco’s skyscrapers you’ll come to Muir
Woods National Monument, a cathedral-
like preserve of old-growth redwoods at the
foot of Mount Tamalpais. Follow Highway 1
to Point Reyes National Seashore, where
you might catch tule elk grazing on misty
hillsides above the wave-battered coast.
West Marin County, with its organic farms,
28 2023-24 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA
artisanal bakeries and gourmet cheese-
makers, is the breadbasket for San
Francisco’s foodie culture. Stop for lunch at
the Hog Island Oyster Co., where you can
munch on bivalve mollusks pulled straight
from Tomales Bay. The long, narrow bay,
incidentally, is a submerged section of the
notorious San Andreas Fault. Farther north
on Highway 1 you’ll come to Bodega Bay, a
sleepy fishing village where Alfred Hitch-
cock unleashed avian terror in The Birds.
The Tides restaurant, where terrified
townspeople took shelter, is still there,
although hardly recognizable in its current
form. A few miles inland, in the separate
town of Bodega, you can find the familiar
schoolhouse and church from the movie.
Continue on to Sebastopol, renowned for
its juicy Gravenstein apples and for being
an outpost of Sonoma County’s wine country.
Turn south on Highway 101 and head back
to San Francisco, stopping for a celebratory
cocktail in Sausalito, with the lights of the
city twinkling across the bay.
Los Angeles
On a day trip along the Angeles Crest Scenic
Byway you’re more likely to spot a bighorn
sheep than a Kardashian. As you wind up
and over narrow ridgetops in the San Gabriel
SEAN PAVONE/SHUTTERSTOCK; MEUNIERD/SHUTTERSTOCK. OPPOSITE: JNJPHOTOS/SHUTTERSTOCK; JON CHICA/SHUTTERSTOCK