I slept fittfully last night.
The bed was so comfy it invited me to sleep longer, but I had to get up at 3.30 to ring for assistance down to the main office by 4.00 am.
The room was warm and I really didn't want to step outside in the dark with the temperature at just 10 degrees.
A young man arrived and quietly attended my luggage and we rode on an open cart down the hill to the main office of Asilomar. The fire was burning high in the fireplace in the big main room and there was a sense of unreality as I waited for my taxi… Goodness the driver arrived in shorts and an Hawaiian shirt, didn't he know that this is the same temperature as winter in the Adelaide Hills.
I slept the sleep of a completed week of sharing on the plane to LA and now I'm half way to Chicago. Goodness, there is that snow on the mountains below?
As I mentioned in previous posts Asilomar is the place to be for high level creative education and with 5 days to share new ideas and techniques in a relaxed atmosphere its something to put on your bucket list.
Friend Gale very kindly suggested a drive down the coast to Big Sur yesterday afternoon. She said I would be entranced… and indeed I was.
The sun shone, wild flowers bloomed profusely and the smell was a mixture of sweetness, pine and ocean spray.
Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the Central Coast of California where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big country of the south", referring to its location south of the Monterey Peninsula.
We drove for some 40 miles down the coast. The road was cut into the hill and wove past spectacular vistas. The Ocean below was turquoise fringed by boiling white foam, the wildflowers, red, yellow and blue covered the steep hills that rose steeply to the left.
We stopped often for a photo shoot and walked on narrow paths of wild flowers to the edge of the cliff hundreds of feet above the ocean. You could almost fly.
"You must see Napenthe" said Gale. and what a treat it was.
High above the Pacific, watched over by the majestic Santa Lucia Mountains sits Nepenthe Restaurant. This Mecca of poets, artists, travelers and vagabonds has served guests for sixty years, opening for business on April 24, 1949.
Sitting on the terrace, enjoying a glass of wine, an Ambrosia Burger, or one of our exceptional homemade desserts is a quintessential California experience.
Surprise, this was, or is the family home of Kaffe Fassett.
Of course I sampled the burger and also brussel sprouts with hickory smoked bacon and medjool dates dressed in creamy salad dressing…. yum.
We sat at a table under the paintings of Kaffe's family…
Colorful cushions seemed a signature of the beloved Quilt Artist. Needless to say the views were spectacular.
I'm having difficulty adding photos with the Internet on the plane so I will make an album on my Web Page.
We decided to capture Carol Doak and take her out to dinner. Now where is her room… no they wouldn't tell me at the main desk. "Pirates den" I know she's in the pirates den.. so we visited that dorm and walked the halls calling, Carol, Carol Doak. Its lucky we weren't arrested, but you do anything for a friend who needs a good dinner.
Our search and calling out was fruitless and suddenly Carol appeared from an apartment below the main hall. Safely captured we whisked off to the infamous Cannery Row in Monterey for a fish supper…
It was a great way to finish the day. We laughed, chatted and solved the problems of the world…
Thanks Gale. It was much appreciated.