Silver Surf Motel '73

It's postcard week. Why not? It's a gray chilled February and I have a lot of regular work to do, both of which cut into going there and seeing that, much less writing about it.

Back in the summer of 1973, during a family trip to California, we spent the night in San Simeon, with the idea of visiting the Hearst Castle the next day. But it turned out that without reservations, the wait to get in would have been many hours, so we went on up to coast to San Francisco. One of these days, if I live long enough, I'll drive up the California coast again and make sure I have reservations to get into Xanadu.

(I checked the Hearst Castle web site today and discovered that it "will relive its Hollywood heydays of the 1920s and ’30s for one star-studded night during the 'Hollywood to Hearst Castle' event on Friday, March 9th." Among other things, the event will include a screening of Citizen Kane, which was not known to be William Randolph Hearst's favorite movie. Heh-heh.)

We stayed at the Silver Surf Motel that night. Our single souvenir from the visit to San Simeon is this postcard, a relic of the time when hotels and motels provided postcards and stationery to guests, supposedly as a convenience but of course really as marketing. The marketing effort has certainly worked in this case: the place is getting a mention almost 40 years later.

I don't remember much about the Silver Surf, specifically -- all the motels I visited before ca. 1980 have fused into a single memory of a room with shag carpets, a color TV with bad horizontal control, orange and aqua furniture, a bottle opener attached near the sink, a paper Sanitized For Your Protection ribbon, and occasionally Magic Fingers. The back of the postcard says, "a charming garden motel... 40 attractive ocean view rooms... enclosed heated pool... putting green... children's playground... coffee and TV in rooms... 3 restaurants and cocktail lounge adjacent... all major credit cards." That last one included BankAmericard and Carte Blanche, by gar.

The Silver Surf Motel is still around. Except for the motel marquee and the color schemes, its web site pics don't look that different than on the postcard.

Item From the Past: Death Valley Day

In May Death Valley National Park sees an average daytime high of 99° F. (37° C.), according to an easily accessible climate chart, and I believe it. We piggybacked an afternoon excursion to Death Valley onto a trip mainly involving my attendance at a convention in Las Vegas in May nine years ago. I would have picked February or March for Death Valley, maybe, but the convention organizers didn't ask me.

I'm pretty sure this is the Elevation Sea Level sign on California 190, just inside the park.

It's hard to see, but the white sign fixed to the top of the green sign says Park Off Pavement. Maybe there'd been a persistent problem with people taking pictures like this one without bothering to pull all the way off the road, a safety hazard even on a desert road.

Near Furnace Creek inside the park is the Harmony Borax Works Interpretive Trail. Outdoor.com tells us that "the... trail takes visitors around the ruins of a borax processing plant that was active during the 1880s. This historic site is approached by an easy 1/4 mile paved path from the Harmony Borax Works parking lot located one mile north of Furnace Creek on Highway 190. The trail loops around the ruins of the 1800s processing plant."

At near 100°, the trail would not be so easy, especially with a three-year-old in tow, so we didn't walk it. I did take pictures, though.

At Badwater Basin, the water does look pretty bad, though Wiki claims that the pool supports pickleweed, aquatic insects and the Badwater snail. The parking lot next to the pool isn't actually the lowest elevation in North America; some slightly lower spot is off on the salt flats somewhere. But it's close enough for me.

Badwater Basin also one of the termini of an annual race by lunatics. According to Badwater.com: "AdventureCORPS Inc.... hosts the Badwater™ Ultramarathon annually in July of each year. Recognized globally as 'the world's toughest foot race,' this legendary event pits up to 90 of the world's toughest athletes [those would be the lunatics] against one another and the elements. Covering 135 miles (217km) non-stop from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney in temperatures up to 130F (55C), it is the most demanding and extreme running race offered anywhere on the planet."

Item From the Past: Socal 2001

May 24. I last visited Disneyland in 1973, though I saw the Florida part of the empire in 1982 . My visit at nearly 40 was enjoyable, and I appreciated at least one thing I didn’t at age 12. The second ride we took was the Pirates of the Caribbean, sitting in the first row and getting wet, just like in '73. This time I marveled at the detail of the mechanical characters and their movements, and the lighting and the sound effects, all so coordinated so precisely. It struck me how labor-intensive the park must be, how much constant effort it is to keep the thing running day after day. So I didn’t feel that the ticket prices — $43 for an adult — were quite so high. Disney has a reputation for rapaciousness, but at least they put on a high-quality show for the money. And the irritating A-E ticket system is long gone.

Lilly wasn’t occupied with that kind of musing, and enjoyed almost everything from beginning to end. Luckily, skies were overcast most of the day, and temps no more than 70°. Besides the Pirates, we rode — an exhausting list, but not an exhaustive one — Splash Mountain, Davy Crockett’s Explorer Canoes, the Adventureland Jungle Cruise, Gadget’s Go Coaster, the Raft to Tom Sawyer Island, the King Arthur Carousel, the Mad Tea Party, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, the Astro Orbitor (sic), Star Tours, the Haunted Mansion, the Disneyland Railroad and Autopia.

Gadget’s Go Coaster, a mild roller coaster in the part of the park known as Toontown, was Lilly’s very first experience on a roller coaster — but likely not the last, since she enjoyed it immensely, as she did a number of other fast rides, though Splash Mountain scared her enough at the end to make her cry a bit. At 40 inches in height, she just met the requirement for all but the fastest rides. Besides waiting in lines and riding rides, we also ate a meal, modest by Disney standards, and bought some items, again modest by the park’s standards. We stayed until closing — 9 p.m. — and Lilly fell fast asleep as we strolled her back to the Candy Cane Inn. We didn’t stay up much later myself, and I remember a mild burning sensation in both feet as I drifted off to sleep.

May 25. An easier day. Got up too late for the motel’s no-extra-charge breakfast, so I ventured across Harbor Blvd. to a doughnut shop in a strip mall. Cambodian family doughnuts, I believe — I once read in the WSJ that Cambodian refugees had pretty much taken over the doughnut trade in southern California, edging out the chains. Anyway, the doughnuts were good & fresh, and the proprietors could have been Cambodian, though I couldn’t recognize their language as Khmer. I never did see any chain doughnut shops as I drove the streets of Orange County.

By noon or so, we had driven to downtown LA. We parked near Little Tokyo — $3 all day, an amazing rate that would be five or six times more in downtown Chicago — and spent some time in that district, still Japanese but a shadow of its pre-WWII self, I have heard. Had an authentic inexpensive Japanese lunch there. Then we went looking for the Los Angeles City Hall, to take in the view from atop its tower, but the whole thing is undergoing renovation, and was completely closed. So we boarded the Metro subway, something that didn’t even exist when I was in town last. Very convenient, practically brand-new, and a little too clean, something like the Singapore subways.

We got off at the Hollywood and Vine station and walked westward on Hollywood Blvd., finding the street as seedy as I’d heard, but enjoying the stars on the sidewalk. By the time we got to Gaumann’s Chinese Theatre, the street had improved somewhat. The Chinese Theater was very popular, with people walking all over the forecourt impressions in the cement. Marilyn Monroe’s seemed the most popular, with a small line of woman waiting to put their hands in the prints, which looked worn. After a look at the nicely restored Roosevelt Hotel across from Gaumann’s, including a look at the room in which the first Academy Awards were handed out, we rode back downtown and picked up the car, driving back to Orange County — Knott’s Berry Farm’s Chicken Restaurant — for dinner. Tasty chicken, and Yuriko reported the ribs good too.

May 26. Another late start. More Cambodian doughnuts. Hit the road again, first stop Griffith Park. Was it too much to ask for a nice view of the city from the famed Observatory? It was. The clouds were low that morning, so most of LA was invisible. Still, the Observatory was interesting, including the bust of James Dean. We headed north from there on California 101, which roughly follows the Camino Real (signs tell you this). With half as many cars, it might have been a more pleasant drive, just like most of the other freeways in metro LA.

We arrived in Santa Barbara in the early afternoon, and the drive became much more calm on SB’s streets, which are picturesque and, but for some architectural differences, reminded me of the well-appointed streets of Santa Fe. At Mission Santa Barbara, a lovely old place, a festival was in full swing, so we stayed there awhile, eating and looking at the artwork chalked on the plaza in front of the mission. Later, we drove downtown and ambled along State Street, SB’s glossy and busy shopping street.

At 5 p.m. we came across the Santa Barbara County Hall of Records building — one of the most stunning American public buildings I have ever seen, a masterful bit of Mediterranean architecture from the 1920s. It also happens to have a clock tower which, I understand, affords a nice view of Santa Barbara. So I went to the clock tower and… it had just closed. Thwarted again in my attempts to climb to a vista.

Adios, Bear Stearns, and Thanks for the Memory

By golly, we all have our own Bear Stearns stories, don't we? No? Well, I do. And I don't mean one along the lines of the poor sap I heard about on the radio today who bought more that $50,000 in Bear Sterns stock last week, just ahead of the implosion. Or the former CEO's taste for bridge, or odd talk from the Fed about "moral hazards" or suchlike.

Back in early 1999, I wrote: " 'How does this year's convention compare to last year's?' I asked a number of seasoned mortgage banking professionals at this year's gathering of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America in February.

" 'It's more sober.'

" 'Definitely more restrained.'

" 'You should have been at Nomura's party last year.'

"The sense [of the industry] I got was like the one you feel not long after you've nearly run your car off the road. Relief, but with a tinge of dread for what might have happened."

For those who've forgotten -- most everyone -- there was a brief but severe investor panic in the summer of 1998, precipitated by the sudden devaluation of the ruble. It blew over, but left the mortgage banking industry feeling a bit sober by the time MBA '99 in San Diego rolled around. (Ah, for those halcyon, pre-subprime meltdown days. Ruble crisis? Ha!)

That's not what I remember about attending MBA that year anyway, not really. I did my company business, memories of which bundle with other conventions in other places and other times. But in those days, you got a better airfare, at least according to the company's travel agent, if you stayed a Saturday night, and the convention started on a Sunday afternoon. (Company travel agent? Saturday night stays? This posting sure is taking me back to some lost way of life.)

I'd never been to San Diego before, and because of the overnight Saturday practice, I found myself with part of a weekend there with no work obligations. Among other things, I visited the San Diego Zoo and other parts of Balboa Park, and took a walk through the Gaslamp Quarter to a place that intrigued me: the US Grant Hotel.

After that, I had to attend the convention, but there was a surprise bonus, an evening function paid for by Bear Stearns. I wrote: "I did make it to a good party at MBA this year, thrown by Bear Stearns at the extraordinary Hotel del Coronado. The theme was Marti Gras (the party was indeed held on Fat Tuesday), and the food and band had a distinct New Orleans flavor." The party wasn't bad, but I spent more time wandering around the hotel. The Grant was dandy, but the Del was
astonishing.

Item From an Old Zip Disk

May 19, 2001

Death Valley Day. Our rental car for the trip was a maroon ’01 Oldsmobile. I figured I would take that one, since they aren’t going make them any more. It served us well. We didn’t leave for Death Valley right away, however, since other matters needed our attention — sleeping late, eating a large breakfast, going to the Aladdin pool.

Breakfast was at an off-Strip casino that I’d read about, Arizona Charlie’s. Now that was a Las Vegas breakfast. Everything on the Strip is a profit center. Elsewhere, loss-leader food is still offered, and the ham & eggs & hash browns & biscuit & tea I had was about $4, and tasty too.

We headed north in the early afternoon, a wise decision as it turned out, since by the time we were in the thick of Death Valley, the sun was going down, and temps were only in the 90s. Even so, that’s hot enough, and the trip was mostly driving, but fine driving, the kind with few cars and scenic mountains and flats.

The best part by far was the “Artist’s Drive,” a few miles of road near the park headquarters at Furnace Creek. Time had colored the cliff walls masterfully, and on that road the cliff walls weren’t far away — it snakes up and down and within a few feet of the rocks. We also spent a few minutes at the side of the road at Badwater, which is reportedly the lowest point to which you can drive in the Western Hemisphere, and only two feet higher than the nadir of the hemisphere, out on the salt flat where only the foolish roam in May. If you look carefully, you can see on a mountainside near Badwater a sign 220 feet up that says “sea level.”

Wrong Way Time Zones

The Sienna’s battery was indeed powerless, permanently so. Now a new box of acid and mysterious electrons is fixed into the car, and the cars drives. Naturally, the shop found something else to do, for more money, but it isn’t wise to argue with fixing the brakes. The cost of bum brakes would be high indeed.

Here’s how the mind works. Mine, anyway. Yesterday I set up an interview with a man in California. He said he wanted to talk to me the next day, today that is, early -- 9 his time. I made a note of it: call the guy at 7. Sure, that’s an early interview, but I’m a pro. So I set the alarm for 6:45 or so. I have a short commute.

Around 4 a.m. or so, there was a little thunder. Distant thunder. I woke up for it, and thought good, we need rain. (There was no rain.) Then I thought, the interview is soon. Then I thought 7 a.m., which is... 5 a.m. in California. Dunce. I’ve been through all the time zones personally and I used to pride myself on knowing the difference between Central Time and Japan Time without having to look it up, any time of year. (I’ve forgotten this now.)

I was relived that I could sleep a little longer, but baffled that I could get something so simple backwards. Oh, well. Call it a Wrong Way Corrigan sort of thing. (Whom I just looked up. He lived until 1995.)