“Slow Yourself Down” is a nice double-entendre slogan for what is dubbed the ”SLO Coast,” which is actually the letter designation for San Luis Obispo Airport. The bluffs, beaches, trails, parks, museums, and wineries stretch all the way up past San Simeon.
South of Big Sur, two of the animal kingdom’s biggest creatures cavort with vacationers along California’s famed Highway 1: Clydesdales and whales. The phrase has a nice, poetic ring to it, even though you would not ordinarily think to pair the gentle giants.
One is by land; the other by sea, but their iconic images have each been adopted in major advertising campaigns.
Majestic Clydesdale horses pulled the shiny red wagon in Budweiser television commercials and even made personal appearances for the King of Beers at parades.
The insurance and investment company Pacific Life’s logo and television commercials
featured a breaching whale propelling itself up and out of the ocean.
I had the pleasure of respectful, up-close encounters with Clydesdales and whales during a visit to Central California’s coastal region along Highway 1, midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Climb on a Clydesdale
Let horses do the walking when you take in the Pacific panorama from atop one of Tara Covell’s 50 Clydesdales during a 90-minute, guided ride at rural Covell Ranch in Cambria.
“We raise and train the horses from the time they are babies, feed them hay, sweet feed grain of rolled oats and molasses to hold weight, and serve as general ranch hands. They are 150 pounds when they are born and full-grown by age four,” said Chloe Key, a ranch hand with her sister Sidney, who are Tara’s sisters-in-law.
“Clydesdales are a type of draft horse, bred more for pulling, so you do not typically see them ridden, but you can ride them here. At 2,000 lbs., if they didn’t want to be ridden, they wouldn’t. They go out once a day, five days a week, so they enjoy it and don’t get bored. They love attention.”
Chloe and Sidney Key saddled up visitors to Covell Ranch who need no experience to
“ride Western” on the majestic, gentle giants with names like “Ashton” or “Babe.”
“We know all of the horses’ names and they definitely all have personalities,” said Chloe. (She recognizes all the horses, but remembers the guest’s names by writing them on her hand.)
“Slide, grab and pull the reins, and keep the tension in case you come across a turkey or deer,” she instructed. “Clydesdales turn more like a semi-truck than a sports car.”
That day’s train of eight Clydesdales went on a four-mile walk on a nature trail.
“You go up where you can see the ocean, depending how foggy it is. There is also wildlife up there – turkeys and deer, mostly. We do have foxes, mountain lions, coyotes and bobcats, but those are rare to see. They tend to stay pretty hidden,” Chloe assured.
After the trail and before Highway 1, treat yourself to “delicious food made with honor” at Brydge Restaurant, or a Ghirardelli and sea salt treat at Brown Butter Cookie Company.
At Sea to See Whales
Captain Frank was steering a six-person, 28-foot power boat in the placid Pacific past Port San Luis’ Harford Pier. It was at the start of a two-hour, Avila Beach Whale Watch cruise that he pointed out our first sight of wildlife: “An ‘otter-tizer!’” Frank dubbed the sea otter floating on its back.
“That will get us started, but the main course is coming. There is a 99-percent chance we will see finback and humpback whales.”
Kirstin Koszorous, riding along, heard this and offered confirmation. “Frank is one with the whales,” she assured me, nodding mystically.
At that point, I was seeing only the coastal California scenery, which included a view of the Avila Beach Golf Course, just down from the Avila Village Inn, with its 2,000-person, open-air, waterfront concert venue.
Katie Sturtevant manages the facility. She was also aboard, wearing a cap emblazoned with the phrase “Slow Yourself Down.” It was a nice double entendre message since we were exploring what is dubbed the ”SLO Coast,” which is the letter designation for San Luis Obispo Airport.
“We’re looking for spouts, splashes and birds to find the whales,” Captain Frank, squinting from the helm, interjected, “plus rafts of swimming sea lions…because that’s where the fish are.”
Passengers, who paid $125 for the trip, have spotted great white sharks, killer whales, and dolphins up close.
Frank’s parents live on a sailboat in San Diego. He came up to attend Cal Poly Tech, and never left. “I prefer skippering four cruises out here each day to having a ‘land job.’”
Frank proved to be a true “whale whisperer,” because we were soon surrounded by breaching whales and their fanning tails surfacing, swimming under the boat to “mug” for our cameras.
It was a primordial scene when he played the “Jurassic Park” theme on the boat’s stereo while a 40-foot whale slapped his fin on the surface. “Captain Mark told me two women once got so excited they jumped in,” Frank shrugged. “Maybe they had too many mimosas at breakfast.”
We saved our drinking until lunch at Mersea, a seafood restaurant on the pier, from which we watched Captain Frank steer back out, amongst commercial fishing boats, to entertain six new sight-seeking adventurers.
Cheers to Hearst Castle with a Glass of Cab Franc
Landlubbers enjoy Highway1RoadTrip.com – an oceanfront playground of towns midway between LA and San Francisco. Their bluffs, beaches, trails, parks, museums, and wineries stretch all the way up past San Simeon. The community is best known for its historic, 165-room Hearst Castle, a 1917 estate with 250,000 acres of gardens, antiquities, and eccentricities, including roaming zebras visible on guided tours.
Guests can toast the architectural triumph with a glass of Lone Tree Cab Franc at Hearst Ranch’s winery on a waterfront tasting patio.
“This area is like Napa with more things to do. It is less expensive and more accessible.” Kathleen Naughton told me as we sipped Chardonnay in the twilight, amidst colorful wildflowers, goats, and a barn at Phelan Farm Winery in Cambria.
Living on the SLO Coast with Lives in Wine
Naughton, a sommelier who represents the SLO Coast Wine Collective, introduced me to Phelan’s owner Rajat Parr.
“The first wine I drank was ugly wine in India, but at age 20, my uncle introduced me to good wine in London,” said Parr.
He now produces what he calls a purer, more holistic wine. “We have enough chemicals in our lives.”
Inspired by Parr’s origin story, I ordered a dish called “Roghgan Josh,” a north Indian lamb curry, for dinner at Robin’s Handcrafted Global Cuisine, in downtown Cambria. Tomatoes, green beans, mint and pineapple chutney, yogurt, and jasmine brown rice and chapati triangles with which to eat it (though two servers offered varied, spirited ideas about the best method.)
More Colorful Culinary Choices
“You have to like weird food to order it,” is the way Steve Kniffen, proprietor of the 50-year-old, oceanfront Sea Chest Oyster Bar, described a menu item called “Devils on Horseback.”
The dish was Pacific oysters sauteed in wine and garlic, topped with bacon and served on toast, served by his attentive and charming daughter, Reagan.
Sea Chest does not accept credit cards or take reservations. Plaques at the front door memorialize legendary wait times for diners who insisted on queuing up for hours before opening to secure their stool.
I stayed nearby at Oceanpoint Ranch, a charming, laid-back motel with a Moonstone Corral of firepits, Adirondack chairs, shuffleboard, horseshoes, and bocce ball. After breakfast, guests can walk off Oceanpoint’s Cow Tipper tostada steps away at San Simeon State Park’s Leffingwell Landing.
Gentle, short trails with benches overlook the coastline of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and its 6,094 square miles of ocean habitat.
Read more of Michael Patrick’s work at The Travel Tattler and contact him at MShiels@aol.com. Order his book Travel Tattler – Less Than Torrid Tales at https://amzn.to/3Qm9FjN
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