On vacation, the mind unwinds like a highway

I rarely take a vacation. Getting away is no novelty because I often travel for my work. When I have a few days off, I stay home and tend my plants. It’s easier than planning and packing for a trip, cheaper than paying for hotels and more comfortable than sitting on a plane.

Last month, though, in the gloom of June, I was starting to feel like a potted plant -- bored, stationary, wilted. Suddenly it dawned on me: I needed to get away for fun, not work, which, I gather, is what is meant by taking a vacation.

Laugh if you like. Call me a fraud as a travel writer. I’m not ashamed to admit I had to relearn why vegging on the couch isn’t nearly as good as going on vacation. Something happens when you leave routines and responsibilities behind, when you wake up and see pagodas or giant sequoias instead of the same old clock and bedspread.

It wasn’t a big vacation, just a kind of goof, a five-day Central California road trip, full of trial and error, beginning with waiting too long to get away. By the time I drove out of my garage in L.A., I needed a sanitarium.

I made it only as far as Santa Maria. Bali would have been better, but I wanted to be able to drive home in a day. Lacking confidence in the vacation-for-fun idea, I started thinking about turning around when I hit Sherman Oaks.

But I had to go to Santa Barbara to do an interview, which served as a springboard for the vacation. Once it was done, I kept telling myself, the convertible top would come down and I’d be on my own, driving back roads, giving the horse its head, as my father used to say.

Traveling alone isn’t everyone’s idea of fun. But I like it; I can do exactly as I please. After a day or two, my thoughts deepen and I start having fascinating conversations with myself. Solitude also encourages psychological and spiritual self-discovery. I wasn’t asking for much on this vacation, just a little epiphany or two along the way.

I left home without plans, reservations or guidebooks, though I did have maps. I’m a planner by nature, but I wanted to break the habit on the trip, act impulsively, even if it meant missing something I would have liked to see or landing in a roadside Motel 6.

I had some half-baked ideas: eating pea soup in Buellton, because I’ve passed Pea Soup Andersen’s off Highway 101 many times without stopping; finding Lon Chaney’s fieldstone cabin in the John Muir Wilderness west of Big Pine; holing up at Harris Ranch Inn in the Central Valley, a veritable resort at chain motel prices, never mind the prevalent odor of manure; knocking on the door at the Esalen Institute to see whether I could get a room on the rocks of Big Sur. It didn’t matter where I ended up. How could I go wrong, with a field for ranging in as big and golden as the state of California?

Right away things went wrong. It was midafternoon by the time I finished my interview, and I didn’t want to stay in Santa Barbara, so I thought I’d drive to Ojai the back way, up winding California 150 by Lake Casitas. Then I would look for a place to stay around Wheeler Gorge, where there used to be a mineral springs resort with a restaurant and accommodations off California 33. But Wheeler Hot Springs was boarded up. A woman at the Los Padres Forest Visitors Center told me if I headed north from there I wouldn’t find any place to stay either. So I spent too much money on an indifferent filet mignon in town and ended up at the Ojai Retreat, on a hilltop in nearby Meiners Oaks. The rambling retreat center wasn’t fancy, but my $90 room was clean and quiet, with three windows around the bed, looking over treetops and birds’ nests.

After the unimpressive start, I was ready to bag the vacation. I don’t know why I went on, but the next day I drove to the Santa Ynez Valley by way of gorgeous California 154 and the San Marcos Pass. Just beyond Lake Cachuma, I found the endearing wine country hamlet of Los Olivos, a good place to stop for lunch but too tiny to hold me. I began talking about places to stay with a man at the next table. He said there used to be a lodge on a lake north of town off Zaca Station Road.

I stopped to try to find it in the phone book, but there was no listing. So I went looking for it on Zaca Station Road, over rounded hills all yellow with hay, past stables and vineyards. I never saw a sign for Zaca Lake Resort, but a nice man at the Fess Parker Winery had the phone number. When I called, I discovered that the resort is actually a retreat center, which welcomes travelers when there’s space. I got a cabin with a fireplace, king bed, whirlpool tub and use of the communal kitchen in the lodge for $110 a night. Sometimes the travel gods smile.

A meandering country lane off Zaca Station Road leads to the resort, slightly run-down but amiable, situated on a spring-fed lake, walled on all sides by steep ridges of the San Rafael Mountains. There I cooked dinner (pasta with Fess Parker marinara sauce), slept for 10 hours, swam and kayaked in the lake, went hiking and stayed a second night.

After that I did not want to go home. What did it matter if people were wondering where I was and the mail was piling up? Besides, my map told me wind-swept Jalama Beach was about an hour’s drive, along another nonpareil California road, off Highway 1 south of Lompoc. So I went there for a hamburger and sun, followed by one last night away, at Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort south of Santa Maria. It isn’t the Post Ranch Inn at Big Sur, but even the least expensive room ($165) has a private outdoor hot tub. I filled it up, got a massage, watched old movies in bed.

So was that a vacation? I would like to know. It cost too much (about $800 for four days), wasn’t perfect and went by too fast, without a glimmer of epiphany. But I felt less in need of psychopharmaceuticals afterward and was reminded that Californians never have to travel far to strike gold.

Next time I’ll do it better. Now back to the grind.