Buellton

30 March 2024

The weather has lifted and in the bright, Sunday morning sunshine, Pasadena looks even more appealing than it did the night before. On East Colorado Boulevard, I sit contentedly outside the Oh La La Cafe enjoying their Breakfast Croissant, stuffed with crispy bacon and scrambled egg, with some coffee that makes me feel like I’ve been plugged into the mains.

I’m on my way to Buellton which, along with the surrounding wine-producing countryside, is the setting of Alexander Payne’s 2004 tragicomedy, ‘Sideways’. The film follows a failed writer and fading TV actor as they behave extremely badly - in their own specific ways - during a wine-tasting week in the Saint Ynez Valley.

Pivotal to the film is the ‘Hitching Post’ restaurant so I’m disappointed to learn that it’s closed, being Easter Sunday. One of the most attractive aspects of the USA is the alacrity with which the country will relieve you of your money, should you so wish. So this respect for the sabbath comes as a surprise, but more of this later.

Another absolute favourite, can’t-watch-it-enough film is Michael Mann’s 1995 epic love poem to Los Angeles, ‘Heat’. Many of the memorable scene locations are no more. Kate Mantilini’s restaurant, where Al Pacino and Robert De Niro (essaying jaded detective, Vincent Hannah and uber-thief Neil McCauley respectively), give a peerless acting masterclass closed in 2014, after a series of unsustainable rent hikes. The Centinela Drive-In where McCauley and his crew take brutal revenge on some adversaries was demolished in 2008.

But others remain and two are close to the Ventura Freeway as it makes its way out of the metropolis. The first is the house where wheelchair-bound Kelso sells the ‘score’ to McCauley, which ultimately is the cause of his and his crew’s undoing.

It’s a ramshackle neighbourhood and Brit on a bike, shed in the finest, Finnish Kevlar attracts some unwanted attention. So I confine myself to emulating the memorable shot of the pounding, twelve-lane freeway below. There is no way I’m going to start poking a camera in the direction of anybody’s house.

Making my way down the hill from Dodd’s Circle, I spy what I think is the house on stilts where a McCaulay associate meets a very sticky end. I’ve just checked and North Hicks Avenue is indeed the location.

Next is the Glendale diner where McCauley persuades a recently paroled grill-man to abandon the straight-and-narrow with tragic results. Exactly as it was nearly thirty years ago, it’s the last ‘Big Boy Bob’s Diner’ left from a chain built in the 1950s, all to an identical design.

What is striking about most film locations is just how ordinary they are. The level of skill and creativity required to create the magical images, so vivid they burn themselves permanently into your memory cells is extraordinary.

For the second day in succession, my intention to explore the low mountain ranges around LA takes a pasting. Various roads are closed due to mudslides caused by the heavy rain the day before. That said, Routes 23 from Moorpark to Fillmore and 154 from Santa Barbara to where I’m heading are excellent. But on a rainy Easter Sunday, there is just too much traffic and too many slippery surfaces. Assuming the roads through Montecito and Mira Monte are eventually re-opened, all these combined would make for a much better run-in to Los Angeles than faithfully following Route 1. The Pacific Coast Highway is rightly a Mecca for many bikers, but the best bits of it are all north of Santa Barbara, between Carmel and Morro Bay.

The connurbation before Buellton is the unattractively named Solvang, which sounds like an industrial carpet cleaner. But it’s not. It’s a genteel Danish town, complete with a vintage motorcycle museum, various wineries and restaurants.

’Solvang’ is Danish for ‘Sunny Field’ and has been occupied since 1911 when a group of immigrant Danes purchased 9,000 acres and incorporated the town. The traditional-style buildings started going up in 1947 and it’s now a major tourist destination, albeit one I failed to identify. It’s definitely the place to stop between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

After Solvang, Buellton is something of a disappointment. I didn’t book the motel with the windmill where the two principal characters loafed about, now renamed the Sideways Inn. Not that I begrudge them cashing in on the enduring popularity of the film at $140 a night. But the ‘pay-in-advance/no-changes-accepted’ policy is too onerous, particularly when the very charming and scrupulously maintained Pea Soup Anderson’s Inn is over the road for $90. Solvang’s the place to stay though.

The prevailing Northern European vibe persists, right down to the decision by most of the restaurants not to open on a Sunday night. Thankfully, the Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company is doing brisk business. Even though I’ve decided I don’t generally like Mexican food (sludgy, infant grub, jazzed up to by the brute force of spice to make it slightly interesting), I’m grateful for two superb fish Tacos and their excellent beer.