After several weeks of sulking and complaining that there’s
nothing to do in Hollister, I decided to stop being such a whiner
and find something fun to do
– even if it meant venturing out of the area.
A true sign of maturity, I began looking for an interesting yet
stimulating activity that didn’t include the words
”
hey bartender
”
or
”
vodka and seven.
”
After several weeks of sulking and complaining that there’s nothing to do in Hollister, I decided to stop being such a whiner and find something fun to do – even if it meant venturing out of the area.
A true sign of maturity, I began looking for an interesting yet stimulating activity that didn’t include the words “hey bartender” or “vodka and seven.”
I came upon an activity that blended movies, the ocean, beautiful people and money.
So I said to myself, Self, you like all those things, you should check that out.
Upon checking, I found that it was a bus tour that travels through Hollywood’s history on the Monterey Coast.
“Monterey Movie Tours,” which has been up and running for more than four months, takes its visitors on a three-hour long tour through Monterey, Cannery Row, Pacific Grove and Carmel.
Doug Lumsden, the tour director and president of Monterey Bay Scenic Tours, comments almost lovingly about scenes in more than 200 movies filmed in the Monterey Coast – some dating back to the silent movies of the early 1900s.
As I sat in the lumbering bus, eyes darting back and forth between the scenery outside and the miniature TV-screen before me that flashed scenes of the same landscapes once played before audiences on the big screen, it was easy to see why movie producers and directors would choose the area to shoot a movie.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time I’d tootled down Cannery Row or gaped at the sprawling mansions on 17-Mile Drive, but it was the first time I correlated the vast cinematic history that the area can boast of.
Lumsden’s tidbits about films, celebrities and the historical aspect of the entire area proved thought-provoking and amusing, with just enough of a gossipy edge that kept my attention focused on the tour at hand instead of the hundred-thousand dollar Ferraris and Mercedes that sped around the winding curves of 17-Mile Drive.
During the course of the trip I discovered that while many movies have been shot in the area, only a handful give credit to the location.
The lush landscape doubles for the hills of Vietnam in Mel Gibson’s “We Were Soldiers,” and the sandy beaches of Pebble Beach apparently are a dead ringer for the coast of Maine in Sandra Dee’s 1959 love story, “A Summer Place.”
The manicured links at the Pebble Beach Golf Course that deliver a stunning view of the sea were, according to Hollywood, are practically identical to the English coast when they were filming the movie that made Elizabeth Taylor a star in “National Velvet.”
Being that I’m one of the millions of people who are enthralled with the eccentric lives of the rich and famous, discovering that to this day bloodlines and friendships are still the deciding factor whether someone is inducted to the ritzy country club at Cypress Point at Pebble Beach was fascinating.
I didn’t know that acceptance based on bloodlines occurred anywhere outside of old-school East Coast clubs where the women actually have names like Muffy von Muffenstien and the men wear $1,000 socks.
After getting lost in the movies and taking in the truly breathtaking sights, I didn’t even mind paying $15 for a sandwich and a cup of coffee at the swanky Pebble Beach market. It was funny how willing I was to slap down some cash to pretend that, if just for a moment, I was part of that make-believe world of movie star lore and legend.
As the bus pulled back into Monterey and dropped me back into the much less glamorous charade that is my life, I concluded that my grown-up outing had been just what I was looking for.
Something fun to do that, if just for a little while, convinced me the small-town scene of Hollister isn’t too terribly far away from the bright lights of Hollywood.
