Somewhere in Time Read Free

there a place called Sea World down here? Think so. See a whale jump through a hoop. Downtown. Getting hemmed in. Billboards popping up like toadstools. Just past four o'clock. I'm getting nervous.
    Why did I come here? It all seems senseless now. A hundred and twenty-eight miles for what?
    Tomorrow I'll turn east. I'll wake up early, sweat out the headache, start for Denver.
    Christ, it's like being back in Los Angeles! Surrounded by cars switching lanes, red lights blinking, angry driver faces.
    Ah; a bridge ahead. I'll take it. Don't care where it leads so long as it's away from this.
    Coronado says the sign.
    Driving straight into the sun. It blinds me. Fiery, golden disc.
    Cliffs in the distance; the Pacific Ocean.
    What's that on the edge of the water? Huge, weird structure. I'll pay my toll and take a look.
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    Just turned left onto A Avenue. Looks old, this place. There's an English cottage on my right. No traffic here. A quiet, tree-lined street. Maybe I can stay here overnight. Has to be a motel somewhere. There's an old house like a mansion from the nineteenth century. Made of brick; bay windows, giant chimneys.
    Is that it up ahead? Look at that red-shingled tower. I don't believe it.
    Just drove in the wrong way. Sitting in a parking lot behind the building. Must be sixty, seventy years old. Enormous place. Five stories high, painted white, red-shingled roof.
    Have to find the front of it.
    There's a motel across the way if this turns out not to be- it is a hotel!
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    I'm in Room 527, looking out a window at the ocean. The sun is almost down, a vivid orange slice of it above the horizon to the left of a dark cliff line. No one on the strand of pearl-gray beach. I can see and hear the surf, a tumbling thunder. A little past four thirty. This is such a restful spot, I may stay here for more than one night. Must look around.
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    Glazed by twilight, the patio looks unreal; huge, with curving walks and green manicured lawns. The sky looks like a painted studio backdrop. Maybe this is Disneyland South.
    I drove up underneath the porte cochere before and an attendant parked my car, a porter took my bags; he looked a little startled at the weight of my second suitcase. I followed him up a red-carpeted ramp to the foyer, circled a white metal bench with a planter in the middle, stepped into the lobby, signed the register, and was led across this patio. Birds were fiercely noisy inside trees so thickly foliaged I couldn't even see the birds.
    Now the trees are still, the patio is still.
    I'm looking at it from the fifth-floor balcony; at chairs and tables with umbrellas, banks of flowers. This is a chimerical place. I'm looking at an American flag flying high above the tower. What's up there? I wonder.
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    Too hungry to wait for dinner service; six p.m. in the Prince of Wales Grille, six thirty in the Coronet Room. It's only five. If I drink for an hour, I'll be out of it and I don't want that. I intend to savor this place.
    I'm sitting in the almost empty Coronet Room by one of the picture windows; asked and was told that I could still get limited lunch service. Adjoining is the massive Crown Room, used only, I gather, for banquets. Outside, I see the place where I first drove up. Was it only forty minutes ago?
    This room is beautiful. Wall panels of red and gold textured material, above them panels of richly finished wood curving to a ceiling three or four stories high. White-clothed tables, candles lit in dark yellow tubes, tall metal goblets waiting for the dinner guests. All most gracious-looking.
    The waitress just brought my soup.
    Eating now, superb, thick navy-bean soup with chunks of ham. Delicious. I'm really hungry. Which may be pointless in the long run but is something to be relished at the moment. This stunning room. This good, hot soup.
    I wonder if I have enough money to stay here indefinitely. At twenty-five dollars a day, my pot wouldn't go very far. I imagine they