East Coast Native Does Not Find Big Sur Magical
In his first year of dating a native Californian, Oliver Goodstein found that there were many perks. When he and his girlfriend, Rachel Offerman-Simms, went to visit her family in Aptos last December, Goodstein was pleased to find out that the temperature was in the seventies, tomatoes grew year-round, and backyard pools were not uncommon. “And, it was so cool, Amy and Jeff”—those would be the first names of parents Amy Offerman and Jeff Simms—“just assumed that Rachel and I would share a bed. We didn’t have to do that whole sleep in separate bedrooms and sneak around at two am thing we had to do at my mom’s house over Thanksgiving.”
The visit was going so well, in fact, that Offerman-Simms planned a trip for the two of them to posh countercultural resort town Big Sur. “You’re going to love it,” she said to him. “The place is just so magical.” Offerman-Simms made reservations at Ventana (Post Ranch, a nearby hotel, she noted was “way too commercial”), appointments for side-by-side couples massages at Esalen, and an afternoon workshop on Zen and the Art of Bread Kneading at Tassajara. She even remembered to pack a book of poetry by Robinson Jeffers to, perhaps, recite by candlelight and to make a mix CD of music about the region from the Beach Boys, Beachwood Sparks, and Mason Jennings for the drive down. “I feel like if Oliver gets Big Sur, he will really get me.”
To be sure, Big Sur has long been a destination for the artistically inclined, but for every Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller, or Anthony Kiedis who remain forever changed by the rugged terrain, there is a first-time visitor who beholds the fog, hot springs, and cyprus trees and comes away unmoved. Goodstein counts himself as one of the latter. “The views were pretty, I guess,” Goodstein said. “And I had this really good roasted carrot soup at Nepenthe. But I wasn’t talking about how much I want to move to a cabin here when I’m fifty or anything. It was, frankly, kind of boring and hippieish.”
Offerman-Simms is disappointed but undaunted by her boyfriend’s ambivalence. “I told Ollie I would take him to Joshua Tree next year and we could stay in the room where Gram Parsons died,” she said, her eyes lighting up with excitement. “I mean, you know, if we’re still seeing each other next year.”
