There comes a time when the work-addled among us have to find a way to get outta Dodge. Even briefly. For sanity’s sake. Say, for instance, you are an arts journalist who has spent 10 dense days and nights covering the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. An escape route is in order.
Why not head up to the reasonably close and atmospherically renewing open space of the Carmel Valley — and, more specifically, the vast golf resort known as Quail Lodge ? That proved to be just the ticket, on many fronts, for myself and my trusty companions, wife Peggy and travel-ready hound Harper.
Carmel Valley itself is a modest and charming slip of a town, very different from the tourist-flocked, haughty hamlet of Carmel-by-the-Sea. The Valley is, by contrast, a calmer inland region, within easy drivable access to the better-known jewels of the area, including Big Sur, Carmel proper, and Monterey Bay. But you may just as easily want to hunker down and enjoy the peaceable Valley.