I have long dismissed Carmel, Calif., as an enclave of the megarich.

The place has more than its share of mansions, old and new, but I’ve had to swallow my dismissive words.

My wife and I spent two days recently in Carmel and found it to be a fascinating place that can be enjoyed at a reasonable price.

We stayed at the Green Lantern Inn, a 1920s vintage set of cottages four blocks from the beach. At the north end of the beach, we observed the fabled Pebble Beach golf course. Among Carmel’s vast array of art galleries, we found two that specialized in early California painters. We enjoyed three restaurants of distinctly different and reasonably priced cuisine.

The most wonderful curiosity we discovered is a storefront AM radio station that specializes in jazz. The jazz aficionado and former Carmel mayor, Clint Eastwood, appears to be something of a patron to KRML, which streams its signal on the Internet.

The temperature was in the 90s during our visit. It was especially pleasant to walk the beach and watch surfers and dogs reveling in the breakers. When we drove south to the legendary Nepenthe restaurant for lunch, it was 102 degrees in Big Sur.

There is plenty of big money in Carmel. As we left the beach one day, we observed a young man wearing a dark suit, white shirt and necktie standing by an SUV with its hatch-back open. Rowed up neatly in the luggage compartment were the owners’ shoes. Presumably, the young man was the chauffeur for the owners of the SUV who were dipping their toes into the ocean.

As my wife and I drove from Carmel to San Francisco two Saturdays ago, we learned that her mother had died. The funeral, which followed in Independence, Mo., on Wednesday, was a cathartic experience.

Deac Guidi was in his element playing a Jet in West Side Story.A Baptist clergyman, who was my wife’s high school chum, delivered a homily that mixed passages from the Bible with reflections on Goldie Penner’s extraordinary life. This was a woman who began her life in the Ozarks and moved to the Kansas City metropolis during World War II. She had an eighth-grade education, and she raised two children who were the family’s first college graduates. All five of her grandchildren have graduated from college and one is attaining his master’s degree. Goldie’s sense of purpose is evident in all of them.

While in San Francisco, we discovered the jazz club Yoshi’s, where we saw Nicholas Payton, the trumpet soloist who channels his New Orleans lineage in a nouveau harmonic. With his pianist, bassist and two percussionists, Payton spent the evening in long improvisations. Between his own riffs, Payton faded to the back of the stage and sometimes left entirely. He is a man of considerable talent and substantial modesty.

As an element of San Francisco’s Japan Town, the interior of Yoshi’s restaurant, which adjoins the jazz club, is defined by an array of screens and tapestries. If you like Japanese cuisine, Yoshi’s will send you into ecstasy.

Speaking of ecstasy, the final weekend of the Astoria Music Festival was a smash hit. The Friday night program of Appalachian Spring and West Side Story was especially energetic. Seeing the finger-snapping Deac Guidi playing a Jet, my wife said: “This is the role he’s been waiting for.” The California-based tenor who played Tony hit the high notes of “Maria” without straining.

Sunday afternoon’s performance of pieces by Purcell, Vivaldi and Mendelssohn was a very rich meal. The men and women who ran this year’s festival did a resourceful job of bringing new life and financial health to one of Astoria’s major arts assets.

– S.A.F.