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Published: April 19th 2006
Rainy Fisherman's Wharf
Fog is what San Francisco is known for -- not rain! We got both, as did the other sea lion-watchers at Fisherman's Wharf. That's Alcatraz Island Light shining through the mist.
Ferndale - Santa Cruz, Calif.
Mile 1,731 Forget what I said about “sunny California” in the last entry. It’s still winter here, and we’ve had our share of precipitation in the last 10 days, some of it frozen!
In the high-elevation logging town of Redway, we were pelted with such high-velocity hail that I worried our new windshield would shatter; my umbrella blew inside out at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco; we got caught in a downpour on our bikes in Palo Alto and arrived at my aunt’s house completely soaked; plus other soggy adventures. The good news is that we’ve been able to determine that Matilda is watertight, because she’s kept us dry even in the most torrential downpours.
This entry covers our week in the San Francisco Bay area as well as highlights on our approach from the north. One of those had to be the
Kinetic Sculpture Museum in the rural hamlet of Ferndale.
Billed as California’s “Victorian Village,” Ferndale has in common with Port Townsend a cache of historic buildings and a weird sense of humor. To wit, the first Kinetic Sculpture was built by Ferndale resident
Rainbow
A rainbow greeted us in Sonoma County when we descended from the rainy redwoods to the north. Hobart Brown (see picture!), and he founded (and lost) the first race—I think there were three sculptures. That original Kinetic Sculpture Race (I guess “skulpture” is a Port Townsend invention; they spell it with a “c” here) has grown into a 3-day, 36-mile slog from Arcata to Ferndale, and now there are many other races staged around the world (including a 2-day race in Port Townsend).
From Ferndale we followed the swollen Eel River, which was flooding its banks in places, into the Russian River Valley. In one day’s travel, we experienced a dramatic change in landscape, as the dominant vegetation morphed from redwoods to grape vines. In wine country, there seemed to be more sunbreaks, and even a rainbow or two.
We camped in Cloverdale (Sonoma County) for two nights, and of course had to go on a wine-tasting tour in the adjacent
Dry Creek Valley, famous for its zinfandel. Jeff had never before experienced this rite, and got quite a kick out of visiting four wineries in one afternoon and sampling their wares. We especially liked the tasting room in the manmade cave built to store aging wine casks, and the opportunity to hold one of Raymond Burr’s
Flooded Vineyard
All the rain flooded some of the vineyards along our route. -In this favored agricultural region, grapes are grown everywhere there is a scrap of available land. Emmy statuettes (did you know the late Perry Mason actor also planted grapes and has a
wine label of his own?). I wish we had a wine budget so we could have purchased a $50 bottle of Raymond Burr port that was the best stuff I’d ever tasted!
We also visited the
Solar Living Center in nearby Hopland. With Jeff’s interest in alternative energy options, we had to check this out. It’s a 12-acre demonstration center for renewable/sustainable energy, agriculture and building that was started by the
Real Goods company. Unfortunately, the center had suffered a lot of flood damage in the recent New Year’s Day flood, and not much was growing in early March, but we enjoyed browsing the cob-built Real Goods store. I discovered there is such a thing as a t-shirt woven of 30%!c(MISSING)otton and 70%!b(MISSING)amboo!—but they didn’t have one in my size.
The
Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, only three years old, was definitely worth a stop. Does the name ring a bell? That’s right, he’s the cartoonist who charmed the world with “Peanuts” (a strip he wanted to call “Li’l Folks,” which his editor wisely vetoed). The museum was a clever and fun memorial that elicited
Jeff Tasting
Jeff lifts a glass at the Ferrari-Carano Winery, one of the four at which we tasted in the Dry Creek Valley. frequent chuckles from all the visitors browsing the exhibits. As we left, Jeff said he realized he’d married a Lucy. I countered with, “Don’t be such a Charlie Brown!”
As we approached Vallejo, on the eastern edge of San Pablo Bay, I wanted to show Jeff where I had spent three months as an intern for the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge in 1999. Earlier that day, we’d tracked down my boss from that time period, a wonderful biologist and human being named Louise who now works for the Napa Co. Land Trust and took an hour out of her day to meet with us. She’d warned me that Mare Island, a former navy base that had been closed in the early 1990s, looked quite different than when we’d been stationed there.
And sure enough, there was a new bridge to the island from Vallejo and a brand new residential subdivision where our temporary office building had been. Jeff was fascinated by the details of the
public-private redevelopment of what had been the oldest naval shipyard on the west coast, and we spent some time in the city museum as well as the “welcome center” for potential homebuyers
Glass of Raymond Burr
Our barista pouring us a taste at the Raymond Burr Vineyards & Winery. All wines made from grapes planted by the famous (late) actor. or commercial interests. There are two functional drydocks on the waterfront, but we were told environmental regulations will probably prohibit them from being used for shipbuilding ever again. We will definitely have to revisit Mare Island in another 10 years to see all the changes.
On we went to Pittsburg, the northernmost city on the light rail (called BART) into San Francisco. There we were welcomed into the home of my childhood friend Nat and his wife Diane and one-month-old baby Frank. We didn’t want to impose on the new family, but were assured that visitors were welcome to relieve the monotony of feeding Frank every two to three hours and not really being able to leave the house. Diane’s mother had just left after a month’s stay and Nat’s parents were scheduled to arrive in a week, so our five nights with them neatly filled the visitor gap.
Plus, Nat loves to cook for guests, and we gladly partook of meals of potstickers that we helped make, an east Indian-inspired curried salmon that went beautifully with the bottle of rose' we’d brought from Dry Creek, and grilled steaks whose two-handed consumption proved the usefulness of a Snugli
Shelly with an Emmy
Shelly holds one of the Emmy statuettes awarded to the Perry Mason actor. (see picture).
Chalk up another one to baby experiences, as we were privileged to help hold and soothe little Frank during the day—yet didn’t have to get up four times during the night to feed him! There are more pix of this cutie on his
very own website.
Our San Francisco-area trips included:
* An Oakland visit with my college chum Juliet, who is very close to finishing her PhD in natural resource management at UC Berkeley. Her thesis is on water rights of the Russian River, so we heard all about the issues of the watershed from an expert. By a happy coincidence, a fellow Chapin House resident was visiting Juliet that weekend, and I was reunited with Lydia, whom I hadn’t seen since the summer after graduation. She now lives in L.A. and has invited us to stay with her there! We met Juliet and Lydia at the famous Buddhist Thai Sunday brunch in Oakland and enjoyed good food at outdoor tables during a lull in the rain.
* A visit to the Berkeley home of a young bicyclist my mom and dad encountered on their west coast bike trip last fall, but whom we’d never
First Kinetic Sculpture
The very first Kinetic Sculpture, built in Ferndale, Calif., and raced in the first race. met. Walt was having a solo adventure after graduating from the University of Washington, and was impressed to meet recent retirees taking the same route. He liked my parents’ company and apparently ours, too, for after a wonderful dinner, he invited us to stay for a board game, and proceeded to beat us and his girlfriend Bonnie at “Settlers of Catan.” We had a rollicking good time with yet another “recommended stranger.”
* An evening of improv theatre at Fort Mason in San Francisco, put on by a group called
BATS. Recommended to us by Walt as great entertainment, it really was. After a round of “theatre sports,” we enjoyed an hour-long improvisational production of “The President,” a title suggested from the audience by yours truly. I was hoping for some political commentary, and we got it, San Fran style! The “play” wound up focusing on a secret service agent who twice tried to take a bullet for President Bush, and didn’t succeed the second time. Since the first assassination attempt was by an armed man posing as a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle, the next scene was the president announcing that all of San Francisco would be
Kinetic Sculpture Museum
Some of the sculptures in the Kinetic museum -- wild and wacky, as always! (We have an especial fondness for these things, as there's a Kinetic Sculpture Race in Port Townsend each year.) shut down for “homeland security investigations,” because you know they all voted for the other guy in the last election anyway.
* Some sightseeing revisited, since Jeff and I had paid a visit to San Francisco two and a half years ago when we took the train from Seattle. We returned to Fisherman’s Wharf (in the rain) and two days later to the Presidio. There we cycled up and over the Golden Gate Bridge (sorry, Matilda, to leave you in the parking lot!), and hung out on the observation deck for nearly an hour, watching the ships pass under us.
Winding down to the present, we drove our first section of Highway 1 south from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay, then cut over to Palo Alto, the home of Stanford University and also my aunt (well, really my mom’s cousin) Megan and her daughter Cayley. We spent the last two nights there, and Megan took me to a book release for a novel called
"The Dreamweaver" by a philosophy professor, who gave a mini lecture on the utility of the soul as a construct—a fitting experience to have in this academic enclave.
There was also time for
San Pablo Bay
The marshlands of Mare Island, where Shelly interned at the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge... visiting Megan’s parents, Clint and Margie. Margie is the sister of my grandmother, who died before I was born, so I like to hear the family stories she tells. This time we were privileged to view a family photo album compiled by my great-grandmother.
Today is Friday and we spent it in Santa Cruz, another university town famous for its nightlife. Certainly the downtown was hopping until 9 p.m., when we left (I’m afraid we’re not much for actual nightlife) after dining on Japanese food and gelato. We watched the sun set from the Santa Cruz municipal pier, and marveled at the hearty surfers in the chilly waters below. Probably not even rain stops them from trying to catch that perfect wave.
Well, it’s not stopping us, either. Until next time…may the sun shine for you, dear reader, wherever you are!
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Donna
non-member comment
Such vicarious fun!
I am really enjoying your travels, descriptions, and, most especially, beautiful photography! Thanks for sharing so much of the trip with all of us.