Hello Everyone!
The weather is very strange here in California. There is a lot of snow up in the mountains and a lot of rain in the rest of the state. Even the desert is getting rain right now. We desperately need all of this water and it’s generally a very good thing but it doesn’t make for great traveling weather. My plans to head to the mountains first were changed to a nice drive down the coast, but then landslides closed Route 1 so I’ve been hanging around somewhere in between. I’ve gotten to some nice museums this week and eaten some delicious meals, but I haven’t done too much or traveled too far. The price of gas in California is outrageous, so when I’m driving it needs to be deliberate. I have been getting through some of my Arizona photos from last winter and working on my podcast and I’ve definitely been getting to the gym every day so that’s good. But I really want to explore California with the time I have and this week has been more about reacclimating to the van life and trying to stay out of the way of the weather.
I started this leg in Sacramento, where my buddy Dave had been watching my van while I was at home and in Europe. I was hoping to head up to Lake Tahoe from there to visit some friends and get some skiing in, but the snowstorms in the mountains closed the roads and kept me from going. I spent a couple of days in Sacramento trying to wait it out, visiting the State Capitol and a few museums and getting a few things fixed on my van before giving up on the mountains and making my way out to Napa Valley.
Downtown Calistoga
Napa Valley is not my favorite region of California. I have spent a fair bit of time there over the years trying to find some places I enjoy, but to no avail. It’s a beautiful valley and I enjoyed driving through it, especially with the early spring bloom going on, but it’s a very wealthy area which has been built up to welcome the moneyed elite and not the average Joe. It reminds me a lot of Hilton Head in South Carolina and I just feel very out of place there. I know some people really love it and return year after year, but it’s just not the place for me. I did enjoy a brief visit to the Robert Louis Stevenson museum in St. Helena which, while small, has some interesting artifacts from Stevenson’s life and his time in California. Stevenson spent his honeymoon squatting in an old miners’ cabin in Napa Valley, a story he recounts in his book The Sacramento Squatters. I also had a delightful meal at Bouchon in Yountville which is owned by Thomas Keller, one of America’s most famous chefs and an inductee in the California Hall of Fame. Keller also owns The French Laundry down the street which has twice been named the “best restaurant in the world”, but at $300 a head I opted for the cheaper Bouchon. My dinner was excellent, but the service was really what stood out for me as it was exactly what one would and should expect in such a place. I will definitely be back to try something different on their wonderful menu.
Bodega Bay Harbor
Thursday night I left the valley and made my way west to Santa Rosa. My old tour company was based in Santa Rosa for many years, so it is definitely a familiar place for me. Thursday night I went to a stand-up and improv comedy show at a very cool local non-profit venue called The Lost Church. The stand-up part of the evening was great with some truly talented local comedians, but the improv part was, as I expected it to be, disappointing. I have never understood improv because I see comedy as an art and a difficult one and it’s something which takes a lot of time and finesse to do well. Improv is made up on the spot and I’ve just never seen the point of it as it’s rarely funny. I feel for the people doing it because it’s not easy but it’s usually just a cringe-fest and this was no different. Thankfully it didn’t go on too long and I made a quick exit when it was over. I headed out to the casino for the night and enjoyed a very good sleep.
I spent a part of Friday at the library trying to get some photos edited and then went to visit the Charles Shultz museum in the afternoon. While “Sparky”, as the Peanuts creator was known to his friends, had been born in Minnesota, he spent the second half of his life in Sonoma County. He wanted to draw cartoons from an early age and his parents indulged his interest by sending him to art school. He would eventually get a job as an instructor at the school and worked with people named Charlie Brown, Linus Mauer and Frieda Rich (who had naturally curly hair). He dated a lady named Donna Wold who we would know as the “Little Red Haired Girl”, and once drew a picture for Ripley’s Believe it or Not of his childhood dog, a beagle named Spike. He caught a break with a job drawing comics for a Catholic publication and eventually got a comic strip of his own. Peanuts, a name Shultz apparently never liked, appeared 17,879 times and was viewed in 30 languages in 75 countries and by 355 million people every day. This museum had some great pieces, like some murals Shultz had painted on his children’s bedroom walls when they were kids and one of the desks from his studio. It was a fun visit. From there I headed out to Forestville to visit an old tour leading friend of mine, Chris, who has opened his own record store there. He and his girlfriend, Tiprin (who is also an old friend), have bought a property in this evolving town which they’ve been renovating into a bar, record shop, Airbnb rooms and a venue space. It’s cool to see what they’ve done and it looks like they are going to have the whole place up and running by the summer. After showing me the property, Chris closed the shop and we went to the Forestville Club for a beer. Then we headed back to their place in Santa Rosa for dinner and some time with their hilarious dog, Auggie – a massive and affectionate hound who thinks he’s a cat and perches on the furniture. It was a wonderful evening of chatting and laughing and catching up, and as Chris and Tiprin are both native Californians, they gave me some great ideas of places to see on my upcoming journey.
I parked in their driveway overnight and said goodbye after breakfast. I got some work done in the morning and then when the sun came out I headed off to Bodega Bay on the California Coast. Interestingly, Bodega Bay is probably best known as the setting for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic The Birds. I used to go out to Bodega Bay when I needed to escape Santa Rosa and watching the sun set into the Pacific is always a healing event. While I didn’t get a sunset that night, I did get some salt air and a refreshing wind in my face. I also had a delicious Dungeness crab sandwich and a bowl of clam chowder from Spud Point Crab Company which is always a treat. Dungeness crabs have the slightly tougher consistency of lobster with the definite taste of a crab and the way they make their sandwiches you definitely get to taste the crab. After dinner I settled in for the night next to the harbor and enjoyed the sound of the rain on my roof as I slept.
I enjoyed a late morning in Bodega Bay on Sunday and then slowly made my way down the coast, stopping to take some photos in Bodega and Tomales before stopping off in Marshall for some oysters. The oysters from Hawg Island and the Marshall Store are pretty famous in this part of California with people lining up to get some. I chose the rustic charm of the Marshall Store and ordered a half dozen raw and a half dozen barbecued. The lady at the counter sold me on the barbecue oysters which sounded nasty to me, but were actually quite delicious cooked in garlic butter and given a dollop of a cocktail type bbq sauce at the end. The raw oysters stole the show though as they were unbelievably fresh and delicious. The dozen cost me $60 which I knew it would when I walked in the door, but was pretty darned good. After a pleasant lunch, I spent some time in Point Reyes Station and at the Visitor Center for Point Reyes National Seashore before making my way in to Petaluma.
I spent two nights in Petaluma trying to catch up on some things and make some plans once I saw that Coastal Route 1 was closed due to landslides. I’ve driven Route 1 many times in the past, but it’s been a long while and I was looking forward to it but it’ll just have to wait. I’ll be back. Petaluma is a nice little city with some great historic buildings in the downtown area and a good gym and library so it was a nice enough place to hang around for a couple of days.
Tuesday morning I headed out of Petaluma and made my way south to Briones Regional Park in the East Bay. They have one of the Bay Area’s permanent orienteering courses and I wanted to dust off my map and compass skills. It was pretty muddy out there but the sun was shining and it was nice to be off-trail and wandering through the park. I got a bit of a late start so I only did the first half of the course, but it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it out there. Right up the road in Martinez, I stopped in to see John Muir National Historical Site, the home Muir lived in when he was not in the woods. When I left there, I hopped on the BART train and headed west to Oakland, where I met my friend Ben at Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon, Oakland’s oldest bar. This bar was cool with an intensely sloping floor and a sloping bar to match and has been around since Jack London patronized the place. From there we went back to Ben’s place to enjoy his rooftop deck while the sun set. I got to meet his girlfriend, Carolyn, who I knew of but had never met. The three of us went for dinner at Drake’s, which was a cool spot near their place, and then I caught the train back to Walnut Creek where I spent the night.
Today I’m going to finish up this post and then head down to San Jose for a day or two and then start making my way south from there. We’ve got more flood warnings at the end of this week so I want to be out of the Bay Area before the flooding starts. I really don’t know where this week will take me, but I’m looking forward to getting moving and starting to really explore the state in earnest. I hope the rains let up enough for me to get some photos but I still have some Arizona ones to get through so that’s something. It’s wonderful to be back writing this newsletter and I hope it finds you all well. Thank you, as always, for reading.
-Mike