Wine Country

Layne pointed out this is the first time we have been to Napa Valley and not gone wine tasting. Bummer, and thank you Covid. However we were both happy to see the valley itself isn’t wrecked as the vines suffered quite bit during fire season a few years ago.

We did see signs of fire but on the margins of the valley so if you drive the Silverado Trail as we did (Highway 121) everything looks normal. Normal for Napa Valley that is, a land of massive wealth celebrating tradition that stretches back all of fifty years and far less than that for the ultra wealthy tech millionaires who want to leave a legacy more fashionable than silicon in a trade about as cut throat as Silicon Valley. Wine is delicious and paradoxically full of bullshit when you are making it. I enjoyed the Guadalupe Valley in Mexico because they are up and coming and aren’t necessarily putting on a show. I like wine but the folderol that is involved in the descriptions and the tasting terms gets me irritated.  

We thought about doing a harvest host stop where we might get a private tasting and spend a night at a winery in exchange for a purchase. However they don’t do off the cuff a point:ents around here, requiring up to five days advance notice which is the sort of restriction we can’t handle! We are dolts when it comes to timing so that was a non starter.  We left the Bay Area and went north on a wing and a prayer as it were.

We crossed the magnificent new Bay Bridge to Alameda and went by the marina whence we sailed to Key West in 1998.  We kept our boat in Alameda and spent most weekends sailing the bay getting to know our brand new Gemini catamaran so we could handle it on the trip through Central America. All too often people ask travelers about their equipment and when people asked us we always replied: practice. They wanted to buy toys to put on the boat and we advised to use the boat so you got to learn how to handle it.  Same with the van, we always advise to use it before you take off.  I hate giving advice as no one listens to well meaning bores like me.  Buy a new toy! Especially if you have a boat!

There were the predictable problems driving north on Interstate 580 with an accident messing up the flow of thousands of cars climbing the hills and struggling through the Caldecott Tunnel. It was nice not having a deadline to meet and I wasn’t worn out from a day at work.

The Promaster gives a nice tall platform similar to a big pick up which makes it easy to see ahead and anticipate the braking and accelerating waves in lines of traffic. It all worked out and we got to Napa and entered the long winding road through the vineyards.

It’s a lovely drive and I am grateful to the crazy folk who feel the need to spend their fortunes on making wine and doing it with such style. It’s ridiculous to see French chateaux and Italian stone farmhouses set amid the grapes but it is a lovely relaxing drive and beautiful to look at. I had a great time even without tasting anything.  The vines are perfect and flourishing, the roads are smooth and the accessories, barns and walls and fences are all as they should be.  There was however the small problem of where to sleep.

Like everything else around here campsites cost more than they should so we set about finding a better option for one night on the road.  There was one option in downtown St Helena and we stopped at a nearby day use only park to cook dinner and wait for dark. I wasn’t keen on sleeping downtown even though others have done it. The overnight spot had no prohibitions but it just felt like we might get moved along. No big deal but not ideal for a good nights sleep. I found an alternative and we drove fifteen minutes up the hill to a town I’d never heard of called Angwin. They have a grocery store with a big empty parking lot behind it. No great shakes but it worked.  The next morning I drove us back down to St Helena to the little park where we had dinner. 

St Helena is a pretty little town with a busy Main Street and Layne was hanging out of the window like a dog sniffing the air wishing she could go window shopping.  If you have a compromised immune system masks social distancing and caution are the order of the day. We will be back when the plague is vanquished. We met her cousin for lunch and had a grand aft4noon trading travel stories and explaining how van life works. Lance used to live in the city but has retired to Sonoma County leaving the gritty city life to the youngsters. He buys and worships used Ferraris so you know we’ll be back as he promises a test ride. 

We’ve parked for the night at a lovely little rest area on Highway 101. Our visit with Lance wrecked our plans as we stayed far too long having a great time chatting with our delightful hosts so instead of back tracking inland to drive the Highway 36 wonder of a road we had to take off straight toward the coast. It was a lovely drive in any event and we are hoping to spend some time on what’s known as the Lost Coast, wild camping near Cape Mendocino, an area of which I have read good things.  Finally we are back on the road, alone and with horizons unlimited. We have a date next week in Seattle but until then we drove as we please. And I should note we may be going into an Internet hole for a few days.  All will be revealed as soon as we see it for ourselves!

San Francisco

Call it “Frisco” and they will excommunicate you. You may not mind being excluded from the coolness that is San Francisco but if you want to be nice do as Northern Californians do and call it simply “The City.” Anything else is excessively familiar and Frisco is a small town in Texas that would I dare say dislike being associated with the Gomorrah  of  the West Coast as much as any stout Texan might. And yet as messed up as this town is in many respects it is lovely.

Of the three years I spent driving 18 wheelers and earning my Teamster pension I spent one year driving around San Francisco delivering and picking up all manner of goods from all sorts of small businesses that one doesn’t really think of when one imagines San Francisco.  I learned to count to ten in  Mandarin when the printers asked me how many pallets of ink I had. I learned to say good morning in Japanese and Mandarin such were the range of clients of J and J truck line. Ohio Gozyo Mass I learned phonetically with a snappy little bow and then we all laughed and broke into whatever English they had. 

Layne went to law school in The City (not Frisco) and we spent our morning looking for her favorite pupusa shop. When she was a student El Salvador wasn’t on the map and food from that tiny Central American country was hardly fashionable.  She liked anything Latin American and pupusas which are thick tortillas filled with molten cheese are filling and were cheap and she had a leg up on the San Francisco hipsters of the day.

I had a cheese and a bean in the traditional manner but Layne went rogue and added meat to hers. If you look up pupusas on Google maps in San Francisco you’ll find a dozen options in the city tha5 cooks every kind of cuisine.   We took our Salvadoran national dish, in a pizza box no less (!) across town…

…and fought the traffic which wasn’t nearly as bad as you might think,

…to Marina Green across from Alcatraz Island to enjoy the sun breaking out, the breeze cooling everything off and the views, unparalleled except perhaps by Sydney, a city I have never seen but in photographs. We were parked on the waterfront with the bay spread before us from the Golden Gate all the way past Alcatraz. 

I like Sam Francisco a great deal even though it suffers from the usual host of homeless problems that seem to have become endemic across the cities of the Golden State. The wealth here is extraordinary and the fact that the great technological entrepreneurs think that human suffering is not their problem is hardly surprising  considering the evolution  of human history. We are told no one has to be poor if they have the strength of character and will to work to avoid ending up like this:

I may be wrong but I don’t think the lunatics of the street are employable and without hospitals and help we are making sure they never will be. There are those who make a profession of being on the streets, the people whose trade I call being a bum, and I’m not sure I can exclude myself from that category owing to my own houselessness, and we put up with the irritations of street life to enjoy the freedom it brings.  But to be a lunatic, filthy and forgotten in the midst of this sea of wealth speaks more to the character of those who step over them them than the failings, if any of the stepped over.

Fentanyl is the new object of blame for many of the ills of society. We’ve worked through marijuana and Percocet with attendant sacrificial victims and now the threat is fentanyl. Judging by the streets they could have targeted the dealers a lot sooner but the recent ouster of a district attorney not devoted to the pursuit of whatever ails the wealthy classes has brought about a delayed reaction.  As much as I like The City it is a ghastly place to visit these days. On top of all that Covid is keeping us out of museums and displays of art we would normally spend time to see. It is therefore time to move rapidly on from Bagdad by the Bay.

I preferred the understated gladioli in the window of the house next door to the mural but I think we weren’t supposed to notice them sitting there elegantly attuned to the color of their own exterior walls.  

There isn’t much of anything touristy about our tour of The City, a sentimental journey with memories of our own and thus idiosyncratic to a degree. We are both hoping that when we return from South America, hopefully in good health, we shall be able to see the city we have enjoyed in the past.  As much as Americans wish Covid were over it isn’t, and wishing won’t make it so. For now we skim the surface of the attractions we would like to enjoy indoors among our fellow curiosity seekers.  

 

Alone Again

Twenty five years ago we drove past this unremarkable parking lot whenever we took a scenic drive to San Francisco.

Here we are in Pacifica, a coastal town just south of San Francisco suffering under cloudy skies and 60 degrees dropping to 55 overnight. Overnight? Yes indeed, it seems this paid parking lot during the day becomes a place for motorists to rest for free overnight. Years ago we drove by, frequently, tonight we sleep here! A change…Not romantic, not even terribly picturesque but good enough to break up our journey. 

If you haven’t yet experienced the joy of marine inversion this place is even better in showing you how to live in a November fog in August. Now you know why I was desperate to relocate to Florida. Every summer afternoon like this does not make me happy. 

Cold sand is not my idea of beach fun. However this is another beach where dogs are permitted in a state park in the always restrictive California. Locals let their dogs off leash illegally, but Rusty was nervous in their company and stayed close to let me know he wanted to be tied to me. 

We left Santa Cruz after lunch. Layne had a Chinese chicken salad with girlfriends. I had a burger with my memories.

I used to stop by Jacks burger stand before going to watch a foreign movie at the Nickelodeon theater next door. The Nick has closed, apparently permanently but Jack’s has extended their opening hours from 2pm to seven in the evening. 

It was a delicious $14 lunch. The fries are thick and crisp and the burger is delicious between two crispy buns. Simple and perfect. I indulged with a cookie and soda to fuel my memories of matinee movies before videos and streaming and at home viewing. 

We left Santa Cruz without fanfare after 16 days. We reconnected with friends and made our bonds stronger. I enjoyed being back after a decade away but we are both excited to be driving north. We have friends in Seattle next on the list and there’s lots to see along the way. More foggy coasts I hope, cool temperatures and gorgeous scenery. 

We stopped at Pigeon Point Lighthouse, a turnout from Highway One, with a decommissioned light now run by the state parks. 

We skipped the structure and parked along the beach. This was a day of light winds and low wave drama. Still, I felt no desire to swim in the frigid roiling surf. 



He loved the wind and the smells it carried: 





Layne took a nap while we walked and played on our impromptu stop. 
Hardly any development on this coast. 





I don’t know when we will be back in our former hometown but it was a great visit and we have a bunch of new memories and cheerful gatherings. After my burger I took a walk with my bud and snagged a few more pictures. 
The sign above used to include “no dogs” where there is a gap. A good change! 

I overheard conversations about legalizing dope and the changes that had made. All that fuss about arresting people for using marijuana and yet the sky is nowhere near falling thanks to legalization. 



Old photos showing how Pacific Avenue once looked. I remember the Hihns Building. 

It was a warm afternoon for Santa Cruz, over 80 degrees. 

A landmark statue devoted to a former street artist playing a musical saw, Tom Noddy. 

They have free tickets to attend music festival rehearsals and after Covid we would enjoy that. We knew as the Cabrillo Music Festival.  The summer Shakespeare Festival has dropped spacing and mask requirements too, which was a disappointment. I don’t have fond memories of not being able to breathe and long Covid would wreck our plans. 

Too many water bowls are now set out where dogs were once banned. Rusty checked them all out. California is coming to terms with pet ownership in public spaces. They used to be banned everywhere. 

Covid has helped increase outdoor seating. 






The Post Office used to be the location selected for protests of one sort or another. I guess the post office got tired of it and stuck up a fence. 

The only other federal building would be the social security administration but it doesn’t have the natural amphitheater offered by this spot.  

The Spanish built towns and missions all over the place celebrating the Holy Cross. Put “Santa Cruz” in your Google maps search bar and check how many come up. More than one! 









The Nickelodeon Theater closed apparently never to reopen. I got a job janitoring the theater which got me reciprocal free passes to any movie theater in town. That was gold in the era before VCRs and downloading and winters are long cold dark and wet in Santa Cruz. Movies were my escape from my home on a boat. 

Typical Santa Cruz old timer I thought. He’s actually living in an Illinois registered mini van. A hobo like us perhaps. I should have stopped to talk to him but my arms were full of cooling hamburger and fries. 

More musical sawing: 

The Crepe Place’s policeman has a message I shall pay attention to: