The Lost Coast

There is a stretch of coast in the far northern tip of California that offers a wilderness experience you will be hard pressed to find in the United States. There are no nattily built footpaths, no hand rails and no warning signs here. You are on your own and it is magnificent.

The thing is you have to get there and it ain’t easy. Why would it be?

“Jeez, this road is terrible,” my wife the navigator said as we bounced and jostled slowly toward Petrolia still more than 20 miles and one Google-map-hour away. The pavement looked like  someone had poured molten lava down a hill and let it set as it chose. We had ripples and bumps and dips and torn up stretches and pot holes to contend with, and the road itself was narrow and twisted and coiled upon itself like a snake with a broken back. The unpaved bits came toward the end near Honeydew and Petrolia where slides had torn up the asphalt which hadn’t been replaced.  There are no celebrities or tech billionaires with second homes here to demand roads get paved. The scenery was glorious and traffic was very sparse, so it’s their loss I guess.

It was a Saturday so we spotted what looked like ordinary weekenders in shiny impatient SUVs and giant chromed pickups bought to tackle these wild country roads that we were wallowing gently down in our unsuitable 21 foot Promaster. The dusty pick ups held back but leapt past as soon as I pulled over to let them by, while the city slickers tail gated as I looked for a suitable place to pull over. Not your average commute:

Most of the countryside was devoid of human construction. We saw lots of gates and quite a few mailboxes but you can see why in the bad old days they grew dope out here illegally like moonshine in Appalachia. 

And one gets the impression from the number of grow houses under translucent plastic tarps barely visible from the road, and the miles of impenetrable fencing, that even now that marijuana is completely billboard advertising legal it is still a Humboldt County industry.

Our destination was a stretch of coast between Punta Gorda and Cape Mendocino advertised on iOverlander as having several attractive pull outs with beach access and total isolation.  The warnings were explicit: approach from the north, via Ferndale as the road is better and shorter. Come from the south via Petrolia at your peril as the road is winding narrow and difficult. “The worst road I have driven,” was a frequent comment.  Naturally we came from the south as we wanted to explore, especially as a poet I used to know in Santa Cruz made his home near Petrolia for many years and I had never seen the area. I was in awe of Stephen Kessler’s intellect and I wanted to see what he found so compelling.  I’m still not sure frankly as Petrolia isn’t just isolated, it really is lost and he has long since moved. 

Layne surprised me by suggesting we stop for some eggs at a random isolated farm, which around here are sold on the honor system, seven bucks for a dozen. I don’t suppose many passers by would purchase if the eggs weren’t chilled in a fridge, but in Mexico we bought ours from stalls never refrigerated and they were excellent stored at room temperature.   

It was a slightly odd touch-free transaction and we dropped our ten dollar bill, took the change and the eggs and drove away. It wasn’t quite 80 degrees but the air was warm and still, deep in the mountains. We saw the chickens in their run on the hill guarded by a rather lonely dog in a kennel as abandoned to his own devices as we were. 

Wouldn’t it be funny if we came across a gate saying “No Public Access?” Layne said cheerfully as we resumed twisting and bouncing on Mattole Road toward the elusive and ever distant Petrolia. We laughed at the suggestion and then we promptly found this:

We stared at the tree for a few seconds, possibly expecting the holographic joke to de-materialize but after we had sucked in our breath and expelled a few choice swear words it was obvious we had to do something to avoid backtracking two hours and forty miles to Highway 101. So we got on with it, and I don’t mean I got my hand saw out and worked myself into a lather to cut a path through the downed tree. No sir, I got smart. I put out a red triangle we carry to warn oncoming cars in case of breakdown and then equipped Layne with our red breakdown flag (required in Latin America) and I backed Gannet2 across the road to get the best angle of purchase with our 12,000 pound WARN winch. I unspooled the rope by hand…

…all under Rusty’s eagle eye. He is the best supervisor in a crisis, sitting to one side to make sure all goes well.

I figured a rough angle from the end of the tree to the front of the van which would pull it aside enough to open one lane and with the winch line shackled in place I turned the engine on to help power the winch and then used the remote control in my hand to wind the rope back into the winch easily pulling the tree. 

It went surprisingly well and with the tree out of the way I used the remote to rewind the winch and feed the rope smoothly back onto the drum.  That’s the second time the $3000 winch (cost fully installed from Van Compass) has saved us - once when we fell into some soft sand in Barra de Potosí and now on the road to Petrolia. Oddly enough no traffic showed up until just after I had finished opening the road. The first driver on the scene said he happened not to be carrying his chainsaw which he usually does when he visits his place up here. I said no way was I going to go all lumberjack and saw it by hand!

The second car that showed up was a local fire department dispatcher so we had a laugh about that coincidence. She was really happy to see the road re-opened and very grateful. Of course my winch work  wasn’t mere altruism as I was as keen as anyone to get to the coast…and indeed I saw some scuffed bark and broken branches on the tree leading me to wonder if someone in a big lifted truck didn’t just drive through the obstacle. Not me in my pansy van. The whole operation including packing up took about half an hour.

Feeling pretty pleased with ourselves we resumed our drive to the ever distant Petrolia and that was when we found the steepest section of road which was, very cleverly, not paved. This would be tricky to negotiate in a rainstorm in winter. On a warm summer’s afternoon it was dusty and slow but delightful. 

Petrolia itself looked pretty much like Google street view shows it, literally a one street town with a fire department next to the general store which supposedly sells gas but didn’t advertise anything more combustible for sale than propane. 

I might have liked a masked wander in the store but Layne wasn’t in a shopping mood so we pressed on. I wonder if they sell zebra meat?

I didn’t get a photo of a mountain lion we scared into motion as we drove by but that was the first time I’ve seen one, and it was bounding through the dry grass, camouflaged such that at first I thought it was just another deer. It was sleek and powerful and looked much bigger than I had imagined, more like a “real” lion than the oversized cat of my imaginings. 

We let the crappy road, the dirt diversions, the pot holes, downed trees and the brutal ripples in the asphalt fade behind us when we finally got within sight of the water, and it was an astonishingly calm, flat day speckled with unexpected sunshine.

The rock on the horizon marks Cape Mendocino itself, though we parked a little before we reached that exact point. 

The odd thing about this entire northern California journey thus far is the total absence of public lands. There are no national forests along our route, no Bureau of Land Management signs, no dispersed camping, just fences, pot farms and no trespassing  signs. Even along the beach we saw cattle grazing both sides of the road and we had to drive some distance to find pull outs with open beach access, as promised on iOverlander.

Bear in mind we were here on an August weekend and if not crowds I did expect to see a few other people.  Cars flashed by coming from Ferndale to the north on the easier access road (I hope!) and from Petrolia to the south. We saw a few tourists stop and walk briefly on the beach but for the most part we could have carried out nude Druidic rituals by the side of the  road and offended no one. It is that isolated. 

This spot has a reputation for high winds and cool temperatures but we struck a weekend with almost no wind and totally flat seas. There was some marine inversion of course but as hard as I looked I could see no spectacular wave action crashing on the multitude of rocks. It was a great time to motor your boat north to Seattle in a flat calm.

We weren’t completely alone though, and Rusty was not at all happy to see cows overhead. He sat and watched them closely as they grazed the hillside.

The beach is composed of tiny gray pebbles rounded by sea action and soft to walk on. So soft it is actually a bit of a chore, at least for me, not my dog. 

He loved this spot and kept coming up and licking my face and hands, his way of expressing approval when we stop somewhere worth while. It really isn’t a bad stop for us either and Layne expressed her approval too, though perhaps less effusively. 

All to ourselves. No internet service, no sounds except the birds and the waves and occasionally the cows or a car flashing by. Layne thought the road to Petrolia was the toughest we’ve ever driven bar none, not even in Mexico, but we both agreed the drive was worth it and recommend it to you for some well earned solitude.

A half moon on the water:

Tide lines:







Highs in the 70s and lows overnight in the 50s. Perfect insect-free camping climate. 

Mystery tracks that appeared on the beach overnight, raccoon, coyote or…lion?

After two days we left it as we found it…and went north in search of a cell signal!

 

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.