December 2, 2023
To Half Moon Bay
First, a look back. Rachael finally managed to get her slideshow uploaded so we might as well include it here as long as she went to all that work. It’s a composite of the first walk we took together at Goat Rock Beach, and her adventurous later hike featuring the menacing cow. It has too many photos of me in it (it needs more of that cow, which looks like a belted Galloway), but she’s the editor.
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I’m awake at four for one of the usual reasons and check the weather. It looks more promising than expected, with rain not due to set in until midafternoon. I go back to bed thinking of where we might stop off for a walk on the drive south without being anxious about leaving the bikes in the car. Point Reyes? Bodega Bay? We’ve biked Point Reyes a couple of times before, but other than that there’s so much coastline down here we’ve never explored.
When I’m up later and enjoying my first cup of coffee I check the weather again and am pleased to see it’s unchanged - we’ve got five or six dry hours to work with, so there are lots of possibilities. Then I pull back the curtain and look out the window at the real weather report. It’s foggy and raining.
So we just drive. It’s a pretty short drive down to Half Moon Bay, just two and a half hours in theory, so we’re likely to get there pretty early. The listed check-in time is four, but when Rachael calls to see if an earlier time is possible we’re pleased to hear that our room is ready now and we can arrive at any time.
It’s still showery when we leave Jenner, but by the time we’re nearing Bodega Bay just ten miles to the south it’s already starting to dry out. I pull off at a scenic spot to admire the stacks broken off from the coast, but other than that we just drive until we drop into the Bay Area. As we’re driving the back roads between Bodega Bay and Petaluma I’m wishing we were on our bikes and reminiscing about the times I’ve been here before - especially that first time, almost 60 years ago. Since it’s a slow news day anyway and it’s on my mind, I might as well segue here to refresh my memory. My apologies if I’ve told this story before.
I was fourteen. I’d just gotten a poor work slip, as they were called back then, informing my parents that I was doing poorly in one of my classes - not surprising, because I wasn’t much interested in school until my last years in high school when I finally got inspired a bit. I was too embarrassed to take it home to show my parents though, so I didn’t. Instead, I absconded with the money I’d just collected from my paper route and caught the Greyhound to San Francisco, taking pretty much just the clothes I had on me and a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the notoriously steamy novel that had been banned in America until the year before. I don’t recall why San Francisco, but maybe I’d read On the Road by then, since it came out just a few years earlier.
For the next day and a half I furtively read my book without understanding what the big deal was, stared out the window, and reflected on the fact that I didn’t really have any idea of what I’d do once I arrived in San Francisco. Finally I got off in Vallejo, a place with a strange name that I’d never heard of before, and called home. That’s the end of what I remember actually, but Elizabeth was still living at home at the time and remembers it well. She reminded me recently that dad drove the eight hundred miles down from Seattle to pick me up. I’m sure it was a long, quiet drive home, and that we probably didn’t discuss the book.
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I wish I’d thought ahead to ask Rachael to have the camera ready when we approached the Golden Gate Bridge because it made a beautiful image rising above the hills as we approached, partly veiled in clouds. And the city! In this morning’s light it’s almost a gleaming white, reminding me of cities in Spain. The only shot we managed for the rest of the way was one I took while stuck in traffic in Daly City, wondering if the jam will prevent us from getting to the closest gas station before the Raven runs dry or one of us wets our pants.
It’s around two when we pull up at our home for the next three nights, the Mill Rose Inn. We were told to phone when we arrive to get instructions for letting ourselves in, so it’s a frustration that no one answers or returns our call for about twenty minutes. While we wait I walk to the corner for a closer look at the noisy, animated parade that’s just come down the street, drums throbbing and trumpets blaring. I don’t see any indication of what the celebration is about, but later I’ll learn that it’s an event in the Light of Lights festival. Whatever, it’s delightful to watch.
Finally, Rachael can’t stand the wait any longer and walks down the street to check out the two cafes we’ll have breakfast certificates for. Not long afterwards the call comes. I’m instructed to go around to the back of the house, find our room upstairs, and let myself in with the keypad. I call Rachael to let her know, but coincidentally she’s already back and standing by the car.
We feel pretty sour about this place at first as we shuffle our gear around to the back through the narrow dirt path beside the house. It’s got a few stairs in the way and is so narrow and overgrown that it’s hard muscling the bikes through because they keep getting snagged by vines. And the room, once we’re in, is freezing.
As it turns out though, it’s a great place. it warms up quickly once we figure out to turn on the gas fireplace, and it has a large, comfortable common room with complementary wine and chocolates that makes a fine place to sit and wait for dinner. And I really warm to the place once I see the other side of the house where there’s a normal, wide, paved walkway to the back that I’d missed spotting the first time.
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5 months ago
For dinner we walk the long block to a restaurant we’ve eaten at before, It’s Italia. The company’s not as memorable for us as last time when we ate here with Kathleen and BJ, but it’s much more comfortable than dining outside on a cold evening because of Covid as we did then. Thanks again, Kathleen, for bringing those blankets for us!
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5 months ago
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5 months ago
That's quite an adventure for a 14-year-old! And an impressive use of paper route money.
5 months ago