February 7, 2024
To Santa Rosa
It’s only 250 miles to Santa Rosa, barely a four hour drive - the shortest of the remaining segments of the drive home. With the dry conditions expected by early afternoon, we look forward to arriving early with the promise of a walk in a nearby park in the afternoon. I walk across the street to a Starbucks for coffee and a pastry while Rachael eats in her room, and we’re on the road not long past eight.
The ride begins with the drive north on Highway 101 through the upper Salinas Valley, one of my favorite landscapes in California. It’s really gorgeous here in the early spring, the bare rounded hills dotted with isolated oaks turned an exquisite green. It pains me to drive past them without laying over for a ride through these hills. If we’re in the country next spring we have to come down here again and stay around for at least a few days.
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As we drop through the Salinas valley it gradually broadens out and loses its charm. Miles of flat, unbroken nut orchards are succeeded by fields of nodding donkeys rhythmically plunging their snouts into the ground, followed at last by the town of Salinas. Beyond that we leave the good weather behind us and drive through the rain for the next hour, at times pouring harder than anything we saw yesterday.
By the time we come to the edge of the Bay Area I’m ready for a break from the road. Rachael looks up nearby coffee shops and finds a Starbucks just ahead in San Jose, so we pull off. As we drive up to it though, we see it’s one of those Starbucks - not an actual coffee shop, but a stand embedded in another store, this time a Target. These are one of my pet peeves. They really should be branded differently somehow so you know to avoid them if you’re hoping for a spot to sit down and relax for awhile.
We’re not staying here then, because I want a real spot where we can stop, sit down, and get a relaxed break from the road for twenty minutes or so. So Rachael does another quick search and finds a pair of coffee shops about two miles away. We drive there and enter the first one, but quickly turn around. It’s an Asian place, which is fine of course - but none of the beverages they offer actually looks like normal, black coffee. So we try the second place, and it’s just like the one we just left. In fact, virtually every establishment we’ve passed for the last two miles is Asian, and probably Vietnamese. Later I’ll research this and see that nearly a fifth of San Jose’s population is Vietnamese. It’s the largest Vietnamese community in the country.
I’m starting to lose interest in the project at this point but Rachael needs a bathroom - we stopped for gas just twenty minutes ago, but frustratingly the station didn’t have a restroom. So we give one last place a try. This one really feels odd though, a large open space with men seated along the walls staring at devices or cards. It looks like it could be a gaming hall. Rachael heads straight to the bathroom while I try to order coffee. It’s an odd interaction, with neither of us understanding the other other well - I suspect this place doesn’t see many Caucasian customers. He finally understands that I just want a cup of black coffee, and tells me that will be $7. Really? I go along with it though, viewing it as the fee for buying Rachael’s way into the bathroom. When I get my card out though he tells me it’s a cash only sale - and when I see Rachael returning I put away my wallet, thank him anyway, and we leave.
When we get to the car, Rachael asks what I did with her rucksack. I never had it in the first place, so she realizes she must have set it down inside and rushes back to get it, feeling sheepish about going back after using their restroom for free.
It’s all been a pretty strange, alien experience. As we drive back to the car I tell Rachael it makes me think of Bonfire of the Vanities. We’ve stumbled into a strange world, and life will never be the same again. She starts laughing, because she’d just had the exact same thought.
Two hours later though, we’re finally in Santa Rosa and on our way to Spring Lake after having checked into our motel. It looks like an excellent spot to explore for a few hours. There are hiking trails everywhere, and the latest reported sightings on eBird look promising.
After we park, Rachael sets off on the walk I had hastily drawn out for her this morning, and I take my time on a slow walk around the lake. As usual we time box ourselves, and I remind her to turn back by 4:15 so we’re not late for our 5:45 dinner reservation.
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Spring Lake is something of a birding disappointment today, because there are really very few birds around other than the many vultures soaring above. and the birds I do see are nearly all singular: exactly one great egret, a snowy egret, a red-shouldered hawk, a bufflehead, a pied-billed grebe, and a California towhee. The towhee is nice though - a new bird for the year and one I can’t hope to see once we move further north. It’s now or never this year for this species, probably.
And then, there’s an invasion of about a dozen small birds flitting through the trees, hard to make out because the light is dim and they don’t stay put long. Finally I get a clear enough shot though to see that they’re another new bird - chestnut-backed chickadees, the first I’ve seen in several years.
That’s it though. It’s a little frustrating because it looks like it should be great for birds, with the lakeshore lined with reeds and the woods filled with oak trees and dead snags that should pull in the woodpeckers. Nothing though, but it’s a pretty enough walk.
When I make it back to the car though I have a bit more luck. There are a few Canada geese, which go on the list but aren’t too exciting because I know I’ll see them in large numbers when we’re back in Portland. The flock of robins are a better find though, because I’m not sure we see them this early in the year up north.
I’m just trying to decide where to walk next while I wait for Rachael to return when I check the time and her position and see that it’s 4:30 and she’s still getting further away. She’s either lost track of the time or something’s gone wrong, so I give her a call. It’s a good thing I did because she’s distressed and disoriented, still going away and unaware of it. There are several reasons for this, but the main cause is mine - we were in a hurry this morning and I drew a route for her too hastily and by accident routed her over a stretch on a very steep, minor trail. When she arrived at that point she decided it wasn’t walkable, especially given how wet and muddy it is today. So she stayed on the main path, but then got mixed up when the Garmin tried to reroute her.
I can see where she is so I coach her to get her headed the right direction and then track her position to make sure she’s getting closer. And I quickly walk her way, planning to meet up a soon as possible to escort her back; but it will be awhile because she’s nearly two miles out - a concern, because it won’t be that long until it starts getting dark. Its a very pretty walk following a rushing stream uphill, but I can’t really appreciate it because I’m in a hurry and concerned for Rachael.
I can see we’re getting closer together, but then she stops. Thinking she might be disoriented again I give her another call, but that’s not the problem this time. She’s following my mismapped route back now, through the very steep, very muddy section she bypassed before and it’s treacherous enough that it has her all but crawling downhill to get down safely.
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Finally, we meet up and we both turn back to the car - me walking as quickly as my knees will permit, but she needing a faster pace because she’s badly hypothermic. We make it back to the car just as the sun is setting over the lake, and to the restaurant exactly at 5:45. And dinner is excellent, once Rachael has warmed up enough to appreciate it. Her shoes and socks were soaked, but fortunately she had a dry pair of shoes in the car to change into. No socks though, so she went into this fairly classy Italian restaurant sockless. Two cups of coffee and a bowl of lentil soup later, her hands finally stopped shaking enough that she could enjoy the main she picked this restaurant out for, butternut squash ravioli.
So, a decidedly mixed day - it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Before things went badly for her, Rachael thoroughly enjoyed the hike:
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3 months ago
3 months ago
Also, you can report to Google Maps if the Starbucks is a fake one. You could also put that in the reviews section for it.
3 months ago
2 months ago
3 months ago