Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Ukiah to Monterey, Ca
Up this morning in Ukiah, still bemused by the name as I put the top of the car down, check the fluids, start it, warm it up, Jan going for Starbucks coffee and muffins across the parking lot. Today we head south into the wine country.
We could choose to go through San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge. Lovely thought, the concept is beautiful, the bridge over the entrance to San Francisco Bay, the city glittering in the morning sun, top down, the breeze flowing by, .... etc. But, the reality would be different. If we would like it, then the eleventy-seven million people who live around here would too, and they would all be on the road with us. You see, the traffic around the big American cities is intense and if we had to go we would, but we don't and we won't.
So instead, we head south from Ukiah to Santa Rosa (passing through Healdsburg) then turn east along Highway 12 to Napa. Yes, Napa, California, home of wine, the heart of the wine country. We stopped for lunch in Napa, ate outside on a lovely sunny patio at a quaint restaurant in this scenic town. Honestly, why do we live north of here with our wind and rain and cold? After, we looked around the nearby complex, visited the tourist bureau, etc. Noted too many empty stores and barren windows. There is trouble, even here in paradise.
From there to Fairfield, then continuing along Highway 12 toward Lodi. Wide open fields, crops now taking over from the fields of grapes we had passed through earlier. Highway construction, rough road, signs advising daytime headlight use on the narrow two lane road. We had been to Lodi on a previous trip and didn't need to repeat as we had already bought some wine, but we intersected I-5 and joined it on its journey south. High speed, 70 to 75 mph, up and down hills, no talking between Jan and I due to the roaring wind noise in the open car. Stayed with I-5 a couple of hours until we intersected California Highway 152 westbound, and took that.
This drive took us beside a large reservoir, up some steep mountains on an excellent 4-lane highway, then down a long drop (not steep, just long) down the other side toward the coast. Gorgeous, spectacular scenery, bright sunshine in the late afternoon, car running well, another of those 'freeze this moment, I wanna re-live this time' experiences. Eventually out the bottom, and a left turn to Hollister, Ca. That name is storied among motorcycle riders, a mecca like Sturgis South Dakota except for another reason. Back in the early '50s, when Hollister was a sleepy and dusty little farm town, a bunch of riders came into town one weekend. I've read accounts by the press, and by the bikers, and by Hunter Thompson who is a writer and a biker, and all the accounts vary widely depending on the point of view. For some it was a weekend of destruction, bikes ridden into saloons, the women attacked and the men punched out, the national guard eventually brought out because the local sherrif had been locked up in his own jail. Others say that the townspeople were bored and wanted to party with the bikers, the women were willing and the men who got smacked around were local drunks, and sure the bikes were ridden in the bars, but everybody thought it was a good idea at the time. The sherrif locked himself up, and there was no national guard, the bikers just left on Sunday to go back home, what's the big deal anyway? Somewhere between lies the truth. Then they made a movie in the late '50s with Marlon Brando ('Johnny', the hero) and Lee Marvin and others, a classic, 'The Wild Bunch', and the legend was established. For us, Hollister was just a sleepy, dusty little town and not one bike to be seen. We drove around a bit, had dinner, waited for the action but nothing happened, then left. Another legend with feet of clay.
Then things got interesting. It was dusk, our lights were on but had been all day, the car was running well but still stuck in Overdrive in 3rd and 4th gears. Up we went on Highway 152, west and southbound, when suddenly our fuel and temperature gauges went to zero. And the turn signals suddenly didn't work either. Ooops, blown fuse. I stopped, flashlight in hand, checked, blown alright. Ok, I changed the fuse, gauges back on again and the signals worked, back onto the highway from the shoulder where we parked. By the time we're up to speed the gauges are at zero again and no signals. No point in using the second spare just yet, so we press on in the now total darkness, toward Monterey. Still overdrive so I am plenty fast enough, but no way to signal 'cause other drivers would never see hand signals in the dark, so I stay in the curb lane and dodge the exits. Eventually, one exit early because the lane became 'exit only' and I would have had to merge left into traffic which would have been dangerous. Then into a gas station in Monterey, adjusted some other electrical connections and used my second spare fuse, it also failed. Now we've really got a problem. Found our way to the motel as the GPS still worked, and we were down for the night, worried.
