Beauty of the North Bay

Last week I journeyed to the North Bay.  Marin and Sonoma counties have a myriad of scenes.  Tawny hills bake in the warm inland sun while the coast remains cool, fog shrouded, and majestic.  Redwoods tower in the valleys while gnarly oaks grace the hillsides.  Bustling, historic cities and towns share the landscape with peaceful farmland and forest.  And vineyards cover vast areas, producing nature's bounty in the form of world renowned wines. 

In Sonoma's central plaza, the Bear Flag was raised in 1846 when Californians sought independence.  It only flew for about three weeks before the Americans arrived to claim the territory, from Mexico and anyone else who might be interested.  The bear flag is still our state flag, but often I reflect that California would make a damn good country on its own! 

I made a pilgrimage to Jack London State Park.  It was my second visit, the first coming about 20 years ago.  He had a fine, peaceful farm near Glen Ellen, in Sonoma county, that he named Beauty Ranch.  And it is, with hills full of redwoods and oaks.  London set out to make the neglected land into a productive agricultural enterprise, borrowing methods of soil conservation and fertilization from the Chinese, who he had observed during his travels.  Jack worked hard, played hard, lived hard.  Alas, this took a toll, and by age 40 he was worn out.  In particular, his plumbing was shot, and he died of uremic poisoning.  In this room.  Though he was amazingly prolific, writing 50 novels and hundreds of short stories, one wonders what he would have produced if he had simply lived to, say, my age...61.  With 21 more years to write, and a hyperactive, curious, brilliant mind, his contributions would have been vast and rich.  Damn.

This is Jack's study, where he wrote much of his work.  He wrote in longhand, and his wife Charmian, who could type 100 words per minute on a manual machine, transcribed his words into print.  This room also contains many reference books that Jack used.  And of course, he tapped many of his experiences as a world traveler, sailor, war correspondent, drifter...he did almost everything!  He lived at least 80 years in the span of 40.  He and his second wife Charmian had a passionate marriage...they were soul mates.  In addition to her typing skills, Charmian was a virtuoso pianist, and an expert horsewoman, writer, photographer, and singer. She essentially was Jack's literary agent, during the last decade of his life and for a long time thereafter.  She continued living at the ranch until her death in 1955, 39 years after Jack. 

Whatever topic caught Jack's interest, he dived into it full bore.  So it was with farming.  While living at the ranch, he delved into agriculture with passion, looking for new innovations.  He built this structure, called a Pig Palace by the locals.  Each family of pigs had their own enclosure, with piped in water, concrete floors for ease of cleaning,  and a constant supply of grain in the circular tower in the middle.

Jack died in November 1916.  He was cremated and interred where he had requested, atop a hill on the ranch, just yards from the graves of two pioneer children who had died about 50 years earlier.  It is a spot of peace and tranquility and when I come here, I feel his spirit.  Charmian also loved this spot and had her ashes laid next to his in 1955.  I wish I had known Jack and Charmian.

Jack and Charmian lived in the cottage where he died for a few years after buying Beauty Ranch.  Then they started building a mansion on the property.  Jack loved to entertain and had many guests...after all, he was a world famous writer by 1905...a rock star of his day!  It was to be named Wolf House...Wolf was Jack's nickname, as he had written much about that animal, largely from his experiences in the Yukon during the Klondike gold rush.  Wolf House was to be made of lava rock and redwood, 15,000 square feet, with all the modcons of 1913.  In August of that year it was almost complete, and then one night it burned completely, gutted to the stone walls and foundations.  For many years arson was suspected, but a forensic team inspecting the ruins in 1995 concluded that the fire had started from spontaneous combustion resulting from cleaning rags soaked in linseed oil that had been left overnight by the construction crew.  Jack carried on after the fire but some people said he never recovered from the destruction of his dream house.  He planned to rebuild, but the home, costing about 1 million in todays dollars, was not insured, and he never got started before he died three years later.

 

 

 Yesterday I headed south through Marin county, and stopped for awhile at Point Reyes National Seashore.  This has been a favorite spot of mine for close to thirty years.  There was a major blaze here in October 1995, called the Vision Fire.  These dead trees were burned back then...vast numbers of new trees have grown up in the years since.

Nearing the ocean, I came upon this scene above Limantour Beach.

Spent a pleasant hour sloating out on the sand at Limantour.  This is not a common activity here, where it is usually cold, windy, foggy, or some combination of the three.  But this was a fine day there.

OK weather geeks, here's a picture I took of the Golden Gate Bridge two weeks ago, when a deep marine layer was in place.  Tops of the towers obscured, cold, damp, and windy at ground level.

And this pic of the bridge was taken yesterday.  Shallow marine layer, warm and sunny everywhere except in the fog, hot just a few miles inland.

Redwood Fix

Every so often I feel a need to visit the Big Kahuna redwoods.  For this, I have to venture far to the north of Monterey, into the coastal counties from Mendocino north.  There are redwoods within a few miles of my hometown, and they are nice; but they're Triple A...to use a baseball term...compared to the big leaguers in the old growth forests of far northern California.  Redwood National Park, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, and Humboldt Redwoods SP are the best places to go.  Here, a massive redwood towers over 300 feet into the mist.

The forest floor is equally enchanting.  Ferns and redwood sorrel make a nice combination.

Sorrel envelops a nurse log.

Another Majestic redwood soars.

In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built many trails and bridges in national and state parks around the nation.  Here's one of their bridges, in Redwood NP.  Simple but elegant.

Abstract sorrel pic.  The infinite shades of light on the forest floor are forever stimulating.

The Foothill Trail, Prairie Creek Redwoods SP.  I had never hiked this trail!  Wasn't planning to do so this time either, but the Drury Parkway was closed for construction, so I couldn't drive to my desired trailhead and made alternative plans.  Serendipity.  Fine trail.

A very fine nurse log.

I have passed this plaque numerous times...it's on Brown Creek trail, one of my favorites.  This time I Wikied Robert Gordon McKay.  Turns out he was born in the east, and was an All American football player at Harvard in 1908 and 1910...second team AA in 1909.  He lived in Seattle for awhile, and made a career in investment banking, retiring in 1937.   A widower late in life, he married Alexandra in January 1957, and died in New York,  in November 1958.  I found nothing indicating that he was a conservation activist, but he obviously loved this area.  My mind wandered...did Alexandra come back to this spot in later years to reminisce?  Did she love it too?  If she was a young bride, does she come here still?

It's interesting to observe the plants that glom onto a nurse log.  This tree has sent out roots which search for the ground; some, like the one on the left, find it.  Others, like those on the right, find enough nutrients within the nurse log.  Nurse logs are so cool! 

Here the park folks have broken out their Poulans and sawed a path thru a downed giant.  Artistry can be found in many guises in the redwoods...some at the hand of nature, some from the imagination of humankind.