Howard Creek Ranch - Mendocino County

Like everyone else, this year we responded to the gas crunch and spent our vacation close to home. In miles, that is, but we traveled far from every reminder of our everyday lives.

We went to the northern Mendocino County.

First, I have to say that the California coastline is the most beautiful I've ever seen in the world. Highway 1 from Big Sur in the south to Mendocino (more recently to Ft. Bragg) in the north is sprinkled with wineries, Victorian Bed & Breakfast Inns, upscale restaurants, boutiques, galleries, hiking, biking, spas and anything else a discerning tourist could possibly wish for.

All of that pretty much ends at Ft. Bragg. The country north is rugged and sparsely populated, but equally as interesting. We made our base at the Howard Creek Ranch, picked at random on the Internet. Since we had no expectations we weren't especially disappointed to find out that the Ranch was not the typical Mendocino B&B. The Ranch and the surrounding land (60 acres now, but at one point there were about 2000 acres attached to the property) was once a prosperous farming and logging operation, but it eventually was abandoned and came into disrepair, reemerging as a hippie commune in the 1970s. Two of the commune members, Sally and Sonny, stayed on, purchased the ranch, and have operated it as a B&B once the commune dissolved.

The photo at the top shows the main farmhouse on a typical foggy morning. To the right is a photo of the "carriage barn" where many of the guest rooms were. "Carriage Room," where we slept the first two nights was on the top floor with views of the ocean and the mountains. It was beautifully restored in craftsman style, with a wood stove, lots of light and lots of space. I would be happy living in that room for the rest of my life. Then we moved to "Blue Balcony" on the first floor. This was less luxurious. The room itself was very small and the bathroom was squeezed between the bedroom and the common area. But we had a nice balcony and could visit with all the guests and staff as they crossed our paths.

Sally and Sonny, the innkeepers, are quirky, talented and very interesting, so much so that I'm dying to learn more of their story (OK, I'll admit it, I'd really like to do a book, or at least an oral history of their lives). We actually never saw Sonny, though evidence of his talent and love for the property is in every structure and throughout the land. Sally was present at breakfast and throughout the day, happy to regale us with stories of the property and her life. She has a green thumb, which she says is "just another way of saying you remember to water and fertilize" and her flowers are wonderful. The image at the left hardly does justice to the garden, but it's the best shot we got.

We are served a scrumptous farm-size breakfast of an egg dish, a meat dish, biscuits or French toast, three fruit dishes, coffee of course, and mint tea from the garden. All the guests eat together and breakfast was, at least for our crowd, quite a social occasion. (For the rest of the day, guests pretty much stuck to themselves.) There is a "food problem" for the rest of the day. Though rooms are equipped with a small refrigerator and microwave, there are not facilities for serious cooking, and the Ft. Bragg -- the center for restaurants or groceries -- is a good half hour away on winding, sometimes foggy roads. And everything about the place says " don't get in your car, don't go anywhere" but then we have to eat.

Jonathan, in his ever friendly way, solved the problem one night by sweet talking the staff into letting us use the farmhouse kitchen to cook pasta and salad. In return, we invited them to join us for dinner. A very interesting group: one couple had been transient for some time before bedding down at Howard Creek; another young woman was a physics major transitioning from college to the real world with hope of a career in solar power; another was a college student from Belarus here on a work internship.

The setting is the best part. The Ranch is about 200 footsteps from one of the most gorgeous segments of the California State Beach. In the mornings I walked down Howard Creek and under the highway to the beach, and then along the coast which has a path for a mile or two. Often it was foggy in the morning, and sometimes it cleared up, sometimes not. One thing for sure is that we weren't sizzling like the rest of the country.

It was a great getaway. More photos.

LETTER TO MY GRANDDAUGHTER

Dearest Lyra, Welcome to the outside world. Doesn't your dad look proud!!

You arrived on January 21 right before midnight, I believe on a cold stormy night in the middle of winter. I understand your journey to the outside world was a little rough, but you are now in the loving arms of your parents, Michael and Jamie.

You are the only infant I know with a blog, and with parents like yours, your life will be filled with goodness.

THE FOG OF SAN FRANCISCO

Such an evocative description of San Francisco by Jeffrey Eugenides, from Middlesex, p. 468. For images to heighten the mood while you read along, check Frederic Larson's wonderful photography

Every morning a great wall of fog descends upon the city of San Francisco. It begins far out at sea. It forms over the Farallons, covering the sea lions on their rocks, and then it sweeps onto Ocean Beach, filling the long green bowl of Golden Gate Park. The fog obscures the early morning joggers and the lone practitioners of tai chi. It mists up the windows of the Glass Pavilion. It creeps over the entire city, over the monuments and movie theaters, over the Panhandle dope dens and the flophouses in the Tenderloin. The fog covers the pastel Victorian mansions in Pacific Heights and shrouds the rainbow-colored streets of Chinatown; it boards the cable cars, making their clanging bells sound like buoys; it climbs to the top of Coit Tower until you can't see it anymore; it moves in on the Mission, where the mariachi players are still asleep; and it bothers tourists. The fog of San Francisco, that cold, identity-cleansing mist that rolls over the city every day, explains better than anything else why that city is what it is. After the Second World War, San Francisco was the main point of re-entry for sailors returning from the Pacific. Out at sea, many of these sailors had picked up amatory habits that were frowned upon back on dry land. So these sailors stayed in San Francisco, growing in number and attracting others, until the city becaume the gay capital, the homosexual hauptstadt. (Further evidence of life's unpredictability: the Castro is a direct outcome of the military-industrial complex.) It was the fog that appealed to those sailors because it lent the city the shifting, anonymous feeling of the sea, and in such anonymity personal change was that much easier. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether the fog was rolling in over the city or whether the city was drifting out to meet it. Back in the 1940s, fog hid what those sailors did from thier fellow citiaens. And the fog wasn't done. In the fifties it filled the heads of the Beats like the foam in their cappuccinos. In the sixties it clouded the minds of the hippies like the pot smoke rising in their bongs. And in the seventies, when Cal Stephanides arrived, the fog was hiding my new friends and me in the park.

CROATIA TRIP - DAY 27 - TRAVEL

Today we fly Vienna to San Francisco, retracing our tracks but this time following the sun. We leave Vienna at 7 a.m. and fly about 16 hours to arrive in San Francisco at 1:30 p.m. I'm not ready to come home, but that's ok. My life is so rich and full of sensations and experiences from this trip that I can carry with me all my life, and share on this blog, that it is just ok to be back home.

In fact, when I arrive, I drop everything to spend a few hours puttering in my garden.

CROATIA TRIP - DAY 26 - VIENNA

Today is our last day in Europe. How can I best savor it? Jonathan is still under the weather so I set out on my own. I try to touch bases with all the landmarks that have guided me here. I walk past the Swiss clock near our hotel, then over to St Stephensplatz for an espresso. Then behind the cathedral to Mozart's home to pay homage one more time. Now down the Kartnerstrasse to the Graben, Newmarkt, and over to our first hotel near the Staatsoper. I think about the night we arrived almost 4 weeks ago, google-eyed and jet lagged. We set out for a late dinner and got lost going only one block away! Now I feel so comfortable moving through Vienna.

Later in the day Jonathan and I set out in a different direction, wandering somewhat aimlessly. And surprise! we come to an entirely unknown part of town, just steps away from our hotel. It's the oldest part of town, near the Danube, and to a church that was first constructed in the 1100s. This is also an area for young and hip Viennese, with jazz clubs and bars.

I'm happy to know that there is yet much to learn and do and experience in Vienna, and plenty of reason to return. But for now, it's home and packing for a 3:45 a.m. wake up call.

CROATIA TRIP - DAY 25 - VIENNA

Vienna. Jonathan stays in our hotel to nurse a respiratory infection while I head out to explore Vienna on my own.

Time for early 20th century art. I trace the path of Gustav Klimt, my favorite Viennese artist. First I find a shop on the Kartnerstrasse which sells reproductions of his works on cloth, posters, coffee cups and the like. Don't know how they skirt the copyright. Then on the the Museum of Modern Art, and finally to the Belvedere Palace, where the largest collection of his works lives. Funny, when I see Klimt's works for real, I'm less impressed instead of more. I was actually more impressed with the works of his student, Egon Scheile, who created enormously powerful works before he died at the age of 28.

I walk home through the city streets thinking about how rich and wonderful this travel experience is -- how much we've seen and done and thought about and shared. I hope I can carry this feeling with me for a very long time. Two more days before we return to San Francisco.

CROATIA TRIP - Day 24 - TRAVEL

We arrive in Rijeka promptly at 7 a.m., before even the industrious Croatians are up and about. With 4 hours before our train to Vienna leaves, we check our baggage and search for the interesting part of town. Finally we find the central part of town which has been redesigned as a pedestrian mall.

But Rijeka is an industrial port city of about 150,000, not a quaint tourist city. It's right on the border of Austria and Italy, so very closely connected to northern Europe, and it was hardly affected by the Yugoslav war.

I enjoyed our stroll and our time in the cafe, but was not disappointed when it was time to get on the train. I love train travel, and was quite happy to spend the next 10 hours traveling to Vienna.

CROATIA TRIP - DAY 23 - TRAVEL

Today is travel day. Janja makes us a special breakfast, we take photographs, zip up our suitcases, and sadly leave our sweet Dubrovnik home.

We booked passage on the Jadrolinja ferry from Dubrovnik all the way up the Dalmatian Coast to Rijeka, a 21 hour trip.

The Jadrolinja is very nice, and entirely different from any of our other nautical experiences. We have a cabin to sleep in, but spend all our time on the deck as we cruise up the coast. We stop in Hvar, Korcula and Split, destinations of our Arburat trip, but this time we arrive as a big cruise liner. Almost everyone spends time on deck (and those who don't have cabins must stay on the deck), so there is plenty of time for people watching, chatting with strangers and taking photos.

I can't help thinking about the last time I took this trip on the Jadrolinja, in 1990, and we hit a tropical storm in the middle of the night, that rocked our boat despite its size, so that water was splashing all over the deck, people and furniture were thrown from one side to another, all the while the rain was drenching us all. On this trip I was a deck passenger, so I managed by finding bench that was built into the ship and holding on for dear life.

Then, as quickly as the storm came it passed. And by the time we arrived in Rijeka the sun was shining and the water was still.