Well today started off with a five mile run through the heart of Pinole, CA, a somewhat blue collar town near the outskirts of what's considered the "Bay Area." Pinole has a nice little downtown area and is developing some nicer residential areas; there's a farmer's market on Saturdays for example. I ran down the enormous steep grade leading from Kimberly and Terry's house on a crystal clear, cool morning, into downtown, then along a gravel trail running along the creek through town. That's all fine, until you have to run back up the grade to get home. Its like running up one side of an isosceles triangle. My quads were seriously questioning the day's training plan. Those quads need to get in line behind my back and hips, which were complaining about running on concrete. At 45, if its not one one body part breaking down, its another.
Upon my return, the rental car people called and said they'd located a convertible and were sending someone out to swap it for my Nissan hybrid. Knowing it would take awhile, Kimberly and I went up to Noah's Bagels and visited over our usual bagel sandwich treats. But I hurried back to meet the rental car guy. He finally called, hopelessly lost in industrial Richmond and seemingly unable to speak english. I handed him to Kimberly, who tried vainly to give him directions, asking him please to speak more clearly. We finally gave up and called his boss with directions. Half an hour later, a burnt orange Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible showed up outside our door. Texas in the house. It has a huge speaker in the back seat, resembling 1970s era Grateful Dead concert amps. It has deluxe rims too. The whole thing has a sort of wrong side of the tracks, up and coming coke dealer feel to it. While driving it in my Michael Westen shades and izod shirt, I resemble a near-bankrupt Miami condo salesman. Or Mr. Furley on Three's Company. I discovered as I headed out on the highway that this car handles just like my college friend Matt's orange-red (reddish-orange?) 1976 Firebird 455, which got about six miles to the gallon. Basically that means it handles like a tow boat. Matt and I once drove from Austin to Dallas for some party the next night, stopping in Waco at George's to meet some guys he knew. Matt decided that would be a good time to have about two or 12 beers (keep in mind, these were "Big O's") on top of a coronary bypass style chicken fried steak, resulting in his declaration after dinner that I needed to drive the rest of the way. In the dark. As it was starting to thunderstorm. Oh, and he needed new wiper blades. That steering wheel probably still has marks from where I dug in my fingers fearing for my life. We made it, miraculously, though I still have no idea how.
But the Eclipse does have a convertible top and that's all that I required to enjoy the beautiful day and the five hour drive from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe. The scenery leaving the Bay Area, until you get to roughly Vacaville, is the same sort of rolling, golden hills with spare trees you see across the Bay in Marin. After that, until Auburn, CA, you may as well be in Oklahoma or Kansas. I kept waiting for a tornado to whisk me to Oz. Flat, scrubby agricultural land. A real white people shangri-la. Olive Gardens, Chilis, Home Depots, Best Buys, RV and Chevrolet dealerships (and the occasional Texas Roadhouse, because after all, kids need somewhere nice to go on prom night). In other words, Raider country. I saw more Oakland Raiders stickers on vehicles than I would ever have imagined. Haven't you people figured out over these last 10 years that your team and organization is a complete joke, has no future, and will never improve as long as that corpse Al Davis continues running it. To the extent this guy thinks about football at all, he thinks its still 1977. They always have the top draft choices, and nearly always squander them on busts, or draft guys way ahead of their actual draft day value. Darrius Heyward-Bey at the 8th pick? That guy is a third rounder at best. They hire coaches based on how compliant they are to Davis (and how low of a salary they'll accept), and the one time they got a good one, Jon Gruden, Al ran him out of town because people gave him more credit than Al for the team's momentary resurgence. Their previous offensive coordinator was running a bed and breakfast before returning to the NFL. The current head coach, Tom Cable, got into a fistfight with another coach. They did go to the Super Bowl in 2003, only to have Gruden's Tampa Bay team crush the Raiders behind their puppet coach, Bill Callahan (whom Al fired later, of course). So you people need to dig in for a long, long wait for success. Hope you enjoy a few more 5-11 seasons. Jim Plunkett, Marcus Allen, Tim Brown...these guys played years ago. Not today.
Auburn, California, just east of Sacramento, is an interesting little town with a preserved old town area. Auburn was a gold rush town, located near where the first gold finds happened in 1848-49. The town appears to cater to tourists, with lots of antique stores, bars, and restaurants. I photographed the 1898 courthouse, on my flickr site. The whole town has a sort of Stars Hollow feel. I'd have stayed longer but was anxious to get into Lake Tahoe before sunset.
I did pull over in Colfax to eat. Colfax has the distinction of being near Grass Valley, the unfortunately named town where Ricky Williams decided to become a holistic healer during his suspension for...marijuana use. Now I see what was going on, this place is really beautiful. Right after Auburn, the land becomes more rugged and gains about 2,000 feet in elevation quickly. Scrub gives way to evergreen and white fir trees, becoming more and more thick the further east one heads. You gain about 5,000 feet in elevation between Auburn and Kings Beach, which is just down the road from Incline Village where I'm staying.
The road into north Lake Tahoe is the two-lane affair you'd expect. Complete with holiday weekend construction. Is there some road worker school where they teach good planning methods like that? Anyway, it goes up in elevation for awhile, until it peaks around Brockway Summit and begins to head down. At that point, you can first see the lake. From there, the road leads down to the shore and California SH 28, which loops around the lake (becoming Nevada 28 and later US 58 as it loops around to the east). You first hit Kings' Beach, with several public and private boat launches and a few hotels and shops. I took photos of the Lake near sunset which you can see on flickr, which speak for themselves. Lake Tahoe has the deepest blue water I've ever seen. Surrounded by thickly forested mountains that quickly slope down to the shore, the effect is simply stunning. I can easily see why the area became so developed (and why the locals are working to roll back that tide). 28 is lined with any number of condos, motels and small hotels, as well as outdoor adventure shops, restaurants and bars. One is the Motel California. Few chain stores, save for the obligatory 7-11 and Subway shops, seem to operate here. A handwritten poster board sign on the door of the Kings Beach Chevron boldly proclaims that two service stations in North Lake Tahoe is enough and the local mandarins should not allow a third. I've seen more clever poster board signs at little league games. Come on guys, this is Tahoe. Class it up. At least add some sparkly glitter or some hearts or something.
Heading eastward along 28 one crosses the state line, and immediately sees casinos (complete with ads for $24.95 steak dinners and has been country one- or two-hit wonders; not exactly the Casino de Monte Carlo) on the Nevada side. After that, the first town is Incline Village, where I've rented a small condo. Incline Village, much like other areas around the lake, appears to thrive in ski season. Signs abound for various ski runs and resorts, and road signs warn of tire chain requirements during the snow season. So far I haven't seen any snow on the ground, so I seem to remain safe in the coke dealer wagon.
The condo is pretty nice. Its away from 28 and the busy tourist district. Its right next to a very small creek, and has a deck thick with Stellers jays in the morning. Although its decorated in various shades of beige, its ok because I'll only be here at nights. The best feature by far is the oversized peephole/door in the front door with bars over it, just like the one at the front door of the Wizard's castle in the Wizard of Oz. After watching about half an hour of a PBS documentary on John Ford and recovering from the trip, I drove around to get my bearings. Lakeshore Drive runs right along the lake and has several private boat launches. It also has a trail where most of the residents appear to walk in the evenings. The Hyatt has a popular resort here, and a lot of people were coming in and out.
After grocery shopping for the week, I returned to make dinner of salmon and stir-fry broccoli, and watched the last 2/3 of The Sound of Music on TV while writing last night's post. Although its a great movie, there's a lot of things about it that bother me. For example, who the hell is "Uncle Max"? Was he a real uncle, as suggested by the fact that the kids called him "Uncle," or was he an uncle like Christina Crawford saw her mother having dozens of "uncles" over to the house late at night? Or like one of those uncles who kidnap 13 year olds and keep them in their basement for the next 10 years? You know, Jimmy Page. He seems to be the Evil Baroness' friend, but the kids called him "Uncle" too. Also, the Captain was way too young. Christopher Plummer looks to be about 40 in the movie. The Captain was supposed to have been a ship captain in the Austria-Hungarian navy during World War I. Ship captains generally aren't in their early 20s, but that's how old Captain vonTrapp would have had to have been to be a captain in World War I, and look about 40 in 1937. Oh, and if he's so tormented over his wife's death, what's he doing running around Vienna with that Baronness tramp? And how did he keep his money after the his country collapsed after the war, and through the Great Depression? Naval captains don't exactly make a lot of money. I know he had a "von" in his name, but so did lots of men's rooms attendants after the war. The biggest problem I have is how he goes from running the house like it was a naval vessel, with kids wearing uniforms and marching about the grounds, to acting like its Big Gay Al's Summer Sing-a-long. I mean, that guy goes from Captain Bligh to one of the fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream in about 12 seconds. One final problem I have is Rolf, the Boy Wonder Nazi, who romances and then dumps that babe Lisle, then lets everyone get away in the end, even giving his gun up to the Captain. I may be wrong, but I thought the SS was generally a pretty ruthless and efficient organization. How this puss got a slot is hard to imagine. Can you see him explaining how he lost his gun to Herr Detweiller? I guess every group has its Barney Fife, even the SS.
OK, that was a bit of a tangent. I promise to stick to the story for tomorrow.
Tomorrow-hiking to Watson Lake
1 comment:
awesome Gilmore Girls reference.
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