This morning I prepare to return to San Francisco after five days here in Anchor Bay on the Mendocino Coast. I chose this particular week carefully: it’s the gay pride celebration in San Francisco, a time when I prefer to take myself elsewhere and avoid the aggravation of the noise and disruption. Not that I have anything against the pride celebration; it’s a fine thing to do and this year was particularly exuberant given the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage. But I live on the edge of the Castro. I don’t like the near-nonstop noise, not to mention the equally near-nonstop backyard parties taking place more or less in my own back yard. In short, I prefer to get out.
At least most years I promise myself that I will get out, then fail to act and suffer accordingly. This year I planned ahead and chose the Mendocino Coast. That was a careful selection: while it may be only a short ways north from San Francisco, it’s a world apart in culture, style, and feeling. A good part of that has to do with the difficulties one must encounter just to get there. Geography dictates that a smooth multi-lane Interstate is out of the question. The mountains, cliffs, and bays of the coast pose a daunting challenge to road-builders and travellers alike. Highway 1 is a supreme engineering achievement, but it’s nonetheless a narrow two-lane road that rises, falls, corkscrews, and offers a constantly-changing landscape that beguiles the eye and distracts the driver. And yet Highway 1 is the single connecting thread between the small communities that dot the coastline. To get anywhere on the Mendocino Coast, one travels Highway 1. Period. There is no other road.
Nor is it easy to get to Highway 1. After crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, you may take the longest route by heading west to Highway 1 at Stinson Beach then crawling your way north from then on. Most people prefer to stay on the inland interstate-like Highway 101 for as long as possible, then head to the coast via an east-west connecting highway. There are three. The southernmost is the Valley/Bodega Road from Petaluma, which brings you out to the coast at Bodega Bay. The next candidate is Highway 128 from Cloverdale (well north of Santa Rosa), which runs through the Alexander Valley before plunging into a magnificent—and nausea-inducing—twist/turn through the somber green caves of a redwood forest that carpets the banks of the Navarro River, then reaches Highway 1 well south of Mendocino town proper. Or you can zoom all the way up Highway 101 to Willits and take Highway 20 westwards over what was once the old logging trail; after a nonstop roller-coaster pathway up and down the hills you reach the Eel River basin and follow that serpentine path along for miles. Highway 20 is gorgeous, and always slow-going thanks to the many recreational vehicles that impose a 20mph or less speed limit just about everywhere along its route. It ends at the unrelieved drabness of Fort Bragg, just about the worst introduction possible to the endless wonders of the Mendocino Coast.
Apart from taking a private airplane to one of the various airports, that’s it for getting here. It’s not easy to reach. That accounts for the bucolic atmosphere and sense of changelessness. I’m a bit ashamed of myself when I contemplate how few times I’ve actually come up here, and then mostly briefly. Yesterday’s drive along Highway 128 reminded me of a visit 35 years ago as passenger in a decomposing AMC Gremlin driven by a nervous-nellie chap who honked the horn at every curve and stopped every half-mile or so to have a fit of hysterics. I’m sure I haven’t been up here in at least twenty years.
This time around I came for five days, had no agenda, and spent most of my time exploring. I’ve tried out most of the beaches along here: Cook Beach, Anchor Bay, Schooner Gulch, Manchester State Beach. I’ve gone to Point Arena (town, cove, and lighthouse) and Manchester and Gualala and Albion and Little River and Caspar and Mendocino and Fort Bragg. I went inland to Boonville and Navarro and Ukiah and at least drove through Willits. I’ve stopped wherever I felt like stopping and for however long I wanted. I tried Anchor Bay’s two restaurants, one Mexican and the other Thai, both quite nice. I’ve had really first-class barbecue two nights running in a friendly roadhouse-style restaurant in Gualala, a decent but undistinguished spinach quiche for lunch in Mendocino, and spectacularly fine salmon down south on the way up here in Jenner. I’ve gotten sunburned. I have a blister on one foot from sandal-chafing. My legs are tired.
I read half of one of the six books I brought along. The shaky WiFi here at my inn drops its connection frequently, thus conspiring with the rest of my environment to keep me detached from the urban world to the south. I’ve gotten enough information to know what’s going on: same-sex marriage, Obamacare vindicated, the two New York prison fugitives killed/captured.
This isn’t hickville. It’s still northern California with all that implies; many people have strong roots in San Francisco and know the city as well as I do. Despite the driving challenges, one must remember that Santa Rosa is a mere two hours away, about the same time it can take to make it from Walnut Creek to San Francisco in rush hour. Thus it manages to be a world apart while remaining very much part of the world: modern, trendy, sophisticated, but nevertheless still timeless. Much of it presents a universal Northern California of rolling hills dotted with ancient barns, all stretching alongside a vertiginous coastline. Wildflowers far outnumber people, and farms far outnumber towns. Apart from the grimly utilitarian Fort Bragg there isn’t a town without its own quirky charm, even if the “town” is little more than a wide strip along Highway 1—as is true of Manchester and my own Anchor Bay. It’s a car culture by necessity but not a freeway culture; there’s a world of difference there. One must be mindful of one’s gasoline usage since gas stations aren’t all that common. Then again, you can’t really go all that far in terms of absolute mileage. It just feels like greater distances than it is, given not only the terrain but the marked individuality of the towns. There’s a wisdom in banning chain restaurants from most of these towns: you don’t find a McDonald’s or Taco Bell until Fort Bragg, and the coast is all the better for the lack. Markets are local instead of being chain stores—again, head for Fort Bragg if you must go to Safeway.
I leave reluctantly. The parties over, San Francisco will be its usual self—crowded, noisy, dirty—when I return. Presumably my house hasn’t been trashed by careless revellers staggering along my side street. It’s not as though I’m going back to work: my summer vacation has six weeks yet to run. I’ve got time for more wandering, and I intend to take full advantage of the freedom. But this was one of my best decisions: five days in a charming bed & breakfast in a tiny hamlet on a high bluff overlooking a gorgeous northern beach.
I won’t let 20 years elapse until my next visit, that’s for sure.