The Long and Winding Road

The ride down to SF began with the weather a bit warmer than the past few days, but I still put on the longjohns, turtleneck, leather jacket, and full-fingered gloves. The sun was shining bright as I rolled out of Fort Bragg.

Here's the thing about riding the CA coast, which is very different from the OR coast. First, whoever laid out the coast highway in CA was either a motorcycle rider himself, or he was high on something and couldn't see straight.

These roads have so many curves I was almost never entirely upright. It's just left and right, left and right, the whole way down the coast. The other major difference between the two states is the CA coast ride h as a lot less trees, and those that are there are generally on the other side of the road, so the coastline, the wonderfully jagged, wily coast is there for all to see. Maybe it has to do with Californians love of the automobile that the drivers are given the advantage of the fabulous view. In Oregon the view is mostly hidden from the road, you have to want to hike to it to really see it. Not so in CA.


These photos give you a little idea of what I mean as far as the view. All these shots were taken either from the road or from a little drive to an offshoot of the main road (because this boy is a lazy tourist).

After rolling along for a 100 miles or so, stopping of course to take a few pictures, I pulled into a small deli called the Bodega Bay Deli (Bodega Bay being the name of the town). Purely by coincidence, this was the town where Hitchcock apparently shot exteriors for The Birds. The spot where this deli is was used in the film though the original building was razed and a newer one (though not all that new anymore) was built. It was on CA-1 off Taylor Street.

Anyway, I only learned this while I was waiting for the guy to make my sandwich. There's a photo of what the place used to look like along with an ad of the film, torn from a newspaper, where you can see the deli down the street.

I ate my sandwich in the parking lot and kept my eye on those pesky birds, but they didn't get out of hand. While munching my sandwich, a woman came over to me and said, "you didn't really ride that thing all the way from New York, did you?" I wanted to say, no I carried the fucker on my back, of course I rode it ya dope. Instead I just said, Yeah ... I did. To which she said, "I always wanted to do something like that." We talked for a bit, I told her how I'd come out, and she asked if I'd seen much rain. Another guy came over a minute later and asked about my ride and had I seen any rain. People in California are very concerned with precipitation it seems.

Later, as I was rolling further south and enjoying the view, while dealing with the corkscrew roadway, the temperature got warmer, reaching into the 80's. It was hot, but then there was some shade and a breeze was fairly constant off the ocean. When the coastline dropped away as the road turned inland, the temperature went even higher. At one point I saw a sign that said it was 94 degrees. I was sweating then. But I kept the gear on as I didn't feel like stopping again before getting to SF. I was only about 40 miles away or less at the time and thought, let's just get there and be done with it.

Somewhere about 20 miles or so before San Francisco I lost sight of CA-1. I'm not sure if they stopped posting signs, or if I missed a turn, but I knew I was heading south and would eventually pick up CA-1 or US-101 again, or at the very least see signs for the Golden Gate Bridge. I saw a sign for US-101 South and got on that. By now it was well into the upper 90's, and I was thinking, man ... people are always complaining about how cold SF is and they are nuts.

I've never seen anything like this before in my life. I could see the city and the famous bridge while sweating my ass off, but as I turned the corner on the approach to the bridge, the temperature dropped from the 90's to about 65 degrees and windy, BAM! ... just like that. It was as amazing as the view itself.

I, of course did not get a photo of the bridge as I was too busy riding it and taking in all the sights. Besides, if you haven't seen the thing you can always google an image of it, I'm sure there are more than a few out there for free.

Now the bridge is spectacular to drive over, especially with the abrupt change in the weather. Also, all the people suddenly appear as does the city itself. And I have to say it is a pretty fabulous view of the city from the bridge.

Of course, I'm a New Yorker, and only a little bias, so I thought the bridge was great, but not as good as the Brooklyn Bridge (or the Charles Bridge in Prague - that was awesome as well). And it's red, I always thought it was painted gold (it is called the Golden Gate Bridge, after all ...). I guess that's just a figure of speech.

OK so now I'm in the city and I get the complaint about the weather. It's damn cold for August, and only moments outside the city it's hot as hell. So that's what it's like to build a city right on the ocean. Also, the thing about the fog, I saw none of it yesterday and only a little fog today, but none of it in the city itself, so I either lucked out on the fog front or these people are just whinners.

I settled right in and found my way around, but I have to say for a city, finding food after 10 pm was a little problematic the first night. I'm either missing the right late-night hood or these people go to bed way too early for city folk.

I had a great day on Thursday wandering around the city. The day started off with a phone conversation with a big literary agent who read my novel (I recently wrote a novel - for those who didn't know). This guy came from a connection through my great good friend, Melanie, who is determined to get this book published. So after talking with the agent this morning for about half-an-hour (he liked the writing, thinks there are a few things that need to be clarified, gave me specific notes, and we'll be talking again after he reads the next draft), I floated around the city, sort of in a daze, as the gravity of the situation with my book sunk in.

Lunch was had in this terrific little cafe, a place that has been with the same owners since it opened in 1956, Cafe Trieste. There were great old photos on the wall of famous people who'd been there (Bill Cosby was in a few, Francis Ford Coppola and others). The place reminded me a little of Cafe Reggio on MacDougal street in the Village.

Shortly after I left the cafe, by absolute chance I stumbled upon City Lights Books. This is the famous bookstore and publisher who published and promoted the Beat writers (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, etc.). As I'm a fan of Jack Kerouac it was a perfect moment, given what had transpired only a few hours earlier (I know having an agent say they think the book would sell if I worked on it more isn't actually getting it published, but it's a lot further along then it was last week - actually, he said it was a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10, but it could easily be a 10 if I worked on it a little more.)

I spent an hour or more just browsing (and yes I bought 2 books, even though I have no room for them - but I'll make it work). It was a great way to spend the afternoon. I wanted to stay and get a job there and rework my novel and start on the next one, and be like Jack Kerouac living off my writing and dying broke and a drunk in Northport, Long Island (ok ... all but the last bit about dying and being broke on Long Island).

I took close to 100 pictures of the city (and if my damn lousy internet connection will cooperate, I'll get them up here). This is a fun town, the architecture reminds me a lot of Brooklyn, NY actually (funny ... Seattle reminded me of Tribeca, architecturally speaking, lots of warehouse/loft type structures with large windows).

So that's my report from beautiful San Francisco. I'll be heading down to LA on Friday and then hanging there for 4 or 5 days. I think I need to be somewhere I know, with people I know and stop driving so much for a little while. I need to go for a run and to the gym, eat some decent food and just relax. Then I can figure out how the hell I'm going to get back to NYC.

I'll probably not post again for at least a few days. If I get any good shots along the rest of the coast ride Friday, I'll post those, but look for a post from me sometime 5 days out or so for certain.

Last thing - the weather in SF is strange, I see why people complain about it. Today I was dressed for low 70's and while walking up these hills, in the sun I was sweating, then I'd hit a shady street and a cold wind would blow and I'd get a chill. This went on all damn day. It's goofy. Oh, yeah ... these hills, damn my knees are killing me. This is one hilly place, I swear I almost scraped my nose on the sidewalk a few times and I was just walking straight up. Here when they say, I'm going to walk up the street, they really mean UP the street.

Take care.