CHICAGO: MORE CULTURE THAN I’M USED TO…

 …Knowledgeable tour guide was a must!

Long time readers (both of you) will know that I prefer the Sutter Buttes to the TransAmerica Pyramid; the Carrizo Plain to Golden Gate Park. Fewer people. Less traffic. Yes, and a little cheaper. A trip to San Francisco, my nearest big metro area, is palatable because the bucolic Sac/San Juaquin Delta is nearby, as are the cathedral-like coast redwoods. I know I can escape to the Marin Headlands if I need to.

With that in my DNA, I approached a week’s visit to Chicago with some trepidation. As luck would have it, we hooked in with an outstanding tour guide ~ DePaul student and granddaughter Grace Powers ~ for an outstanding taste of this midwestern mega-city. Where do I start?

 

Open Space? Our digs at Villa d’Citta https://www.villadcitta.com on North Halsted in Lincoln Park (a lovely boutique mansion) were only blocks away from the Chicago City Zoo…

…the Lake Michigan waterfront….

…and this grand fountain in Grant Park.

Mid-October weather was perfect for strolling, site-seeing, and stopping for the occasional bite to eat…

…like this Chicago Dog at Harry Caray’s joint on the Navy Pier.  (Enjoyed, also, the major league memorabilia. Could have spent hours!)

 

Evening strolls in the Lincoln Park area near DePaul reminded me of my old digs on Eighth Street in Chico.  Vintage homes.  Shaded by mature broadleaf trees, such as feeling of warmth and neighborhood.

Architecture?  Growing up in Chico, when the University planned and built seven-story Butte Hall, it was considered a skyscraper. So much so that the Fire Department found themselves searching for a ladder truck with a longer ladder.  Turns out, ‘they ain’t seen nothin’.’

Our riverboat tour near the Lake Michigan shoreline highlighted the design eras and the extent of architectural evolution…

 …from the art deco opera house…

…to this mid-century modern example…

…to a post-modern curved glass structure that reflects all the styles along the waterfront.

I didn’t take notes, but the masterpiece below was the first major building designed by a female architect. Visionary! How I wish I'd written down her name. 

This project’s success opened the doors for other women to break into a male-dominated field and enhance the city’s skyline with a new kind of grace and strength.

 

Art?  Fifty-plus years ago, I took an art appreciation class at Chico State to fulfill a humanities requirement. Although my grandfather dabbled in oils ~ I have one of his hanging right beside me as I write ~ I wasn’t much interested in what the prof shared with students on slide after innumerable slide. Little did I know that at the Chicago Institute of Arts, I’d see a two dozen or more of those classic works up close, very real and very touching.  Here’s Rembrandt…

Grant Wood…

Frank Lloyd Wright. (Brother Tim has a desk he created from similar design that I’ve helped him move twice, Tim tells me.)

And this: Van Gogh’s self-portrait which I have renamed two old guys with beards.

We marveled at the collection at the Chicago Institute of Art, wondering how so many masterpieces could end up under the same roof with that roof not being atop the Louvre in Paris.

 

Theatre? An unexpected treat was the opportunity to attend the world premiere of “Leroy and Lucy” at the famed Steppenwolf Theatre on Halsted Ave.  Steppenwolf started decades ago by a group of then recent high school graduates intent on continuing their theatre work.  Over the interceding years, the list of Steppenwolf alums reads like a who’s who of Broadway, screen and television.

Curated for over three years, this show depicts the dreams and demons visited upon perhaps the father of all the Blues.

 Rather than to give anything away, know that as we rose to over a much deserved standing O to the players, I said to Gracie: “I’ve got to see that again!” I'm certain we'll see this work in venues across the nation. Recommend seeing it when it comes your way.

 

Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen intoned that Chicago is “my kind of town,” ~ recall Sinatra’s classic version ~ and we can see why.  The song writing duo certainly captured my kind of razzmatazz and it has all that jazz.  Not sure if Chicago will be calling me home quite soon enough, but we were more than delighted with the art, the culture, the people too, people who, smile at you.

Once of the smilin’-est ones?  Granddaughter Grace.  Thanks for introducing your Bumpa to some culture Gracie! As you might imagine, I can always use more culture.

 

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

 

ABOARD THE CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR (FINALLY!)

 A life-long dream come true ~ maybe

The California Zephyr has always been mythic to me. Winding like a silver ribbon up the Feather River Canyon, occasionally, we’d be lucky enough to see it as we drove California’s Route 70 in our ’54 Ford toward Quincy and Bucks Lake. Crisscrossing the canyon, if we were really lucky, we’d be crossing the river on a bridge as the train crossed above us, switching sides of the canyon. The silver beauty was always on the other side ~ always just a bit out of reach.  

The Zephyr ran from San Francisco to Chicago under the combined efforts of the Western Pacific, the Denver, Rio Grande Western and the Burlington Route. It had always been my dream thunder across our vast western expanse on this train. Alas, come the early 70s, service ended. As did my dream.  Or so I thought.

 

But along came Amtrak, the Federal government’s attempt to keep rail traffic alive. More successful along the eastern corridor of the United States, cross-country routes would enjoy less ridership. Yet, the Zephyr was revived. Now, however, using the historic Donner Pass Route initially carved by the Central Pacific, silver streamliners no longer grace the Feather.

 

 We board the Zephyr in Sacramento.

 

From the Sacramento Valley Station, the route winds and twists up the western slope of the Sierra with pauses in Roseville, Colfax, and, following the river courses of the American and the Yuba, cresting the Sierra on the highest trackage anywhere in the States. We enjoy a view of Donner Lake…

 …before descending into Truckee for a twenty minute fresh air and, ironically, smoke break.

The route traces the Truckee River through the rain shadowed environs of the east slope of the Sierra. Conifer forests begin to give way to brittle sage and autumn’s golden grasses.  

East of Reno, we begin to get a feel for the vast and vacant high desert. Miles of that sage and mineral wealth (I suppose.)

Our rail journey will take 50 hours, several of those spent lightly sleeping in our rocking accommodation. But, as night falls, I snap this haunting image of a western sunset and wonder about the Shoshone and Paiute peoples who, for centuries, came to an understanding of that whole living in harmony with nature thing that we successors to this space don’t quite get.

Sunrise finds us coursing along the Gunnison River.

Rolling into Grand Junction, CO on the historic Denver and Rio Grande Route, we see one of many grand old stations left to decay.

A few miles of browning hills relentlessly shaped by river and wind…

 …and we rumble into our first glimpse of the Great Plains.  I write ‘rumble’ because, to my untrained train butt, the Burlington Northern / Santa Fe right-of-way east of Denver seems a bit less well maintained than the UP to the west.

 

Lots of flat. Lots of grain ~ amber waves of it ~ mainly, it seems, corn. And lots of endless vistas. One can fly over this country, which we did on our return to California, and not grasp the distances, the vastness and the towns that look like nameless grids or checkerboards from 36,000 feet. We slept through all of Nebraska. 

 

Here’s Burlington, Iowa …

… and an aging Burlington Northern Pullman, Railway Express car and vintage loco. Glad these rolling stock examples are being preserved.

 

An hour or so further and an hour or so short of Chicago, this solitary farmstead captures a contemporary way of life we don’t experience on our western seaboard. And, while not wishing to wax political in this post, I believe I can understand why folks in these parts may see things differently than I do.

 

Chicago would be our literal end of the line. It’s where the Zephyr has always terminated. Chicago: with the ‘El’; the commuter lines to the suburbs; lines to the stock yards, steel and other industries; and the historic Union Pacific; Burlington Route; Chicago and Northwestern; and several other routes. We are informed that within the Windy City’s confines exist more miles of rail line than in the rest of the continental US combined. Rolling the final twenty minutes into Union Station, it’s a claim that’s hard to dispute.

 

After fifty hours on the train, I ask myself, “Did my long held dream of riding on the California Zephyr come true?”  

I recall myself in Dad’s ’54 Ford waving at passengers on the Zephyr as it wound through the Feather River Canyon. I question whether some little kid traveling up Highway 70 in the back seat of his dad’s current day SUV might be missing the opportunity to form his own romantic dreams about boarding this silver wonder and seeing where it takes him.

 

Resource: The Story of the California Zephyr, by Karl Zimmerman. Quadrant Press. © 1972.  Nice historic photo and narrative about the early days of the original Zephyr. (Good luck finding a copy. You might want to check out your neighborhood model railroad shop as they often have these kinds of books.  Plus, model trains are kinda cool.  They bring back the little kid in many of us.)

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

Recollection an Election Monitor: November 2020

                                                                                         This one’s for mamá

My final poll observation shift was from 4:00 until 8:00 on election night.  Voters came in fits and spurts with things clearing out about an hour before closing.

     Around 7:15, a large Hispanic gentleman – a bit younger than I – came in accompanying a much older woman. He was supporting her left elbow as they approached the sign-in station. Among the half dozen or so poll workers, one, adept with Spanish, helped the pair and accompanied them to the next station where they received their ballots and then to the booths where the staffer stood back as the man and the elderly woman marked their choices.

     The gentleman was done well before the woman who was struggling with an aspect I couldn’t determine from my vantage point.  Gently, the bi-lingual worker came over and, in concert with the gentleman, ensured that the woman had completed the process as she had wished to.

     Then the three of them crossed the room.  By this time, all the election workers ~ along with a couple of other voters and myself ~ couldn’t help but watch. Near the exit, a slotted, teal colored container served as the ballot box.  The man slipped his in and looked at the woman.  

     She stood clutching her ballot.

     “Aquí es donde pones tu boleta, mamá,” he said, pointing. 

     She continued to pause.  It was clear that something deeply moving, deeply personal was coursing through her. 

     After a few moments, she slowly turned ~ scanning to meet each pair of eyes in the room ~ and haltingly said [in English]: “This is my first time that I vote.” Then she slid her ballot through the slot.

     Mother and son left the polls accompanied by both our applause and our tears.

This November, as I slip my ballot into that sacrosanct box, my thoughts, in part, will be with ‘mamá.’

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

REPEAT PERFORMANCE

 Riding the Mendocino/Sonoma County Coast 

for the Umpteenth Time

 

I am writing this piece for myself so I can remember.  Remember what it’s like to have a day – an unplanned day – to do whatever the hell I want to do.  And a recent Saturday it involved ratty little roads to and from the coast split by a glorious run from Mendocino to Fort Ross on State Route 1. I’d jettisoned the voluntary time commitment associated with a vital community group – it was someone else’s turn – and rewarded myself with this.

 

Orr Springs Road connects Ukiah with Comptche and the coast at Mendocino.  In October the narrow route crosses ridges of grasses dry since April…

…and descends into seasonal creeks surprisingly not dry.

Remnants of the region’s past are evidenced by this little jack-stabbed teepee burner long ago used to incinerate slash from a small logging operation.  Constructed of corrugated metal, it is a rusty one-of-a-kind structure.

I wonder where the associated mill might have stood.

 

Also out Orr Springs is a clothing optional camp and/or resort indicated by a substantial and effective privacy fence built along the edge of the pavement. This is a good thing, I’m thinking, as I certainly wouldn’t want anyone hidden in the woods or down by the creek ogling or leering at my curvaceous and sweet sounding Italian motorcycle as we motor by.

 

Next, I roll past a lovely Montgomery Woods State Preserve – simply a grove of redwoods – with picnic tables, easy hiking along the creek and whispers of angels above when the breeze is just so.https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=434 If you packed a sandwich, this is the place to pause.

 

A short distance beyond I come to a dilapidated homestead or a ranch of some sort with a roughly spray painted plywood sign stating, “You loot.  We shoot!” underneath this not-so-cryptic addendum: “Let’s Go Brandon.”  Desiring not to get shot, I didn’t stop for a photo, but looking at the state of things there, it appeared the place had already been pretty well looted.

 

The mid-morning air is cool and pleasant and the fall colors are beginning to turn. The road is both narrow and twisty enough that one can’t rush past this early-autumn display.

Comptche is out this way.  A small berg clustered with, perhaps, fewer residents than the number of consonants in the village name. (That’s not at all true, but it is a cute line I thought of from the saddle.)

 

 

Highway 1 is fifteen miles further. The two-lane I’m enjoying tees into it.  A quick jog north brings me to Mendocino, the picturesque coastal community of both legend and postcard.

The loop over to the headlands never disappoints and I found myself following a gent on a big BMW GS who was enjoying the same experience. 

Home-based near San Jose, this fella was completing a loop that had taken him to Alturas, then out CA 299 to near Eureka, then down the Coast.  “No hurry to get home,” I recall him saying.

 

Having taken this route or an iteration of it several times, I found myself not stopping for pictures I already knew I had.  But this one begs the caption, “The coast is clear.”

 

There’s a little devil in me that always suggests it’d be cool, less pressurized, to live in a small middle-of-nowhere hamlet or village.  No stoplights.  No superstores.  Fresh air.  Starry skies at night. All that stuff.  But, I argue, I’d at least like a bank where I could access my meager savings (Point Arena has a branch of my Credit Union) and a reliable place to keep my motorcycles tuned and running (I’ve engaged the independent whose shop is here to refurbish brother Beebo’s old BMW) and…

…the restaurant out at the pier has been closed the last several times I’ve gone out seeking chowder.  (Not anymore.)  Worry not, Church of the Open Road followers, I’m not feeding that little devil by entertaining relocation to Point Arena, (or Cedarville, CA or Tonopah, NV or Joseph, OR) but I will feed myself at Pier Place https://www.pierplacepointarena.com anytime I’m out that way.  The food was hearty and substantial, the list of on-tap micro brews copious and tempting.  But being on the bike, I opted for bubble water.  A cold bottle of Fort Bragg’s Scrimshaw pilsner is waiting in the fridge at home.

 

 

Lollygagging south through Sea Ranch, discouraged to take favored Stewarts Point/Skaggs Springs Road due to construction, I’m facing a longer day than I had (un)planned.  A left hand turn up Fort Ross Road found me leaving the temperate 72 degree coast and climbing into 90 plus degree territory on a road more pothole than pavement. 

The Guzzi’s “adventure” suspension absorbed the punishment as I crested the ridge and corkscrewed through redwoods and chamise into a half-century’s ago Cazadero.  This community has the requisite school, church and country store – but it also has an attraction unique and enticing.  A businessperson there has taken to restoring, trading, perhaps collecting pre-mid-60s Willys-era vehicles ranging from military flat fenders* to wagons and pickups. (* Quick! Name the two other manufacturers of WWII era jeeps.)

I suspect he may even have (or has had) those wonderful two-wheel-drive phaetons known as the Jeepster.  Dad had a ’50.  Brother Beebo later had a ’49.

Someday I’m going to muster up the courage to wander in there and ask if I can nose around a bit.

 

 

Eight hours and nearly 250 miles proved a bit too long for an old cuss like myself.  The hundred degree ending temp didn’t help.  But I gotta admit, a day on the bike traveling through remote sections of the Coast Range with a nice lunch thrown in for good measure, did wonders for my mental health.

Edging toward my mid-70s, I’m not sure how many more days like this I’ll confidently enjoy on two wheels.  Better grab ‘em while I can.

 

o0o

 

Today’s Route: North on US 101 to Ukiah, take last exit; north on State St (under the freeway); left (west) on Orr Springs Road to Comptche and CA 1.  South on CA 1 through Little River, Albion, Elk, Manchester, Pt Arena (lunch!); left (east) on Ft Ross Road; right on Seaview; left (almost immediately) on Ft Ross Road to Cazadero.  Continue to CA 116; head east (redwoods, Russian River, vineyards) to US 101.

 

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press