Sorry, no pictures this time…
Yesterday I made my monthly coffee
run from my home in the Russian River Valley over to the Calistoga Roastery in Calistoga. The blends they create are robust and tasty and you get a
full pound when you buy a bag. I always pick up two.
This would be my first coffee run since the fires ravaged
large potions of Sonoma and Napa Counties. I hopped on Enrico, the Yamaha, and headed south and east on
CA 128, knowing I’d return by a different route, thereby making a loop out of
the little adventure.
November is that special time of
year when the harvest is in and the leaves on the vines turn a rainbow of reds
and orange and yellows. The colors
depend on both the varietal planted and the location of the block. In the Dry Creek Valley it is not
uncommon to see a field checkerboarded in chartreuse and rust divided by vines
already naked or vines yet to turn.
Up a hillside will arch a band of bright Zin or Pinot between stands of
pine or cypress or oak. Over in
the Alexander, fields run from the banks of the Russian River all the way to
the rolling summits of the Mayacamas.
On a clear, sunny day, the evolving landscape is glorious. A random tune
enters my head and accompanies me through this joyful kaleidoscope of scenery.
Dropping into the Napa side of things, the area is more
densely forested until you descend into the broad valley of one stream course
with its rich, verdant soils, then over a rise and into the next and the next.
Weekdays are fine for such an excursion because the weekend
wine tasters and lookie-loos are home or at work or doing something other than
clogging the beautiful roads that sweep through the area.
On 128, a tick or two from Tubbs Lane,
about six miles north of Calistoga, that thick forest has suffered harm,
however. Grievous harm. Last month, on a night with near
hurricane force winds, something touched something else and the shower of
sparks that resulted kindled what, on any other evening would simply be a spot
fire.
Rounding a bend into a darkened section in a relatively
narrow canyon, the trees that weren’t bare wore chalk-brittle leaves, fried in
place. The grasses were gone and,
though weeks had passed, the air hung with the residual acrid odor of nature’s
fury. A pair of deer stood in the
roadway, seemingly still dazed, only clattering out of my way at the last
moment. Up the highway a piece, I
squeezed into a one-lane traffic–control section. Arborists sawed and chopped and grinded the standing
deadwood that would be hazardous to passers-by if left unattended. But just as quickly as I entered that
scene, I exited. Four miles on,
Calistoga, a town which had been under mandatory evacuation orders stood
bustling and calm and unscathed as if what had happened, never happened.
I parked Enrico in front of the Roastery and dropped in
picking my two bags of whole bean: “Eva’s Bitch in a Bag” (I’ve met Eva) and
some “Frank Sumatra.”
Just north of town, the alternate
route I chose would find me heading west on Petrified Forest Road, winding over
a ridge, then tracing a creek, then turning right onto Porter Creek Road which,
itself winds through a narrow canyon before it becomes Mark West Springs Road
and descends into the northern outskirts of Santa Rosa some ten miles
distant.
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports that the fire
traversed those ten miles that windy, windy night in about two hours and
forty-five minutes.
Shortly after I dropped over that first ridge the forests
I’d so anticipated and appreciated were gone. Naked trees, those that had not collapsed, stood like the
giant bony hands of some wicked October witch, ready to reach down and grab
what ever might be passing on the highway underneath. Pastures were scorched bare. Wire fences sagged between the random distant posts that didn’t
get consumed.
With the surrounding vegetation gone, home sites that I hadn’t
realized were home sites were now evident, not because some expansive domicile
was left, but because the masonry chimney was all that could withstand the
fury. Around a bend, I entered a
swale where nothing was touched, just as quickly to pass through and see what
looked to be someone’s ’28 Model A, reduced to rust inside the concrete stem
wall of what used to be a garage.
Out of the little canyon, where valley opened up, entire hillsides were
denuded. Nothing left but
ash. And that sad, acrid odor.
Safari West, tourist attraction and home to exotic animals,
seemed spared. Mark West Springs
Resort and Conference Center: same.
But coursing down into north Santa Rosa it was clear that these were
exceptions. Just short of the
Redwood Highway (old 101) mainstays of a safe, cozy and modern American life –
subdivisions – were rendered to crazy paved cul de sacs littered with the
rusted hulks of minivans and SUVs, dotted with freestanding chimneys and the
occasional melted piece of something metal.
In the initial scene of an Indiana Jones movie, Dr. Henry
Walton (Harrison Ford) finds himself in a tunnel when a huge round boulder
breaks free and comes charging at him at breakneck speed. He runs for his life. I picture that this is how the fire
must have seemed – must have advanced – that night.
I had packed my camera. In the past, when visiting a fire
aftermath zone, up on the Stanislaus or the Tahoe, I’d stop for snapshots of
the unbelievable. This time, I
could not. This time, it felt too
much like invading the privacy of those who lost something precious, their
home, their photos, their memories, and for some, their grandparent, spouse or
neighbor. It seemed unbecoming to
photograph the objects of someone else’s grief simply to induce a reader to
drop his or her jaw at the spectacle.
Motoring home, the random song that might accompany me in
the saddle grew mute. It is tough
to feel music when so many lost so much.
© 2017
Church of the Open Road Press
