RETURN TO THE CALISTOGA ROASTERY

...a chance conversation with a really good mom...

The woman must have been at least 80.  As I rolled up on the Yamaha, she was sitting on a bench backed up to the Calistoga Roastery clutching a heat-sheathed cup of something.  I suspect coffee.

I backed Enrico’s rear tire to the red-painted curb.  (I’ll explain this later.)

“I don’t think you can park there,” the woman said.  Her voice sounded as if it emanated from vocal cords made of razor wire.

“I know,” I said.  “I’ll just be a couple of minutes and I don’t want to take whole parking space from somebody in a car just for the bike.”

“Oh,” she said.  “That’s a nice idea.  You go inside and I’ll keep an eye out for the cops.”

Parking along Calistoga’s quaint downtown main drag is a combination of parallel spots and diagonal slots.  The transition is mid-block and at each transition zone, about twelve feet of curb is painted red.  The northern-most Napa Valley town is a mecca for motorcyclists of all stripes with all of the roads leading in and out of the berg – CA 29, CA 128, Silverado Trail – motoring delights for folks on two-wheelers.  Giving over about six of each of those twelve feet for motorcycle parking would likely ease stress on parking slots for cars.  I'm gonna write the City of Calistoga about this stroke of genius on my part...

I popped into the roastery, picked up two pounds of whole-bean and was out in two minutes.

“That was quick,” the woman said.  “Where are you going?”

“Home.  Cloverdale.  I come over here every few weeks to buy coffee partly because of the coffee and partly because the ride is so pretty.”

“We looked at Cloverdale when we moved.  Too hot.  Ended up here about 30 years ago.”

“That’s nice,” I said, unhooking my helmet from its lock.

“How far is it from Cloverdale to Boonville?” she asked.

“Twenty-eight miles,” I said.  “I ride that road quite frequently.”

“You think the coffee’s better here?”

I laughed.

“My daughter just moved to Boonville.  Husband got laid off and they couldn’t afford their place in the City.  Bought a place with a cabin and acreage...”

“Boonville’s nice.  Sorta remote.”

“My son lives in Sacramento. Well, El Dorado Hills.  You know where that is?”

I was beginning to feel a bit stuck.  “Yes.  I used to live out that way.” 

“What did you do there?”

“Education.  What’s your son do?”

“Some sort of science.  Something about rocket engines and the sort.” She paused – but not quite long enough.  “Cloverdale’s nice.  A bit too hot for me, but nice.  What kind of people live there?”

“Oh, a nice mix.”

“We had Thanksgiving last year up in... in... Placerville.”

“Hangtown!”

“Oh?  You know it?”

LA Times Photo

“Historic downtown.  Just like this.”  I waved my arm up the street.  “Used to ride up that way all the time.”

“Daughter said something at dinner and son replied with something about President Trump – he loves President Trump – and then he got up and stormed away.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yeah,” she said.  “People... We share so much in common.  My kids even share blood!  It shouldn’t be like this.  I felt so bad.  Keep asking myself, 'Where did I go wrong?'”

Social distancing protocols prevented me from approaching the old gal and offering a hug, but I sure wanted to.  I waited for a moment and then asked, “Did you do the best you could do, Mom?”

She took a first sip of her coffee.  Her eyes crept over the rim of the cup.  “I think so.”

“Well, then.  You did the best you could.”   My smile was concealed by my helmet, but I think we made eye contact.

Straddling Enrico, I fired the Yamaha up.  Lifting her paper cup and tipping it toward me, she nearly hollered: “You be careful on that thing.”

(c) 2020

Church of the Open Road Press

DAY TOUR OF FIRE COUNTRY – A RETURN ENGAGEMENT

Riding through devastation and rebirth

in California’s Coast Range

One of the great positives of the changes in climate some say we are experiencing is that, in most of California, riding season is almost twelve months long. Unfortunately, so is fire season. September’s big blazes began in June this year.

Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties have experienced more than their fair share of wild land fires over the past few years.  Only a couple of months ago, a section of hills around the Dry Creek wine growing valley erupted. In October 2017, Santa Rosa lost 4,000 homes and 40-plus lives. Lake County’s Cobb Mountain resort area was lit up in the summer of 2016; the town of Lower Lake that fall.  Over Thanksgiving weekend of 2015, the hills surrounding the Geysers geo-thermal units smoldered for days.  More than the turkey, that day, was smoked.

I’d checked things out about a month after the October disaster.  Now nearly eight months later, Enrico, the Yamaha, and I decided to take another look at the aftermath.

Departing US 101 at Mark West Springs Road a few miles north of Santa Rosa, I am immediately greeted by a forest of standing chimneys.  (I so want to photograph this orchard of masonry but, like before, feel doing so invades the privacy of those who’d lost so much. Thus, I refrain.)  Continuing into the once-lush Mayacamas Range, the vegetation is now seared away as are the houses once shielded from passers-by.  Only their foundations, chimney and a few scraps of twisted metal remain.  

Mark West Springs Road sweeps along Mark West Creek and over and around denuded hillsides now cloaked in the golden grasses of summer.  Rebirth had occurred – subtle, but a start.  It proves to be a nice ride this day, but I can picture residents clogging that windy route deep one October night as the firestorm rolled out of the east like a fiery boulder at the beginning of an Indiana Jones movie.

Passing the Wildlife Safari exotic animal exhibit, I am reminded that the owner, that terrifying night of the Tubbs Fire, saved every critter in the park using only garden hoses linked end to end, screwing them together by the light of the approaching flames. His residence, however, didn’t make it.

The road dips in and out of the fire zone.  Ridgelines of standing scorched trees appear with some turns, with other twists of both highway and fate, green meadows, pasture lands and unscathed houses stand as if nothing had happened.  The whims of wind and fire, I think.

In Calistoga, I stop at the roastery to purchase my supply of the whole bean that “wakes up Napa County.” Across the street a fine breakfast is offered at the historic Café Sarafina.  A bookstore, a bicycle shop, several boutiques and tasting rooms make this a pleasant stop – although I don’t taste when I’m on the bike.

California’s State Route 29 forms Calistoga’s main street.  South of town, one would venture into the heart of the Napa Valley where, even on a good day, the traffic can slow to a crawl.  North, Route 29 corkscrews out of the valley affording tantalizing over-the shoulder glimpses.  As the elevation gains, I pass through Robert Lewis Stevenson State Park, a mecca for hikers and cyclists beneath a canopy of redwood and madrone.  I’m thinking I should have packed a snack and taken a stroll.

Out of the forest and over a rise and I enter the higher pastures of Lake County.  The wonderfully engaging twists of the route from Calistoga remind me why Lake County never received rail service.  Construction through steep and narrow canyons and over rocky ridges proved too daunting.  The pavement, however, offers a graceful experience for the me and the big Yamaha.  Cresting that rise, I view the denuded tops of ridges that ring the upper reaches of the Putah Creek drainage: Fire scars from two, three, sixteen and perhaps thirty years ago.  

State Route 175 curls away from Route 29 at Middletown heading up to Cobb Mountain and, until two years ago, the Hobergs Resort. In the aftermath of the 2016 fires up that way, sections of Route 175 has been resurfaced and some homes rebuilt.  Rusted derelicts remind me of what once was.  Some vegetation is beginning the slow process of regeneration.  As massive as was that conflagration, just moments down the highway, I enter a cool pine and fir forest as lush as anything one might see in the Sierra Nevada 90 miles to the east.

Route 175 rejoins 29 just south of Kelseyville, one of several California sites bearing the surname of a brutal Indian slayer from the 1850s.  His wife (or sister-in-law), history forgets to tell us, created the original Bear Flag that was raised of Sonoma in the 1840s.  State Route 29 skirts the west shore of Clear Lake, the California’s largest fresh water pond, ending at State Route 20 near historic Upper Lake.  

Looking well north beyond the end of the little town’s Main Street, evidence of a decades-old burn area catches my eye, but that’s not why I’m pausing here.  Upper Lake boasts the Blue Wing Café, home of one of the best bison burgers on the planet.  Garden seating invites me to linger, and, were I not on the motorcycle, the selection of on-tap brews would be more than tempting.  Perhaps some future evening will find my bride and me lodging at the historic hostelry next door.

State Route 20 is a busy east-west crossing of the Coast Range.  On it, I wind past the picturesque Blue Lakes.  A mile or two short of Route 20’s interchange with US 101, I divert onto “Road A,” hopping over a ridge and descending into Redwood Valley.  This area was torched the same October night as the huge fire that scarred Santa Rosa. Lives and homes were lost here, as well, just not as many as a few miles south.

I wheel past several lettered roads until I find Road J.  Heading east, I check on the site of a friend’s home that’d had burned to the ground that night.  Oddly, the fire had placed a fiery footprint on his house but left the one fifty yards away unscathed.  Two-and-a-half months ago, a buddy and I had planted some olive trees near the ashes of the house.  This day, those trees seem to be doing fine and evidence of a rebuild can be seen through the fence.

For the most part, fire is a natural occurrence.  Even after the worst of wild fires, rebirth is almost immediate.  It will be a personal goal to ride this route through fire country every six months or so to see how things – both natural and man-made – evolve.

o0o

Today’s Route:  Exit 494 from US 101, east on Mark West Springs Road which becomes Porter Creek Road. Side trip:  Franz Valley Road to Franz Valley School Road (windy and interesting) back to Porter Creek just west of Calistoga. State Route 29 through town then north to Middletown.  (Great twisty pavement!)  Left on SR 175 through Cobb and Hobergs eventually merging back onto SR 29. North on SR 29 to SR 20, right one mile to Upper Lake, left onto historic Main Street.  Continuing: West on SR 20, right on Road A, right on East Road, head north as far as you want.  (You could end up in Willits!)  Backtrack on East Road, follow signs to US 101.

© 2018

Church of the Open Road Press

ODE TO THE TRIUMPH THUNDERBIRD

And now for something COMPLETELY different

The autumn of my motorcycling career is about ten years off, but creaky joints tell me it’s coming.  Tossing my leg over the high seat of the dual sport equipped with panniers, on some mornings, is, at best, problematic.  And the scrunched seating position of the roadster is good for decreasing lengths of journey.  These two statements, of course, are blatant excuses.  Both the BMW and the Moto Guzzi are fabulous machines engineered for the long haul, eye catching and dependable. 

I just wanted something different.

Enter the Triumph Thunderbird.  Triumph introduced the Thunderbird model in the early ‘50s.  Purportedly for the American market, Triumph bored their standard 500cc motor to 650ccs.   Marlon Brando rode a T-bird in the 1953 classic “The Wild One.” A derivative the 650 engine became the backbone for Triumph’s signature Bonneville line.  Every kid I knew back then lusted after a Bonne.  But Honda came out with a 750cc four-cylinder bike.  Cheaper and faster, the 750-Four almost single-handedly crushed the British motorcycle industry.  BSA died.  So did Norton.  And in 1983, Triumph went into receivership and was shuttered.

The marque was revived in the mid-90s and Triumph was reintroduced to the US market.  Fast forward to 2016 and Triumph is again making motorcycles bearing some the old company’s most venerated models: the Speed Twin, the Sprint, the Tiger, the Trophy, the Rocket III (borrowed from BSA) and, yes, the Bonneville.  In 1994 the T-bird came ashore as a 900cc triple and was later discontinued.  Then, a few years back, Triumph reintroduced the Thunderbird as a big-bore cruiser.

And that’s what rests in my garage now.

The good folks at Santa Rosa BMW/Triumph made me an offer I could not refuse on a brand new last years T-bird.  I’d been eyeballing its long, low line and, a couple of times, dropped by the dealer to nestle my butt in its glorious seat and heft its eight hundred pounds to an upright position.  I’d sit on the thing, peer over the Plexiglas windscreen and sub-vocalize the roar of its massive 1700cc engine.  (My beloved ’71 Volkswagen had 1500ccs.)  Finally, because I wanted to reduce my motorcycle stable from two steeds to one, I took a test ride.  A quarter of a mile off the dealer’s lot, I knew this would be a change I’d be happy to make.

The Triumph Thunderbird is different from any motorcycle I’ve ever owned.  The folks at Triumph weren’t particularly interested in paring weight, nor did they scrimp on the chrome.  The exhaust note is deeper and mellower than what I’ve ridden before.  The thing turns heads when I’m cruising through town (as did the Guzzi) and those fellow riders on that big American bike offer their signature low-five as we pass (not that that matters.)

The first full day of ownership found me making a 120-mile loop from the Alexander Valley, over the Hopland Grade, into recently fire-ravaged Middletown.  With a twist of the throttle on the on-ramp, the bike’s torque feels as if someone has placed a hand in the small of your back and is pushing you and doesn’t want to stop.  On the “motorway” - as we Brits often refer to it - the T-Bird strums at a low gait while clipping along at seventy.  Then I engage the heel shifter – another something new for me – and click it into high gear.  The windblast over the windshield will take some getting used to, as because of my 6’ 4” height, my head is well above the bubble of still air.

The Hopland Grade, California State Route 175, is a combination of sweeping turns and tight twisting challenges as the road climbs to a crest offering views of the Russian River drainage as well as the Clear Lake basin.  On a crystal clear day, few vistas can beat it.  The bike likes sweeping turns on good pavement but I find it is less intuitive than my former BMW when the going gets tight.  Perhaps I am not one with the machine yet.

Dropping into Lakeport, I catch CA 29 and head to Middletown where, thankfully, my favorite coffee spot survived last year’s devastating fire.  Sipping some Joe on the sidewalk back of where the T-Bird is parked, two riders, heading north, eye the machine, flip a u-turn and pull in next to it for a chat.  One fellow, on a Triumph Speed Triple, comments that the Santa Rosa dealership is the best ever.  “I bought my first bike from them in the nineties and keep going back for more.”

CA 29 winds precipitously down to Calistoga, some seventeen miles south.  The big Triumph rushes through the straights and curves in a wide-ranging third gear, but I have to muscle it around when the highway becomes a series of tight corkscrews as it drops into the Napa Valley.  Again, probably due to my inexperience on the thing.  North on CA 128 the road is ideal for the T-Bird.  At fifty-five, the exhaust note is symphonic, the wind noise just right and I find myself able to enjoy coursing through the winter vineyards and gorgeous oak crowned hills.  Am I becoming one with the machine?

The first tank of regular petrol returned about 44 miles per gallon and as I park the big boy in my garage I walk away thinking that there’ll be some compromises in getting down to this bike for my one bike, but none of them are bad.  Just different.  I also think to myself, “I hope tomorrow is sunny.”

o0o

Note:  Santa Rosa BMW / Triumph is a small, family owned shop staffed by folks who take great strides to ensure you are satisfied.  They maintain a nice inventory of some beautiful bikes.  They regularly organize rides along scenic Sonoma County roadways. Know that two shop dogs will greet you in the parking lot with a demand that you rub their ears and say hello.  A visit is well worth your time.  Located in Windsor, CA (just north of Santa Rosa) you should check ‘em out at: http://www.santarosabmw.com/ or http://www.santarosatriumph.com/

© 2016

Church of the Open Road Press