Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Restoration in San Jose and East Bay Blues


While the timing of this trip was to view the exhibition from the national museum of Afghanistan that is currently at the Asian American Art Museum in San Francisco, Alice had an outstanding obligation to San Jose State: do some simple restoration at the student health center's women healers mural. So we got up on Monday, joined by Kathy Glassley who lives in San Leandro and was the documentor of the mural as it was painted to spend the day in beautiful San Jose. It is still a beautiful city. Touch up was pretty minimal for something that has been in an institutional setting for almost 30 years. Kathy has agreed to go back in a month to seal it. I'm hoping that the newer paint will not cause problems on top of the old. Kathy assisted in cleaning some of the surface as there was dust and the occasional coffee spill.
We had a perfect lunch at La Victoria Taqueria, near the campus (I warned Jim not to eat on campus!) and headed back to San Leandro where Alice viewed Kathy's studio/craft/music room and talked about Kathy's antique jewelry collection. We had met up with Kathy's husband Ray, also known by Alice since community college and sds days, spending the evening most agreeably laughing about kids, families, work and the political situation, dining later at Vo's vietnamese restaurant on Parrott Ave. While not Tamarind Tree or Green Leaf, it does serve fresh food, including green papaya salad. There is a predominance of prawn dishes (Alice avoids arthropods), so there were things we didn't try on the menu. We expect to see Kathy on Wednesday, going to Golden Gate Park to see the new Academy of Sciences, the old one a place of fond childhood memories for both of us.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Mendocino twilight and a day at the beach

Few pictures in this missive today; we drove 101 south through the Avenue of the Giants, stopping for chai and a break in Garberville (isn't Garberville a town in Pynchon's Vineland by another name?). How can I get a residency in this town? It sure looks as affluent as one might assume given the dominant hemp related industry here. We decided there wasn't enough time to enjoy going down 1 to Mendocino (the town); so took the inland route and checked Trip Advisor for restaurants in Ukiah.

Driving through the California oak hills at twilight, we couldn't tell whether the oaks were affected by what we had heard about blight. Crusing with Silk Road music and Pearl Jam, we arrived in Ukiah around 6. We had read about Patrona in Trip Ad. [see the review we wrote] and got the last table available just by walking in. Isis of the table was surely with us. The food was carefully made and well presented, service appropriate and sensible. We had no wine due to driving, but they pride themselves on their locally stocked cellar. More than made up for a dismal lunch. We also checked in with Robin. Thousands marched in Seattle from Capitol Hill to Westlake Center (downtown shopping center) to protest the unfairness of Proposition 8 in California.

We arrived in San Leandro and checked in close to 11, buzzed on coffee, channel surfing and scanning google and al jazeera for news. It's very quiet at this inn, despite proximity to the airport and being in the middle of the Bay Area because the rooms are so effectively soundproofed. And Oakland airport is not super busy; so when it's not travel time, with the deck door open over the marina, the sound of birds and water is very relaxing.

We left for El Granada to visit friends Marguerite and Ray, whom Jim has known since childhood. Another childhood friend, Ron Federighi, had died earlier this year, while living and working in Thailand and in the absence of any family organized memorial (probably postponed due to complicated transportation issues), Jim and Ray spent time in their own grief visiting Ron's old house in Moss Beach and the marine reserve there. We were not the only ones in sunny nearly 80 degree weather who wanted to go to the beach on Sunday. The sign on highway 92 once we crossed the Hayward/San Mateo bridge indicated it would take 72 minutes to get to Half Moon Bay. It was slow going, but we have Air conditioning. Alice channeled her mom in thinking she was safe to come to California in November, could avoid the heat, as Eleanor had said when visiting us in December 1991 or 2 during that crazy blizzard that shut the city down and left kids stranded along hilly bus routes, "there's a reason I left Connecticut: the snow. I'm not coming back to Seattle again this time of year." Well, guess I'll have to fly or train it in the winter if I want to avoid the problematic Siskyous, because November is now off the list of acceptible months for visiting the golden state.

We walked along the absolutely packed beaches from Marguerite's and Ray's house to Sam's, a very popular fish place, advertising its food as from sustainable fisheries, but everything was flown in from far away: ahi, lobster, etc. Guess there's no more sustainable fishery in the fishing village of Princeton, site of our memorial lunch after a visit to Pescadero beach after my father died in 1982. All those stories are now shriveled in the sun and walked over by extreme surfers, picnic goers and the madness of crowds. But it was great to see Marguerite and Ray, admire Ray's growing car collection and discuss San Francisco eating options with Marguerite. We are trying to encourage Ray to join the Albuquerque Jim table at the 40th high school reunion. He is stubborn, but we have optimism in Marguerite's winks and smiles. The sunset, too, was stunning, although I'm sure the colors were improved by the smog everywhere.

On our way back to San Leandro, we had dinner with raconteurs and bon vivants Jim Chanteloup and the fabulous Cookie Wong, serious musicians. They took us to Divino (second night in a row for Italian, but it was real Italian [review also in Trip Advisor]) and we discussed friends, politics, the economy and family. Jim C is also a long time friend of Jim's, and Cookie, formerly of San Francisco, is now the toast of the peninsula: they put a band together to play for Bob and Nancy's wedding in Belmont in 1995?, and it was terrific.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Trip to the Land of Red Wood

Left home later than we wanted on Wednesday; Alice sick with a cold and slow. Dinner in Olympia with Robin who was full of a film by a former Evergreen student about ethnic status issues among Israelis: whether sephardic (lower) or ashkenazi (middle) or ashkenazi Israelis who aren’t religious (highest status). He found it fascscinating. Great to see him. He’s looking well.

On through the night to Eugene and stayed at our port in a storm, the New Oregon, across the street from U of O. Alice had stayed here in 1989 with Robin when the Volvo’s fuel system crashed. It was very comfortable and always is a first choice in travel along this corridor for convenience and cost. The Willamette is right outside, making the hotel quiet as well as convenient to the river walk past the university’s experimental and organic gardens.

Alice slept during the early part of our drive from Eugene south. In Grant's Pass, we missed Summer Jo's restaurant (seasonal title was a tipoff), but found good food in a downtown strip mall at Blondie's Bistro, a nicely done big space with Italian specialties, sandwiches, salads. This was lunch, but it looks like a good nighttime place. Drove from Grants Pass, OR along pretty autumn rivers with maple and oak? not sure, but getting into redwood country once in California, traveling along the Smith River.

Fog set in before Jedediah Smith Park, where big redwoods grow. We found out later that we could have taken an alternative route through some of the largest redwood groves, but still saw some big trees and hints of groves. In any event, a blanket of fog set in from the 101 junction above Crescent City, which lasted through to our destination at Requa.

We bought gas in Crescent City, pumped by a nice man, my age or older. Not a new machine for credit cards; most folks doing cash. I said it won’t take as much as a full tank; my husband worries we’ll run out, but not with Wiwaxia’s engine. He said, “he must drive a truck", and laughed. I said because it runs right through and he grinned yes. Stopped in the Safeway, hemming and hawing over a bottle of wine. Only WA wine was St. Michele; so got Cotes Du Rhone to eat with picnic supper from Provisions once in Requa. Jim's prejudice, based on Kenneth Rexroth and other 20th century reports, that Crescent City was hostile to outsiders, did not play out, although Zagat would find little of interest here. It is a very pretty location, and we found a large number of California Sea Lions in the harbor.

Arrived in fog at Requa Inn to a lovely room, and friendly host Dave. Used the downstairs tv with dvd to watch Dae Jang Geum after our supper.
11.14
Awoke early to shower and dawn in sw facing windows overlooking the last bend in the Klamath River. The town of Klamath is Yurok land, Yuroks speaking an Algonquin-based language, unique among California Indians according to one book. The literature around the parks and from rangers indicated that Yuroks are active in seeking to remove four hydro dams from the upper Klamath. Toxins have accumulated at dangerously high levels. It's hard to tell whether it’s toxins or diverting water or both causing demise of salmon fishery in Klamath. People know about it here.

We drove toward the mouth of the river, up from our inn to a cliff lookout. There was a ranger with two volunteer naturalists set up to watch for whales, complete with interpretive kits and spyglasses. No whales, but plenty of pelicans, cormorants, a merlin and a log being pulled out to sea at a brisk pace, showing the power of local currents and riptides. We spent about an hour there and learned some lore. A splendid day, great for us all to be outside in the sun (even Alice, though I did have my hat!) after the weeks and weeks of rain. Some poems:

Pelican glides over sea.
After three weeks’ rain,
Klamath’s poison’s diluted.

Sun shafts on red trees through ferns,
nurse log wicks water,
titrates scarce salmon carcass.

Planets peek through fog sunset;
mushroom swells in rain.
Dawn announces Klamath’s mouth.

On the advice of the ranger, we took an old coast route on the south of the Klamath mouth. The washed out bridge has two mossy bear sculptures left with a placque about the destruction of the Yurok village by the flooding (log damage). Some of the road is paved, other is well graded gravel. We stopped to enjoy the sun, Alice somewhat limited with the cold.

Here's a photo of sunset at a beach south of Crescent City, Jim sitting on a picnic table, the tide going out to a minus.

On Friday afternoon, in Redwood National Park and Prairie Creek Redwoods state park. Saw a lot of Roosevelt elk, good bookstore at Prairie Creek visitors center, knowledgeable ranger at Kuchel visitor's center in the Nat'l Park. That center is at a very broad and beautiful beach, at the confluence of the storied Redwood Creek.

After surprisingly good Mexican lunch at Hacienda in Orick, got rejuvenation and wonder at Lady Bird Johnson grove, an area of ancient redwood forest which also was one of the longest walks Alice has been able to take in some time. We hadn't been here in 20 years, but it seems unchanged. The afternoon light shafted through the trees, leaving magical-looking places of light in the forest.

The warm, clear sunny weather continued on this usually overcast coast through to the weekend, and after leaving our very pleasant room at the Requa Inn, closing that day for the season, we drove south to Eureka. This is along a very beautiful part of the redwood coast with enormous lagoons and beautiful views of the ocean. Headed to Jim's great-grandparents' house, where he had often visited as a child. His grandmother Grace was born there in 1907, and Jim's mother lived there for several years up to the age of twelve. The house has had an addition, the barn was fixed and altered, but the house was well taken care of, and we got some pictures. Also saw a number of demonstrators leaving a rally about Proposition 8, the initiative that banned gay marriage. We should have taken Alice's advice and found lunch in Arcata--bad pub food at Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka should be avoided (there be hippogryphs). Made some reclamation or restitution at Eureka Natural Foods Store (not the coop), which also had very good coffee, and headed south.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Nahcotta and the Confluence Project


Jim and I spent a few days at the end of the summer on the Long Beach penninsula. Our cat Little Jane was declining, and leaving her with our veterinarian was a welcome break for Alice, who was spending time in feline intensive care. We enjoyed our stay at the Moby Dick Hotel, where we enjoyed some absolutely delicious meals, prepared fresh from the garden and with devotion. Here's a sunrise view through the window screen from our room, overlooking the yoga/meeting yurt. Sadly, there were no oysters, the beds having strangely and coincidentally reduced in spawn since spraying for spartina began in Willapa Bay. Our host, Fritzi Cohen, is working to eliminate this spraying. We are especially confused because our work at the Aquarium has led us to believe that characterizing the invasiveness of spartina in Washington state is overrated.
We were also fortunate to have beautiful weather for our trip to part of the Confluence Project by Maya Lin. I did some rubbing of some of the concrete etched text, a prayer by the Salish.