The Great Mendocino County Romp

(This post was uploaded 8/19 from Ashland, OR. It's been several days since I've had either internet access and/or time to write and upload. So, I'll try to catch up a little bit. Stick)

8/12, 1920, Patrick’s Point State Park, Trinidad, CA – No electricity. No cell service (on either cell phone). I suppose this is the isolation I wanted.

I awoke early Friday morning (8/11) and made a beeline for Headlands Coffee House to check route info and locations for my long-awaited Ukiah venture. After taking care of business and getting the right waitress (who knew what a sourdough bagel was), I was coffee’d up and on the road. At the south end of Ft. Bragg, Rt. 20 turns east and heads into the mountains.

For the next 30-45 minutes, I was encased not only in my car, but also inside either a corridor of tall trees or deep inside a canopied woods. For brief milliseconds, I saw scenes that rivaled the Smoky Mountains in eastern Tennessee or western North Carolina. Beautiful, thickly carpeted mountains of redwoods, pines, firs, and spruce. But, for the most part, such scenery was hidden from me as I drove through hairpin curve after hairpin curve, up and down, down and up, around and around. What a drive! My arms definitely got one hell of a workout.

I finally emerged at Willits and turned south on Hwy. 101 headed for Ukiah.

OK, why Ukiah? Blame the Doobie Brothers. On their second album, The Captain & Me, they included a song by that title that spoke of Ukiah as a paradise of “green trees and timberlands, people working with their hands, for sure, a different way to live.” Since it was one of my favorite cuts on the album, both the tune and the concept behind it were driven into noggin’. Someday, somehow, I was going to visit this heaven on Earth called Ukiah.

Well, Ukiah proper may not be heaven, but the area around it seemed pretty holy to me. With the exception of having one of the most hideous county courthouses I’ve ever seen (this is what it replaced….I’m sad to say: http://www.pacificsites.com/~rparker/ch2.jpg) , downtown Ukiah was pretty normal, though it did seem to have two main streets, which was kind of novel. A little bit of old and a little bit of relatively new. I appears Ukiah wasn’t quite sure what to make of itself during the mid-to-late 20th century. But, the town seems to be waking up and taking advantage of the recent success of the Mendocino wineries. Good for them! I like this town and hope it recovers and flourishes.

I almost immediately located the Ukiah Brewing Company and a coffee shop/bakery with free WiFi. I was in business. I ingested more coffee and a blueberry bran muffin while I updated myself on the world’s situation (still bad…groan), then commenced my little walking tour of Ukiah. Nothing exciting. A small city working itself through a Friday. For the most part, there was relatively little to explain the Doobie Brothers’ fascination with the place, though I do have to take into consideration that was over 30 years ago. But, one feature did stand out, and it really had nothing to do with the town’s “reputation.”

On a corner of the main street, about a block from the hideous courthouse, stood a large, graceful, red brick building that’d, well, “seen better days.” Built in the late 1800’s, the Palace Hotel must’ve been one hell of a lady in her day. These days, however, she sits abandoned, neglected, and rotting. And it’s sad, too. She’s a beauty even in the condition she’s in. I can only imagine the stories she could tell of better days, wild times, high falutin’ guests, luxurious rooms, what I’m told is a classic old bar, and a beautiful, ornate lobby.

But, it wasn’t the building that at first drew my attention. It was what had wrapped itself around the building. Offset by the aging, dusty red bricks was what appeared to be a massive growth of ivy nearly completely enveloping the east and north sides of the building. It seemed to grip the sides of the building like an octopus, its tentacles slowly wrapping itself around its prey as it attempts to engulf and digest it.

I walked around the two exposed sides of the original building amazed that a historic landmark (yeah, it’s registered) could be allowed to go to hell like this. It was during my closer inspection that I realized…are those GRAPES hanging from the building????? Sure enough, much to my amazement, that was not ivy, it was one massive grapevine, anchored on the north side of the building. The main stem – growing out of a surprisingly tiny patch of earth enclosed by sidewalk and the brick wall – was larger than most mens’ thighs. I can only imagine how old it was. But, it was still producing fruit. Luscious green grapes hung from its vines all over the building.

From chatting with the bartender at UBC and a county employee standing outside the hideous county building having a smoke (who also gave me directions for a scenic drive back to Ft. Bragg), I learned that, indeed, the Palace had been the grande dame of Mendocino County society with a reputation known far and wide. But, time, shaky economies, changing ideas, and – as you’ll see – bureaucracy and regulation – doomed the Palace. First, it went out of business. Then, abandoned. Then, taken over by a well-meaning-but-not-well-enough-financed gentlemen who temporarily returned the bar to it’s old splendor (the bar itself now resides in the restaurant of the UBC, a block or so away). Then abandoned again, it became a shelter for the homeless, then was basically taken over by homeless squatters. So, structurally unsound, infested with rodents, the county shuttered and locked the Palace and it’s been sitting ever since in the midst of town like a 600 lb. polka dotted gorilla no one wants to acknowledge.

Why is it still there? It’s a national historic landmark, thank God. And from what I’m told (don’t quote me here), a person could walk away with the deed to the building property for $160,000…which seems like a steal, to me. But, here’s the killer. The agreement to purchase (and it IS for sale, for anyone out there who’s interested) would have to include at least three to four million in improvements, for the building does not meet state specs for earthquake worthiness. In addition, “Do you see any parking,” asked the county employee. He had a point. In addition to time, age, changing ideas of what a hotel should be, neglect, abandonment, vermin, and the realities of building in California, the Palace had no way to accommodate one of Mankind’s greatest inventions and, increasingly, the key to his undoing…the automobile.

And if that’s not a indictment of modern society, I don’t know what is. Heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking.

See http://www.bestofukiah.com/palace.html for pictures and more.

The route back to Ft. Bragg – given to me by the county employee – was a godsend for a number of reasons. First, it was one of those, “No, no, no…you don’t want to go back THAT way! You’d rather go THIS way,” type of direction-giving that, given from anyone else, would’ve been off-putting. But, this guy was so damn friendly and knowledgeable (he filled me in on a great deal of the Palace Hotel history) that I felt honored to have been given such firm direction.

As he predicted, once I’d driven slightly south of town on Hwy. 101, I turned west on Rt. 253 and almost immediately started climbing back into the coastal range. Now, this route had a few more opportunities for photography, but there were more “distractions” along the way back to Ft. Bragg than on the way to Willits. Wineries, for instance, including Roederer Cellars, which makes some of America’s best champag…I mean, “sparkling wine.” The Mendocino wine industry is growing, I’m pleased to see. A number of familiar labels were in evidence on this trip.

The public radio station to which I’d been listening on and off over the last few days, located in Philo, was also on the way back. I practically flipped the car (just kidding, Mom!) stopping and turning around to have a look-see at their facilities, but managed to do so. I talked oh-so-briefly with the young GM there and complimented her on the station’s programming and mission. Well, SOME of their programming, that is. Now, anyone who knows me knows I’m a moderate in search for leadership capable of making progress through compromise and common sense. The Philo station is the epitome of what the Right Wing thinks of when it bashes public broadcasting for liberal – if not Leftist – programming. They do run NPR News programming and BBC, but they also run Democracy Now! (which is, in my opinion, as slanted to the Left as FOX News i slanted to the Right) and some local programming which makes no bones about its political leanings. Are they reflecting their listenership? Quite possibly. Are they providing a balanced view of the world? To my ear, no. But, on the other hand, the station’s community services (they were announcing lost and found pets, for God’s sake) warmed my heart and gave me hope for the future of public broadcasting in general and public radio in particular. It’s good to know real, live, community broadcasters are still out there.

But, the highlight of the journey back to Ft. Bragg had to be Boonville. Why? Well, it should come as no surprise to anyone reading this blog that if there’s one thing that’s going to attract my attention, it’s a microbrewery. Sure enough, Boonville hosts the Anderson Valley Brewing Company, home of the “legendary” Boonville hand-crafted brews and what AVBC calls “Solar Powered Beer.” While I was pressed for time (I wanted to get back to Ft. Bragg at a decent hour), I stopped by, perused their shop, sampled a 5oz. taster of their pale ale (not bad, not the worst I’ve had, but not the best), somehow (and for some reason) resisted the 1:30 tour, purchased a couple items for presents, and zipped away.

8/16, 1544, Along the Rogue River near Agness, OR – I returned to camp knowing that as much as I wanted to return to the North Coast Brewery, I was departing for Patrick’s Point State Park the next day and preparation had to be done. I built a nice fire that night and sipped whiskey and contemplated my journey and the opportunities I’d had to turn over some of the issues about which I spoke at the beginning of this blog. Without jumping ahead too much (It is, after all, four days since I started this entry), I can tell you that Oregon will no doubt be where I take some time to address in print some – if not all – those issues.

But, this entry has stretched on long enough, and there’s more to tell. So, I’ll start another.

Stick out