Guerneville to Ft. Bragg - Back to the Coast

8/9, 1816, Cleone Campground, Cleone, CA (just north of Ft. Bragg) – What a day! I’m so pumped about today that I’m having to “make myself” document the last two days in Guerneville.

Patience, Dana. Patience. Guerneville deserves coverage…

The thing about driving on Rt. 1 is that every corner, almost every mile contains such mind-roasting scenic beauty that you have to remind yourself to pay attention to A) the road (at many points, you’re just a few feet from plunging off some precipice into either the Pacific or some river canyon, a fact that will no doubt make my mother worry even more) or B) a key turnoff to an important destination. Guerneville was the latter. In fact, I made such good time heading north from Point Reyes that the Russian River snuck up on me. My reflexes caught it, though, and I was soon driving up River Rd. surrounded (again) by a lush canopy of tall redwoods, spruce, and pine trees.

Guerneville is, well, for lack of a better phrase, a “center of alternative lifestyles.” Old hippies, back-to-the-landers, winemakers disgusted with Napa Valley’s bombast, and a significant gay community rule the roost there. Now, I’m sure you’re thinking, “Well, duh! It’s northern California, Dana!” Well, Guerneville has an edge on many other California centers of progressive thinking and lifestyles.

That “edge” is Lazy Bear Weekend. I think this URL – and the links off it – should suffice in explaining about LBW.

http://www.castrobear.com/LazyBearWeekend/

It turns out that I made my camping reservations for the last day of LBW at one of it’s main lodging centers. By the time I arrived, most of the Lazy Bears had departed, and as a gay friend of mine in Austin told me, “They’ll leave a path of destruction in their wake.” Sure enough, the campground – or what was left of it – looked like a disaster area. And no wonder! A view of the campground from the back deck of the main house revealed a massive patchwork of various shapes of dead or dying grass from 180 tents and the leftover trash and discarded camping gear and other possessions of around 400 Lazy Bears.

The few Bears who remained looked hung over, exhausted, and shell shocked. As Stevie Ray Vaughan sang, “What a time did they have!” It must’ve been pandemonium for the four or five days prior. The staff of the inn/campground had just a few days to recover before an ironman competition hit town and the grounds would again be filled (though I suspect by a far less rowdy crowd).

One of the leftover Bears (a veteran of many LBWs) helped me choose a shady spot for my tent. I tackled the setup myself knowing that I had to re-master the process later this week and had the tent up in relatively short order. My site was on a slight embankment overlooking the beautifully sedate Russian River and a riverbank lined with tall redwoods, spruce, and pines. It was, in a word, idyllic.
My new neighbor told me tales of the four previous days of drunken debauchery and the pitfalls and pratfalls of – and these are his words – “a campground filled with 400 queens doing what gay men do and telling each other the best way to set up tents.” Personally, I couldn’t imagine 400 of ANY group of humans and 180 tents stuffed into such a small space. Based on the tiny amount of space between each square and rectangle of dead grass, and also taking into consideration many of the tents had guy wires holding them up, it must’ve been an obstacle course just trying to negotiate a path from tent to tent or anywhere else for that matter. It made my head hurt just trying to think about the chaos.

To make a long story short, the staff at Inn at the Willows were outstanding, even though they, too, had been pushed beyond the point of exhaustion by the invasion of the Bears. The place had the air of a huge frat house. The mood was relaxed, accommodating, and anyone who was registered pretty much had the run of the house. About the only danger was in trying to negotiate a path from the campsite to the house without getting soaked by the sprinklers that were in use as the groundskeeper desperately tried to recover some growth before the ironmen started arriving on Wednesday.

Sadly, the owner of Inn at the Willows recently announced he was putting the inn/campground/spa up for sale. This was, it seems, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Interested investors, contact me.

My visited to G’ville included two Mexican dinners, one each at the two Mexican restaurants in town. If I was to base my opinion of California-style Mexican food on those two establishments, my review would not be kind. It’d consist of one word used over and over and over again ad nauseum. BLAND! Granted, it was being compared to Tex-Mex and the fine interior Mexican cuisine in Austin and San Antonio, but honest to God, California…you people are wimps when it comes to Mexican food. At the second restaurant, I tried not one, but TWO sauces that had warnings on them about being “HOT!” Neither one raised even an eyebrow. No heat whatsoever. Severely disappointing. Not surprising, but disappointing nonetheless.

(At this point, I paused to build a campfire)

I took a brief sidetrip to Bishop just to gas up with less-expensive fuel, Bishop being on Hwy. 101, a more mainstream thoroughfare, and therefore offering better deals. On the way, I noted quite a number of campgrounds along the Russian River and a good number of wineries as well. The Russian River is an “up and coming” wine region, though it also features such “established” wineries as Korbel (champagne or, as it’s usually referred to here in the States, “sparkling wine”) and DeLoach, among others.

But, as I stated earlier, I’m pretty wine-toured out after my time in Wine Country. There really IS too much of a good thing.

On the way to Bishop, I was visually reminded of the existence of the Stumptown Brewery and Smokehouse in Stumptown, just east of G’ville. It was on my list of local breweries to test out and I’d completely forgotten it. So, after injesting tasteless Mexican food in town, I drove out to Stumptown and both enjoyed a Rat Bastard Pale Ale (outstanding) and reminded myself what it was like to be in the presence of women again (until just last night, the entire population at the Inn was made up of men). So, based on my experience, the most outstanding culinary experience in that area is a pint of Rat Bastard at Stumptown Brewery. Unfortunately, the restaurant portion of the establishment wasn’t serving that night, so I mean that literally. That pint really was the best tasting thing I had in G’ville.

My departure from G’ville this morning started out on schedule, but quickly bogged down due to the one thing I’d neglected to include in my equation. Morning dew. A wet tent fly and as-yet-unexplained wet ground slowed me down and “dirtied up” the process, causing me to accept yet another offer of a free breakfast from the Inn (damn!). While enjoying some a bagel and some of the groundskeeper’s fine coffee, I chatted with the Inn’s owner, a really brilliant, highly-successful business man (a business turnaround specialist who got burned out on big business and competition and decided to take some time off). Apparently, “time off “ running an inn in G’ville, while succeeding ahead of his five-year plan, was taking a lot of his time so he was opting out. Fascinating guy. I wish him well.

I departed G’ville around 8am this morning (Wed) and, upon returning to Hwy. 1, was almost immediately back into the “OH….MY…GOD” scenery mode. The drive up Hwy. 1 from G’Ville to Mendocino, then Ft. Bragg was one eye-scorching Pacific view after another, punctuated occasionally by a sudden twist, turn, and dive into a thickly-forested river or creek valley. Seeing these mountain rivers empty into the Pacific is a completely different scene than the East coast, most of which is flat. In some cases, the areas surrounding the rivers are the only green spots around, since so much of the West coast was over-logged in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Speaking of which, that should explain the origin of the name “Stumptown.”

Well, the sun is setting and it’s getting a bit cool out here. I think I’ll put the laptop to rest and sit back with my campfire and sip a little Maker’s Mark that somehow slipped into my baggage. I’ll pick up the story of the road to Ft. Bragg tomorrow morning over coffee.

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