NORTH WEST CALIFORNIA

Oakland Berkley and the Delta Blues

As a jazz aficionado I had known of the Delta Blues and had been aware that it originated from an area near San Francisco. Well we drove through the Delta and it may truly get the blues soon. It is a large area maybe 800 square miles of low lying farmland with new housing developments being built everywhere. People, desperate to get away from the violent streets of Oakland and Berkley, are rushing to purchase in these picture perfect suburban developments constructed 20 to 30 feet below the level of the rivers running by them. The rivers are contained by ancient earth levees which are being raised as the land sinks. In some cases the land is now below sea level. “ When will they ever learn”

I did a little research and found this;
"As long as the subdivisions comply with very outdated federal floodplain maps, or the promoters have obtained some sort of exemption from the Army Corps of Engineers, there are no restrictions or flood insurance requirements. And under a recent state appellate court decision, if a levee fails and nearby homes are flooded, the State of California is liable, not developers or the local governments that approve the housing plans."

San Francisco’s tramps and bag ladies

Everywhere we went in San Francisco we saw homeless people. They came in many varieties, the dirty, dishevelled street sleepers with no apparent possessions, the old Chinese ladies picking through the bins with tongs looking for drinks cans, but most striking of all was a well presented lady in a full length leather coat that looked pretty new, pushing a shopping cart with what seemed to be all her worldly possessions neatly wrapped in heavy duty bin bags. We did not suffer from any aggressive begging in San Francisco but it is quite common. I still remember the well spoken young men and women of Venice beach LA discussing quite openly how they could pressure the tourists for money.

Marin County

We crossed from San Francisco into upmarket, organic, conservation conscious, Volvo driving [ WHY?] Marin County. We did not see a single set of Golden Arches or a KFC but getting a good loaf of high fibre multigrain bread got MUCH easier. In fact we had a choice.

We are following the Pacific Coast Highway up the coast. The road twists and turns along some spectacular cliffs with views of the migrating grey whales and hopeful surfers who await the perfect wave.





Point Reyes
We visited the Point Reyes Peninsula national park which is a unique piece of continental crust attached to Marin County. The peninsula is unique because it has been travelling North for millions of years along the Pacific plate. It is the west side of the San Andreas fault. The picture shows a fence which runs across the fault. In 1905 it was a straight line in 1906 it doglegged by 20 feet during the last “BIG ONE”. We stood astride the fault line even though some experts say the next “BIG ONE” is overdue.



We are staying in well laid out State parks that have been built along the coast. However we got it wrong a couple of nights ago when we pulled into Bodega Bay sand spit and found ourselves assigned a beautiful site just site 20 yards from a beach. We took Charro for his evening walk along the hard sand beach then settled down for the rest of the afternoon outside in our recliners thinking, it does not get much better than this. There was a beautiful protected harbour on the other side of the sand spit with an entrance protected by long stone piers, one of which had a light and foghorn on the end. We assumed that the fog horn would switch to a light when dusk fell. By the way there was no hint of fog over land or sea, visibility was excellent. Well we were wrong the light came on but the foghorn continued its mournful but penetrating bleat every 10 seconds. We assured ourselves that it would stop and it did eventually. We think it was at 2 am but we know exactly when it restarted; it was at 5 am.

Seals

Many of the river mouths have sand banks where the California seal populations haul out to give birth and mate. All the approaches are plastered with signs advising what distances to maintain and what to do if an abandoned seal pup is found. We have not been down there ourselves as the aforementioned signs are outnumbered by those stating IN BIG LETTERS - NO RVs NO DOGS and NO OVERNIGHT PARKING. We are reminded of signs seen in the UK till recently, No coloured and no Irish.



FORT BRAGG

I spent a morning flying with the Fort Bragg Fog Busters who have one of the most testing flying fields I have ever seen. It is completely surrounded by tall pines, and is next to a large deep quarry. You have to fight through the turbulence produced by the swirling winds then make a steep approach to the field and hope the direction has not switched.

In contrast
we spent the afternoon walking through 47 acres of gardens filled with the scent of blooming rhododendrons as well as many other plants.


However we are both a little worried about the people who need this notice.