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For weeks, we have been discussing where we were going to go on our anniversary trip. Places like San Diego, Reno, Southern Utah and Washington state were proposed and rejected. Finally, we decided it would need to be someplace close enough to get to as a day trip, but not so close that it didn't feel like we were leaving the SF Bay Area. We decided we'd just get in my trusty Suzuki Sidekick and let it lead the way. Follow the nose of the vehicle to wherever it may take us! No doubling back! Just go one direction and stick to it!
Well, that may sound adventurous and romantic but it isn't all that practical. My truck might smell like a horse on occasion, but the Suzuki can't really decide where to go on its own. It has to be driven. On the night before the adventure, we sat down with the AAA Road Atlas and looked at the map of California one more time. Up north, about 150 miles away, was a big smudge of blue with green around it. From my experience reading maps, this indicated there lay a body of water surrounded by parks. Perfect! That's exactly the kind of thing we were looking for. Clear Lake, it was called, and neither of us had ever been there. Without any further discussion, we decided that come morning, we'd head off to Clear Lake.
When morning came, I thought I'd better at least Google "things to do in Clear Lake." I found out a few things. Clear Lake is the second largest natural freshwater lake in California. No one knows where it gets its name because its actually not all that clear. It claims to be the best place for bass fishing in the state, and at least in terms of the total quantity of bass pulled by anglers, it is in fact true. The terrain is dominated by Mount Tenocti, an extinct/dormant volcano that geologists believe had active lava flows as little as 10,000 years ago. The region still has lots of geysers and hot springs, indicating that there's still hot stuff flowing around down there. Wow. Volcanoes in the Bay Area?!? This place sounded exciting! Since we weren't fishermen, and the volcano wasn't likely to start rumbling again during our day trip, I still needed to find something for us to do. The California State Park website was helpful there, describing a level, modest nature hike in Clear Lake State Park, which lie on the southern shore of the lake (it's the star in the map above). The hike boasted that it would teach you about how the native Pomo Indians lived and actually take one through the remains of an old Pomo Village. That sounded cool. I also found out about a Clear Lake museum in Lakeport, a town on the west shore. It was in an old courthouse building and also looked worthy of visiting. Great. Now we had both a destination and things to do once we got there.
What I should have done next was reasearch the best way to get there. It seemed simple enough, just past the Carquinez Bridge was a road called Highway 29, it went pretty much straight through Vallejo, Napa and Calistoga and ended at Lakeport. My idea was take this highway up, and skip over to US 101 for the ride back. Again, no doubling back down the same roads. Unfortunately, for large parts of it, particularly in Napa Country, Hwy 29 is not much of a highway. It's actually more like a busy city street. Stoplight after stoplight. Strip mall after strip mall. It was tedious and boring driving. Finally, we got into the city of Napa, and by this point we needed to stop. Napa is a very "touristy" area, the "Wine Country" bring millions of visitors. I thought their visitor information center might have some stuff about Lake County, but alas, when we found the place and took our first break, they only had stuff about Napa County. Sheesh!
One good map (even the one above would have helped) would have saved us a lot of misadventure later.
We did find a nice candy store, and Jasmine got a piece of fudge. Given that she later called it the highlight of the trip, I guess its a good thing I snapped a picture of it.
I ended up making my second of several bad decisions that day by ordering a piece of chocolate covered frozen cheesecake. Sounds good, but before lunch, it just made me queasy.
The trees were changing color, and despite all the old tourists, obvious signs of horrible affluence and other distractions which made us envious, the town of Napa was quite pretty. Here I am along a walkway struggling to finish off my frozen cheesecake on a stick.
The rest of our journey through Napa County was scenic and interesting, but again, long and filled with stoplights and lots of traffic. If October isn't the busiest tourist season in Napa, I'd hate to have seen the place at its peak. Again we just crawled along Hwy 29, past vineyard after vineyard. Better than strip malls, but since neither of use enjoy wine all that much, it didn't hold that much fascination. In fact the abundant tourists we saw in other cars, along the sides of the road and in winery parking lots seemed pretty homogenous: old, pudgy white folks with big hats and white hair. Wine lovers. We were "escorted" along our journey by the famous Napa Wine Train. The tracks parallel Hwy 29, and we passed this locomotive and were passed by it several times along the journey. Kudos to Jasmine for tricky bit of digital photography: shooting a moving vehicle from another moving vehicle.
Finally, Hwy 29 started to become the Bay Area Backroad we had hoped for. The pass from the Napa Valley into the Clear Lake basin is beautiful. The flora is quintiscential Northern California: chapparal on the sunny southward sides of the hills, with shady and cool coniferous forest on the northward sides. The air was warm and smelled great. A slight haze from our regular October forest fires made for spectacular rays of sunshine streaming through the branches. The road itself was well maintained and curvy enough to make the driving fun without making the passenger car sick. Regular passing lanes accommodated drivers taking the road at different paces.
Everything was going great until I made a wrong turn. If you scroll upwards to the map at the top of the post you can see where Hwy 53 splits northward where 29 makes a left. At that intersection, things don't look like they do on the map. Hwy 29 looks like a little tiny road whereas this Hwy 53 looks broad and inviting. I actually left the turn lane for some reason and headed up Hwy 53. A few blocks later, I realized my mistake and thought I could make another left down something called "Old Clearlake Highway" and intersect 29 somewhere on the south shore. It didn't work out that way. Instead we found ourselves travelling through the backstreets of the town of Clearlake. Mobile homes and rusty cars lined a sidewalk-less road riddled with potholes. In our urban minds, we had stumbled into the horror that is Whitetrash Methville, USA. Worse off we were hungry.
If you again look at the map above, you can see a strip of green along the north shore of the lake. Thats the southern tip of Mendocino National Forest. Given that we had pledged at the beginning of the trip not to return the way we'd came, that became our new driving goal. As we passed food establishment after food establishment, each unappealing in its own way, "Good Eats," seemed unlikely. "Get me to the woods!" exclaimed Jasmine. I'm sure any of the possible restraunts we passed would have been fine, but a fresh coat of paint and the words "First Street Bar & Grill," finally assuaged us both into stopping for lunch.
Out the window of the car, I took a picture of the volcano. I thought at the time, it would be the first of several. Turned out to be the only one.
Here's a hint for other travellers who might visit the Clear Lake Basin: make sure your vehicle is air conditioned. The temp climbed into the high 80's with little wind. We travelled up the East shore of the lake, with its southwesternly facing, it started to get a bit uncomfortable in the afternoon heat. A stop at the Tourist information center in Lucerne revealed that the National Forest is not really something you can visit. Its just trail-less forestry land without accommodations unless you travel another 50 miles or so northward. Ack! What next?
We swooped around the north shore and decided to head down to Lakeport. At least we could see the museum I had read about that morning. In downtown Lakeport, we emerged from our vehicle to be greeted by a horrible racket. As I had earlier read, Lakeport is also home to a major racetrack. There was some kind of motorcycle race this afternoon, and the screaming engines spoiled any tranquility of the shady side of the lake. At least we had the museum. Here it is -
Hey, what's that sign in the window??
OMG - What time is it? 4:30?!?
We went down to the lake's edge, found a nice park bench, and relaxed. Over the screaming of not-too-distant formula one engines, Jasmine put her head in my lap. We talked about our first year. Happy Anniversay, honey. Maybe these guys on the pier will catch a bass.
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