Emily and Linda’s Travel Blog

We've been in Berkeley for a few days. Lots of visiting with friends and family, but have not managed to remember to get pictures. Will see friend Loretta and brother Jim again and hopefully get photos then. 

We're staying in the same house as we did 2 years ago in the Oakland part of the Rockridge neighborhood that also extends north into Berkeley. 

For those into house pics, there are more in the post from our 2021 visit

Lisa got out our old HS yearbook to compare notes and prod each others’ memories, particularly of chorus and theater productions.  Later conversation turned to all the changes we’ve been through, aging and it’s consequences, gratefulness for the things we now enjoy and worries for the way our country and culture are shifting.  Sometimes reunions with old friends leave you wondering how you were ever connected, but there was no lack of common ground here.  

Since it’s a long drive back to the Bay Area, we decided to stop along the way in Santa Rosa (one of the best parts of being retired is not having to rush to anything).  We stayed at the Hotel La Rose, right in downtown Santa Rosa.

Again, not a terribly impressive building from the street, but lovely inside and we actually stayed at the more modern part of the complex across the street - the “Carriage House”

It had a nice little outdoor patio for morning coffee-sipping

For dinner we chose Jackson’s Bar and Oven.  Quite the happening place, though we probably raised the average age of the clientele by 20 years by walking in. 

We started with shishito peppers.  Then Linda had a lamb-stuffed flatbread and I was able to have a pizza from their wood-fired oven since they had a gluten-free one with a garbanzo-flour based crust (new one to me, but very tasty).   

After dinner, we strolled around a bit and came across the Arlene Francis Center for Spirit, Art, and Politics. 

 People our age will remember Arlene Francis as the most frequent guest on the old TV show “What’s My Line” where the panelists were blind-folded and had to guess which of 3 guests was the person they were all pretending to be based on how well they answered questions put to them by the panelists.  She was also the first female guest host for Johnny Carson and played other TV and movie roles. Along with Kitty Carlisle, she embodied a certain kind of real New York City dame.  

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlene_Francis

I was surprised to learn that she was of Armenian descent and that her father had immigrated to the US after his parents were murdered in the Armenian genocide in the early part of the last century.  The Center seems to be a place where all kinds of artistic and creative endeavors take place.  We chatted up one of the managers who was sitting outside.  He told us that at that moment there was a rehearsal for “Shakespeare in the Parking Lot - Twelfth Night”, an open mike night in the cafe, “Circus Jam” - a workshop to teach skills like juggling and clowning, and an improv workshop. The center’s mission is to produce:

“…nonprofit and charitable cultural, educational, social, ethical and ecological activities united by a common purpose—the development of a theory and practice that will foster the creation of a better world, one in which human beings will come to see one another as the source of each other’s completion, as inherently good and caring social and ecological beings who seek to fully recognize each other’s common humanity and interconnectedness with all of life, and to create a world based upon justice, kindness, love, and respect for the earth.”

Phew! That’s some heady stuff.  Who knew? 

On our last day in Arcata, we decided to go for a cruise on the Humboldt Bay aboard the Madeket, which is the oldest Coast Guard inspected vessel in continuous service in the US, according to our captain.  It was originally a ferry to get people from the mainland to the islands in the Bay or across it.  Now it’s a tour boat docked in Eureka.  It was a perfect day for a boat ride - sunny and warm with almost no residual fog by the time we disembarked.  

We saw a lot of sea birds, including Ospreys, Cormorants, Pelicans, and Egrets,, some impressive orange jellyfish and a seal or two (sadly, the seal and jellies eluded my attempts to photograph them).  

The egrets were nesting in a grove of trees - Jo says sometimes there are so many that it looks like snow on the trees from a distance.  

After the cruise, we returned home to feed the animals and change.  Then we were off to the Hatchet House Arcata, which we remembered fondly from our last visit.   We again decided to go in the afternoon before the drinking crowd arrives ((hatchets and booze - what could go wrong with that?).  

Let’s just say that the hatchet leagues will not be recruiting us at this point, but we had a good time.  Jo was the most practiced and most skilled.  You’ll notice my picture demonstrates that I got the axe into the wall, but not how close (far) it was from the target (I’ll let you draw your own conclusions).  Good fun though.  

That evening, Jo pulled out some photos she took of us in college days.  Here are two from 1977

Jo is a master baker.  On our last visit, she made a spectacular gluten-free blackberry pie.  This time, in preparation for our visit, she picked a LOT of sour Morello cherries from the tree in her yard.  She froze them and also made a gluten-free pie dough and let it rest in the fridge.  Sunday morning, the great pie-making event began with letting the cherries thaw and rolling out the dough.  The bottom layer of dough is lined with a layer of fruit only apricot jam to help keep it from getting soggy and also add an extra layer of flavor

Add the top layer and it was a thing of beauty  

Linda shot a video of the bubbling goodness as it came out of the oven:

You can imagine how great the house smelled by then.  But we had to leave the aroma behind and let the pie cool while we went off on our afternoon excursion to Arcata’s historic Minor Theater to see Barbie which seemed like a perfect outing for these three 70s feminists.  Better minds than mine have analyzed it, but it seems to me a very strange juxtaposition of arch, tongue-in-cheek feminist analysis with weirdly supercharged marketing. Still, I haven’t laughed that much in a movie in some time. 

 It was fun to see it in a small town.  The local kids turned up in their Barbie finest.  

After the movie we came home to a double pie dinner.  We had chicken pot pies from the local shop Slice of Humboldt Pie, including a very tasty gluten-free one for me. 

(We did add sides of vegetables from the Farmers Market the day before, but they didn’t make it into the photo).

And then the piéce de resistance - the Morello Sour Cherry Pie.  Fabulous, creamy, great crust (if you didn’t tell us it was gluten-free, no one would be the wiser). Just the right balance of tart and sweet.  Delish!

Another great day, as Jo often says.  

Saturday the dog walk was on Clam Beach.  Not as dramatic a vista as Moonstone, but still lovely and the dogs and humans seemed to enjoy it very much.  Linda looked up and saw a bunch of runners - she said she could hear the music from Chariots of the Gods in her head. 

She also captured some of the joyousness of the event:

Later we checked out the Arcata Farmer’s Market

There were lots of beautiful vegetables and I was especially excited to see that there were sugar snap peas.  I wait eagerly for those in NYC and Long Island every year, but missed part of the brief season this summer so it was an unexpected treat to find California-sized ones in abundance here in Arcata.  I was also taken with the fabulousness of the flowers at several booths.  

There was a portable wood fired pizza oven making a Margarita pizza with just picked tomatoes and basil which was really special.  At another booth they were dishing up Nicaraguan pupusas with curtido (a filled corn cake and savory cole slaw)

Some huge bubble blowing and hula hooping for the kids:

In the evening we had some very tasty Mexican food at El Chipotle (definitely NOT the chain restaurant) in Sunny Brae.  Once fortified, we strolled the Eureka Arts Alive festival that happens every first Saturday of the month.  It’s kind of a street fair/open gallery/small music venues and general happening sort of event.  I confess I lost track of photography and Linda didn’t have her camera so there are no pics. My two favorite things were a very talented jazz ukelele player and a demonstration of a small hand-operated printing press where we got to make our own hand-printed cards.   

Through the COVID Pandemic and since, we have been seeing Jo’s fabulous photos of her dog walking group out on the beaches of this area.  A group of folks get together every morning and walk their dogs together in the early morning, often under spectacularly moody skies over shimmery smooth sand. The camaraderie of the group over years and the beauty of the Northwest coast is something we wanted to join during our stay.  Jo told us that Friday was especially auspicious for the walk on Moonstone Beach because there would be a “negative tide”.  The geoplanetary factors that produce it are still not very clear to me, but the simple version is that the tide would be out longer than usual and the sand would be very hard - much easier for me to negotiate with my walking sticks. 

It definitely did not disappoint.  First, here’s a panoramic video of the scene:

A few shots of Molly and Jo playing fetch with the ball-chucker

And a spectacular shot that Linda took:

Mollie, Queen of the mountain

I had a great time with my walking sticks  - since I’ve been practicing with them, I’ve increased my walking range and was able to walk for almost an hour on the hard packed sand.  

The fellow in front of us here is Bongo

Two more to show the drama of the place (and the doggie pack)

And another furry friend we came across on our walk:

Later in the day, we went out for dinner at Larrupin Cafe in Trinidad.  We got so involved in our conversation that we forgot to get pictures of ourselves or the meal, but here’s what the outdoor patio looked like:

To finish the day off, a bit of culture - a performance at the TBAM Festival featuring The TBAM Festival strings, a local-grown, but world-traveled soprano, Clara Lisle, and John Chernoff on the piano.  The second half was twentieth century music, including a piece by Grazyna Bacewicz, a Polish female composer.  

A really spectacular day in Trinidad.  

Our good friend Jo (from college days close to 50 years ago) lives waaaayyyy up in Northern California in Arcata, Humboldt County.  It’s about a 5 1/2 hour drive from San Francisco, part of which involves a lot of winding road in a deep redwood forest.  Too much after a long flight from NYC.  So our habit is to rent a car at SFX and get out of the City as far as Petaluma to spend the night.  This time we tried a new place - the Hotel Petaluma.  Not much to look at from the street, but it has a lovely courtyard, a lounge with a fireplace and bar, and a funky old elevator that’s kind of fun.  

For dinner we stuck with our tried and true Wild Goat Bistro.

Linda had her usual Four Cheese, Fig, and Pig pizza:

I had the Halibut with summer squash potato cake and grilled asparagus. The local pinot noir was warming and welcome after the long drive.  

We’ve been there twice before , but never noticed that behind it is a lovely river walkway with other restaurants, bars, and even a proper music venue which was featuring a full band with brass and piano as we walked by.  Next time we’ll explore further.  

In the morning we followed the receptionist’s recommendation and went to Hallie’s Diner around the corner.  Just the right choice.  Sweet neighborhood place that seemed to have a clientele that was mostly locals who’d known each other for some time.  The service and food were both excellent. Nothing fancy, but just right.  

Petaluma is a sweet little town that reminded me a bit of Asheville, NC - A similar old downtown that seems to have the facades from the early part of the last century, but with new insides.  There are also a lot of old Victorian homes since, unlike San Francisco, it was spared the earthquake of 1906,   

Two stores along the way particularly caught my interest - the Seed Bank which sells heirloom seeds and “artaluma”, which appears to be a space dedicated to supporting kids in being creative in many ways - with classes and other resources.  

I particularly loved these book titles

Once we were on the road, we had about 4 more hours of driving to do so we decided we’d have a lunch break in Garberville, about 2/3 of the way there.  When we saw the sign outside, we knew we had to continue our exploration of diners of Northern California and stop at the Eel River Cafe which did not disappoint.  

Linda was taken with the cow collection wall

Finally reached Arcata around 5:00 pm where a warm welcome was waiting from Jo and her wonderful dog, Molly.  She swears that Molly knew it was us in the (rental) car driving down the block even before we stopped or said a word.  More on Molly and her human tomorrow.  

Wednesday was our last day in Tucson.  Most of the group headed off to the U of A to visit the Center for Creative Photography and the UA Art Museum.  I stayed behind to get ready for the trip home the next day and to get in one more visit to the local YMCA in an attempt to head off the stiffness of a long day of travel on Thursday.

Linda told me that as they were coming out of the parking lot, they weren't sure which direction to head in.  Margaret pulled out her map, Linda started entering information into Google, and Chris snagged a passerby to ask directions - he turned out to work at the Center and walked them over to it while sharing additional information.  Seemed to me a tidy little story of the different ways that we navigate.  

The photography center is hosting a show of Linda McCartney's photos which include shots of many musicians from the 1960's music scene as well as photos of the McCartney family from the 1960s until her death in 1998. 

More info here if you're interested: https://news.arizona.edu/story/linda-mccartney-retrospective-coming-center-creative-photography.  

Collette said she enjoyed the photos of the 60's musicians "a walk down memory lane even tho it made me feel old".

Linda was intrigued with this wall of photos:

Next they headed off to the UA Museum of Art.  The featured exhibit was "Restored: The Return of Woman-Ochre" which was a room devoted to the story of a brazen mid-day theft of a William De Kooning painting in 1985.  "The painting was cut out of its frame in a UAMA gallery by a man and a woman who followed a museum staff member inside at approximately 9 a.m. on Nov. 29, 1985. The woman distracted the security guard while the man went upstairs and cut “Woman-Ochre” from its frame with a sharp blade. The two hurried out of the museum and never returned. The heist took no more than 15 minutes" [https://artmuseum.arizona.edu/willem-de-koonings-woman-ochre-returns-ua-museum-art ]  

Although the FBI investigated for years, the painting was never found and the thieves were not identified.  Then in 2017, the museum got a call from an antiques dealer saying that he thought he had the painting - found among other items in an estate sale.  It turned out that the painting had been in the home of a reclusive couple living in rural New Mexico.  Still unclear whether they were the thieves or they bought it, with or without knowledge of its provenance.  It's now been restored and has been displayed since last October.  

If you'd like to read more about this complicated real-life heist story there's an article titled "Who were Jerry and Rita Alter?": 

https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona/2022/10/06/who-were-jerry-and-rita-alter-missing-de-kooning-found-couples-home/8195231001/

Linda also found an artist new to her that she really liked - Robert Motherwell.  Here is an example of his work:

For me, one of the highlights of our trip was the trip to the Sonora Desert Museum.  I had been once before, some years back, but it's even more spectacular now.  It's mostly a kind of outdoor zoo dedicated to teaching about Sonoran Desert animals and plants. 

Just to the left as you enter was a very unusual Crested Saguaro - there's some disagreement about how they come to be, but they are very rare.  The population of saguaros is in the millions and there are around 2500 crested ones identified so far. 

 We went early to catch the Raptor Free Flight demonstration.  It was a bit of a hike out from the entrance, but for the first time, I rented a scooter to save my knees and feet. What a different experience! Instead of struggling to keep up and crapping out early, I was able to visit all parts of the museum and not be a wreck at the end.  At one point, Linda had to tell me to slow down because she couldn't keep  up with me (definitely a role-reversal).  

But back to the Raptor Free Flight.  This is just what it says - the raptors do have an enclosure, but at the beginning of the day, they go to the enclosure to invite the birds to come and participate (there are treats involved).  If they don't feel like it, that's OK.  So they can't tell you ahead of time what birds will be flying.  Also they don't use hoods or restraints.  Sometimes the birds fly off, but they often come back because they know there are good eats.  

We were lucky to see several species including Chihuahuan Ravens, a  Crested Cara Cara, a Great Horned Owl, and Harris Hawks  They have trained the birds to fly from one handler to another over the heads of the crowd.  You're warned not to put your hands up or have kids on your shoulders - both to protect the watchers and also because the birds get disturbed when they collide with things and may not want to fly out again.  

As I  cruised back from the demo, I stopped to survey the desert vista - on a clear day like that one, the last bit of Arizona and the first bit of Mexican Sonora is visible.  

In other areas we saw a couple of Javelina's (they look like pigs, but are actually related to peccaries), a coyote, a couple of grey wolves,  a big horn sheep, and a mountain lion who has a reclining spot up under some warm rocks. (check out the size of his paws - built for quick speed and maneuvering).  It was a coolish day, but the sun was very warm so many of the animals were lying in the sunniest patches they could find.  

I was particularly fascinated by the touch the stingrays pool.  Since the Sonora Desert actually borders the Sea of Cortez, the museum includes some aquatic species as well.  It was hard not to be frightened a bit of the stingrays, but they didn't "sting" at all.  Instead they're kind of velvety to touch and seemed to enjoy being rubbed gently just behind their eyes.  Definitely a first for me.

After roaming around, we had lunch in the cafeteria and stopped for some photos

A great visit and highly recommended if you're ever in Tucson.  

 

 

I wanted to record this outing, though I wasn’t part of it.  The pictures needed to be shared though. 

Julie had expressed a wish to go horseback riding. Chris and Linda decided to join. They had a perfect cool, but clear evening to ride out into the desert and caught the sunset as they headed back. They put Linda on Candy the biggest and somewhat ill-tempered horse because of Linda’s height and the fact that she admitted she’d ridden before (though 40-ish years ago). 

Linda reported the Wrangler was friendly and told them about the mountains and plants as they rode along.   They expected to be very sore the next day but were happy to report it wasn’t too bad.