and halibut caught right in the area near Marshall and I ate Drake's Bay
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakes_Bay) oysters. The oysters, crab, and Halibut were the best of those three things I have even eaten, and I had two local IPA style beers from two bottles--the wine is great in the area, but I wanted beer. I walked about 600 meters from the Inn at Tomales Bay to a joint down the road. The bay is stunning, pure, and undeveloped--the Spaniards were in awe when they saw it first and so was I.
In the late 60s, a battle was fought to keep the bay undeveloped. A group of investors had purchased thousands of acres and intended to develop thousands of homes and build a freeway. The freeway would even go across to the peninsula, and the whole area would be killed. It is hard to perform mental exercises wherein one imagines an area unaffected and undeveloped by men. It would be hard on the spirit to imagine, at every moment, what a place once looked like when it was beautiful. It takes energy, and I've got that, but it can be a struggle. I experienced wonder when I ran into sights where the thing one normally imagines is just right there, and you never knew about it, and it's not so clear many people know about, want to know about, or are trying to know about it.
You have to canoe or kayak to the peninsula and can camp if you get permission. A local community made these strict rules--this is not the type of onerous statism I object to. Local communities (Marshall, population 58 and a few feet above sea level), can do these things: there is consent. When Marshall saved its part of Tomales Bay, it was a handful of people who lived there versus LA developers, and the Tomales Bay people miraculously beat the fuck out of the LA people and now they have this committee that protects the Bay from fuckheads, and that is the perfect example of volunteerist local government that works how it is supposed to work. Marshall did not consent to the mafia development: without consent, you can not. They, the people, fought. Volunteer government, you see, from the people. So they fought and made the local laws. I am not against this at all, and I know some anarcho-libertarians might flinch at this, or perhaps see it as a perfect example of what they would accept. Would have to chat with Boston about it--he might not like the fact he can't shoot there, but I didn't want to shoot there at all. I looked at the bay and wanted to kayak to the peninsula and sleep there, and, as stated earlier, I felt deep fucking numb wonder at the raw unfucked purity of the whole thing.
Next to me were two Bay area transplants in their early to mid 50s. Both had finished off a bottle of a white with some friends before sitting at the bar for the unwritten and unposted local special--14 bucks for a grass-fed angus burger, fries (fresh cut), one oyster, and one beer. In this place, the equivalent of 50 cent tacos or 42 cent bad-ass wings. The joint had a prix fixe for $27 and they served up a crab louis, halibut, some Drake's Bay oysters, some unreal fucking desert I cannot recall, bread, just shitloads of perfect food. The bartender was from Petaluma, from there and living there currently, and told me he loved the town and appreciated it now that he was older and had returned. This will be a constant theme of those I interviewed.
It was a very long ride to Marshall. I don't care about the mileage. It felt like several days, and many stages, many different temperaments. I could have rested in Point Reyes Station, I could have continued past Marshall and slept in the town of Tomales. With no internet, maps, or guide book, I experienced what a man on a journey experiences: uncertainty. And uncertainty in the midst of beauty, physical effort, hunger, disorientation, and exhaustion should never be traded or compromised for other experiences.
The man and woman told me their story: their dream home in the bay suddenly usurped by a huge transmission station built by T-Mobile without their consent. Their neighbor accepted $70,000 per month rental income from T-Mobile to house the deadly device. Legally it looked like they were fucked or just exhausted from the affair. They moved to Marshall away from the Bay. For the better, perhaps. I could not understand the gal for much longer because the booze slurred her speech. I could well understand the ponytailed consultant, and he told sobering stories about development and consent and happy stories about beauty and consumption and relaxation. I do not know how Moraline classifies any or all of this as masculine or feminine--I rode the day to exhaustion and ate what I wanted--regardless of whether I camped or ate raw sheep or squirrel, I felt these events manly, but perhaps I still miss his point.
When I returned home, that night's home, I carried my blinking red light to avoid conflict with drunken motorists winding along highway 1. I noted that this must not have impressed the local honies who I did not speak with due to the drunk woman's monopolization of their time and my engagement with the man. It would have been fun to chat it up with them and bring the one in the hoodie back with me, but instead I learned what was clearly a unique story, and I felt local for that night. At times (recently, quite seldomly) I choose decency, gravity, and focus. Upon my return I imbibed in cognac and looked at the dark bay, read to the best of my ability the important aspects of "Saving Tomales Bay," which was autographed by the author and addressed to the wife of the man who owned the inn. In the morning I would put on my slightly wet leg warmers, arm warmers, shorts, jersey, gloves, vest, shoes, socks, give the drive train a quick clean, check the tires, check for money belt, camera, phone, chargers, put on sun screen, and then eat crepes and sausage and home made bread and a quart of coffee that the man at the inn had promised me the night before. They bay was spectacular that morning as it was the previous evening and as it has been in the thousands of years previous that it lived on this earth, now called California, untouched.
Halibut
The food joint whilst shutting down; my man the bartender, from Petaluma.
Night time photography on my walk back from the food joint.
The morning view from my room of Tomales Bay in Marshall, California.
About to mount my rig. This is the room I slept in.
On the road once again.
Hesitating to write this or to publish it was a mistake. But you have righted it. This is as good as anything on your blog--better really. You make me want to fight for all the Tamales Bays--that is masculine. Fighting. Very masculine. But I digress. This is why you ride, for this sort of writing and its pictures. This is what bicycles are for. This is what men were made to do.
ReplyDeleteMEN WHO STARE AT SCREENS
ReplyDeletehttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/phys-ed-the-men-who-stare-at-screens/
No amount of exercise will save the body from deteriorating due to sitting and staring at a computer.