Santa Rosa, California

Two days of sunny skies and not a drop of rain, conditions nice enough that I’ve finally had days of over seventy miles. Dry though it may be, water has still been an issue, as all the rain of the previous days has left some roads flooded. I nearly had to turn back when I went off on a lightly-traveled rural road for fifteen miles that the bike shop owner in Lakeport recommended as an alternative to the more obvious state road I intended to take. Two miles into it I came upon a “Road Blocked” sign.


I’d ignored several of those the past few days and had been able to get through, so I continued on, hoping that the flood waters or mud slide that may have blocked the road had receded enough for the road to be passable. This was farm and cattle grazing terrain, no orchards or vineyards as had predominated up until now, with a farm house every quarter mile or so. There was no traffic coming in or out of them to reassure me that I could get through, only “Flooded” signs at the occasional intersection.

After five miles I came to the blockade—a deep and lengthy lake where the road had been. This required a ferry. Rather than immediately turning back I dug out my bowl of partially eaten oatmeal for a few bites. Before my sunken heart could revive, a guy miraculously pulled up on a small all-terrain vehicle with an open cargo space piled high with hay. “Toss your bike in, I’ll get you through,” he said. “I run 120 head of cattle down the road who don’t have anything to eat. I’ve got to take this load to them.” His sudden appearance was too startling to believe. My guardian angel was certainly being vigilant.

As we plowed through the water, it surged up through the floor. “Whoops. I should have told you to raise your feet,” he said. I had jerked them up in time to avoid a soaking, something I didn’t need in the cold. It was just 36 degrees and there had been a glaze of ice on puddles along the road, though none on this deeper water.

As we unloaded my bike, he told me there might be more water blocking the road just before I returned to the main road ten miles further. If so, he said to give him a call and he would come to my rescue. I told him I didn’t have a phone. He said I would then have to backtrack a bit and take a side road around it. As he was telling me that flooding had become commonplace the past few years due to forest fires denuding the mountain sides and allowing water to run off rather than soak in, a road crew came through the water. My benefactor knew them. They said the flooded section ahead wasn’t too deep and that I should be able to pedal through with no problem.

They were right about that. The water no longer even covered the whole road. Only one other car had passed me. Other than the pall of uncertainty, this was the most pleasant stretch of cycling of the trip, scenic and tranquil. As soon as I returned to State Road 20 I was once again besieged by the roar of a steady stream of traffic. I was in no peril with a decent shoulder, but I was once again made well aware that this is an auto-dominated world and that California is packed with them.

Ten miles further I turned onto 101, the Redwood Highway. The Redwoods didn’t begin for twenty miles until Willits, where I would turn back after paying homage to its Carnegie. There was actually less traffic on this four-lane divided highway than on many of the state roads I’d ridden, where there had rarely been a pause in the traffic whizzing by. So it was pleasant cycling through the wooded terrain that included a seven-mile climb to just under two thousand feet, the highest point on 101, before descending into Willits, a mile off 101.

It’s small, but dignified, red-brick Carnegie was now home to the community television station. “Carnegie Library” remained chiseled over its entry under a white stone arch and ornate carving of an open book. A plaque on a rock in front of it under a large tree gave its history serving as the town’s library from 1915 until 1989. It had been placed on the register of National Historic Places in 1993. Next door was the town’s 75-year old movie theater still going strong

I doubled back on 101 to just before where I had gotten on it and was able to ride on a road that paralleled it for fifteen placid miles to Ukiah, downhill all the way. It’s Carnegie now housed a real estate company. All evidence of its past had been erased, other than its grandeur. Ukiah with 15,000 residents was three times the size of Willits. It had a sizable contingent of transients hanging out in its park and in mini-encampments on vacant lots, including besides its Walmart along 101. It was time to be looking for a place to camp, but not amongst these folk.

Fences lined most of 101, so I had to turn off on a side road. I was able to disappear down a steep embankment and pitch my tent along a fence beside a vineyard out of view. Wine-growing isn’t restricted to Napa Valley. It was a quiet night other than the crackle of frost gathering on my tent. It was cold enough for the water bottle I left on my bike to freeze. For the first time, other than my 18-mile ride to the Amtrak station in Chicago and at night in my tent, I needed to wear my down jacket to start the day.

  I have been very happy to have it as well as the heavy gloves that I needed for that ride to the train station in Polar Vortex temperatures, as my usual touring cold-weather gloves wouldn’t have been adequate on a few occasions here in California. It’s been colder than I expected. In January when I nearly set out, Sacramento had been experiencing 60-degree temperatures. I have been lucky to see 50 degrees so far.

I had one more Carnegie on 101 in Healdsburg. The classic gray building was now a museum and historical society, though “Public Library” with “Carnegie” below it still graced its facade. A plaque affirmed its status on the National Register of Historic Places. Befitting a museum, a giant millstone and bell, local relics, resided in front of it.

I continued on 101 to Santa Rosa, not to visit its Carnegie, as it was demolished in 1964, but to visit the Arlene Francis Center, a cultural community center that my friend Bruce, who I visited in Mali last winter helps administer. I didn’t expect to find him there, figuring he’d be back in Mali with his wife, but I learned that he had spent the winter In California and that I had missed him by two days. But I got the great news that just before he left he learned that Kafoune had at last been granted a visa to come to the US, something they had been working on for nearly two years. That was fantastic news, and means that she’ll be in Telluride this fall for the film festival.