Day 15, August 9, 2024, Back to Borg’s’, Olema to Pacific Grove, 163 miles

I slept in in the morning then woke up in the field—ah, yes, we were in Olema again—and I sat in my old camp chair to write earlier entries in this blog in the notebook, watching the fog and sun in eternal battle again, and watching the sheep creep into the campground. Robert got up and we made short work of cleaning up camp, and then we were on the road, heading for the Lagunitas General Store, one of my favorite trip stops.

The Lagunitas store with the cool vintage car

The Lagunitas General Store (or see the more proper title in the link) is one of my top ten places in Marin, for I have been stopping there for years, first with my long-ago ex-boyfriend Kelly, and then with my friend Bob, and then for many years with Robert. I have bought firewood and lasagna to eat in the redwoods there, and wine and ice for the cooler, and sandwiches and postcards of Jerry Garcia, so I was happy to return. This year we were bummed to discover that the breakfast burrito of old had been retired, but we got breakfast sandwiches (whatever you want in that area, they have them), and I convinced Robert to buy our very first purchased long-sleeve, tie-dyed, Grateful Dead shirt, a sort of unisex garment we plan to wash and keep in the Bus. I also scored some weird postcards, and we had breakfast in the parking lot, looking at the cool vintage cop car parked there.

Then it was the 101, the rainbow tunnel, the Golden Gate, which was surprisingly chill in terms of being relaxed and foggy. We made our way through San Francisco via Avenue 19, noticing the intersection with Judah Street, me telling Robert about how my parents and the Bus had lived at 9^th and Judah when they first met, living in an elegant flat that is now a parking lot. I joked with Robert about how I had not known the avenues were in alphabetical order when I first lived in the city, and so we recited them as we drove past (for more, see link at end). We passed through the City, waved hello to San Francisco State where my mother was a student, and then we were in Pacifica. I decided long ago that Pacifica was not a town to stop in having gotten lost there once, and although it is my dear friend Bill’s hometown, I always want to blow past it, so we did, but Robert wanted coffee, and I encouraged him to wait.

The Bus getting coffee just after Pacifica

“We will stop at Rockaway Beach,” I said, relying on my memory that there was something to stop for there and also liking the name, but I was doubting myself all the time, wondering if it was just some weird Taco Bell I peed at once that I was remembering, but then lo, as we came down the hill and just before Rockaway, there was a red caboose offering coffee, and so we went over. I stayed in the Bus to write postcards, but Robert returned with coffee for both and great praise (see link). There was an antique store there with the exact Schwinn lowrider bike I had in the 1970’s, and I tried to figure out how/why to buy it, but then we were back on the 1, headed to Devil’s Pass (now a tunnel) and points south.

Robert wearing his Grateful Dead shirt from the Lagunitas store with coffee!

Utah Philips has a song about this part of the coast that I always think about when we travel it: “The North Coastal Highway, it rolls on forever” and that is how it was this day, rolling through the hills on one side, the glorious Pacific on the other, just driving down the road. Robert wanted to stop at Bonny Doon Beach  and Shark’s Tooth because he had read about this place on the California State Parks Instagram feed, so we found it and stopped, but I was fatigued, experiencing stomach stress, and although we walked the old railroad and looked at the beaches, I was not in shape to hike down, and so we had a sad Sea Turtle (Squishy, to those who know him).

Jenny and Squishy at Bonny Doon, Robert walking the tracks

After the sad almost beach excursion we wanted a place to stop and a bathroom—all that coffee for me—so we pulled into Wilder State Park, knowing nothing about it, and paid the day use fee. There were lots of people there, and I was curious about why, but after using the bathroom and reading the signs, I learned that Wilder State Beach is a mountain bike hot spot, but there were also some historic buildings to see, so after another picnic lunch, we took the hot little trail into the past. There was the old farm, the barns, the facilities used for a dairy, and living animals, chickens and goats. It was a lovely respite from the trip.

Wilder State beach

Back on the 1 we came to Santa Cruz, never my favorite city, and while there was a giant mural of sea creatures, there were no sea turtles, so Squishy was annoyed, and then as we tried to follow Highway 1 south, we came into a gigantic traffic jam, a traffic jam worthy of LA, and so we sat, and sat, and sat, all the long way through the outskirts of Santa Cruz and through Mott’s Landing, a truly spectacular traffic jam, which did nothing to improve our respective moods. It was a traffic jam with no rhyme or reason, a giant slow down with no known cause. Finally, outside of Mott’s Landing, the road opened up and we were flying again, headed back to Pacific Grove and Borg’s, on the path that we had so recently and in fear traversed to get the Bus fixed on the way up.

Borg’s was just like Borg’s always is and should be: parking lot with seagulls, gray skies, Monterey Bay, and we set up in our new room happy to remember the past psychic pain at Borg’s as in the past. We decided once again to walk to dinner, but this time we were determined to avoid the Italian restaurant with the terrible food and bad fight, so we walked the beach paths to a place that promised chowder, and on the way we appreciated the giant houses of Pacific Grove and the giant otters swimming in the bay, otters whose ancestor’s  fur likely helped build those stately homes.

                  Seated at Vivolo’s Chowder House, almost across the street from the Italian place of the terrible fight on the trip up, we got top rejoice in an experience I suspect most of us know2: doing it over again but doing it right. Indeed, this was right, for the food was awesome (chowder, then fish and chips and fish tacos), the fish so buttery fresh that it was nothing like the fish we get at the store here in LA, like nothing else except the fish we got in Gold Beach Oregon, but somehow better because we were making a new memory on top of the old one. So we walked back to Borg’s, buoyed by the food, instead of fighting, stopping to notice the houses, the bay, the otters, and then returned to Borg’s, checked the upcoming weather, and freaked out.

                  The high for the next day on the 101 was 107 in Paso Robles, near to where we would cut back to the coast, and neither of us wanted to drive in that in the Bus with only window air conditioning, so we decided to go to sleep early, wake early, and get on the road to beat the heat. However, the replaying of the terrible night really helped, and so we fell into the bed sated and slept.

Links:

Lagunitas store (no website)

https://www.yelp.com/biz/lagunitas-grocery-store-lagunitas-2

Coffee House that rocks near Pacifica

https://www.ptowncoffeecaboose.com/

Bonnie Doon State beach

Bonny Doon Beach

Wilder Ranch State Park

Wilder Ranch State Park

Borgs

https://www.borgsoceanfrontmotel.com/

Vivolos Chowder House, Pacific Grove, CA

A Locals Favorite For Over 30 Years