A Saturday Drive North

One week of solid rain may have cut into the Bay Area’s nude beach attendance, outdoor male kissing, hobo pee odor, chocolate melting points, and mood, but it had one positive effect: all the plants are lush and blooming.

It was a perfect time to pile four people into a gently worn rental Honda and go for a day trip. Our posse left in the morning, headed into Petaluma, Sebastopol, and out to to Bodega Bay. We stuck to back roads, taking in the pastoral and verdant scenery. For much of the year, this landscape is dry and yellow. But on saturday, it was lush. The hills rolled with a green reserved for only the most high-end telecine of California Happy Cow cheese commercials. It really does look that way sometimes.

Along the way, we stopped at a various food sources from bakeries, a creamery, a market, a turkey store, and a pie shop.

The final bakery was excellent, but fattening. Our sticky bun was more of a 3 pound loaf of warm carbs. After a day of cheese, flour, and sugars, our bowels had thoroughly bloated with satisfied gas.

Everyone in the car was polite and did their best to keep their unspeakable secrets to themselves.

Both rain and sunset rolled in when we reached the coast. It was time to head home along a quickly darkening coastal highway.

The following photos try to do the day justice. Not pictured: greenery everywhere.

If Ghiradelli Square is like Isla Nublar, then this crusty barn in Petaluma is the down to business Isla Sorna.

Not the classiest pier, but it’ll do.

Petaluma’s colorful industrial district.

Rosemary in bloom demands to be laid on chicken breasts and baked at 350.

Loading white liquid produced by cow mammary glands into a stainless steel tanker truck.

Towers of milk.

Rastafarian llama.

I may be a large chicken sculpture, but you’re a turkey.

The high security “gate” to a chicken farm.

Kiddie pools full of carnivorous plants at California Carnivores in Sebastopol.

Insect drowning hairy pitcher plants.

Do the sundew!™

Sandra Bullock exacts her revenge on another Jesse James mistress.

Shark truck deaths are surprisingly rare.

The witchdoctors station wagon goes change-chang-walla-walla-bing-bang.

A head.

I just realized that peacock has two funny, related roots.

Wild turkeys going on a stroll.

Junk yard.

After seeing wild turkeys nearby, I had high hopes for seeing some industrial turkeys at this place. No dice.

Enough mistletoe to kiss a whole village of kissable villagers.

A cool old building at Russian River Winery.

Chicken coop, there it is.

An old delivery van made into smelly pig housing.

These pigs hoped that I could take a break from taking third-world class photos and spare them a bite of my snacks.

J-dawg walking to the left of an old truck.

The troll hotel.

A garden behind Wildflower Bakery in Freestone.

Kale.

This woman’s ample yeast was put to good use.

A baker’s dozen of Holstein butts.

The devil’s house.

A green hill.

Sun begins to set over hillsides.

A view of Tomales Bay without peer.

This sunset over Tomales Bay looks like it’s trying to either motivate me or sell me coffee. Either way, I’m buying.