Adventures Along Highway 101
“In ’65, I was 17 and running up 101 / I don’t know where I’m running now, I’m just running on.” — Jackson Browne, “Running on Empty”
Here in Minnesota there is an impressive web of freeways that crisscross the landscape. The traffic report is actually useful: if one route is slow, there are myriad alternates to choose from.
In the area of California where I spent half my life before moving here, there was only one highway: 101. There, the traffic report only tells you one thing—just how late you’re going to be to your destination.
When most people think of Highway 101, they immediately imagine the Golden Gate Bridge.
When my TV kicks into idle mode, it shows an impressive series of scenic videos, one showing a flyover of that iconic bridge. I pay rapt attention when that happens.
I can tell from the angle of the shadows and the position of the lane dividers on the bridge when the video was taken.
I drove over that bridge many times and even walked over it once or twice. I once lived on the Presidio on one side of the bridge and hiked and explored the Marin headlands on the other side.
You can see a tour boat crossing under the bridge. I’ve been on that tour boat.
Highway 101 between Santa Rosa and San Rafael was my daily commute for 13 years, and there are myriad adventures I remember from that period.
Traffic flowed along fairly well for the most part, but if anything… interesting happened, traffic would come to a standstill.
A group of students at the trucking school next to the highway, decked out in hazmat suits to practice handling a chemical spill, playing frisbee in the parking lot while on break?
Interesting. That added a few hours to my commute.
A new roadside billboard for the county fair, complete with a clever display of plywood “apples” seeming to tumble down the hill?
Interesting. Again, a massive delay was appended to my journey home.
When the powers-that-be realized the sign was causing problems, it was removed.
Guess what? Once again, that was… interesting…
There was the afternoon a semitruck jack-knifed across all lanes of northbound 101, completely blocking the road. Traffic slowed, then stopped, and the highway backed up for miles.
As hours passed, we all turned off our engines, slowly began exiting our cars, and eventually ended up socializing with each other and playing cards on the hoods of cars as we waited.
Cellphones hadn’t been invented yet, so our wives were baffled as to our whereabouts until they turned on the evening news and saw the scene from a helicopter hovering overhead.
One time, catastrophic flooding blocked both the northbound and southbound lanes, completely cutting off all travel between Marin and Sonoma counties. People at home couldn’t come to work for a few days, and those at work were trapped there and had to stay with coworkers or friends.
I’ve always wanted to drive that stretch again, for old time’s sake. The other day I discovered that—of course—someone had already done that for me, and put the videos on Youtube.
So I watched two videos of about an hour in length, one showing a drive from SF to Santa Rosa, and the other going the opposite way.
Such nostalgia! I excitedly recited the names of all the towns and exits as they went by, remembering people and happy times associated with each one.
But you can’t go home again, as they say. We fled CA due to the cost of living, the housing prices; the gangs were just starting to enter the schools. And the traffic! It’s all even worse now.
And all of my relatives, and all but a few of my old friends, are no longer there. They all moved on or passed, long ago. My family, happily, are all here except my brother in Oregon and my sister in North Carolina.
So it was a fun and emotional time reminiscing, but there’s no way I’d move back there.
But I’m wearing my Bodega Bay tshirt today, bought long ago at a gift shop in that pretty little California seaside town, just to celebrate what once was.
