Today’s destination: Felton—a town of about four thousand, founded as a logging town in the latter part of the 19th century and nestled away in the Santa Cruz mountains. It serves today as one end of the Roaring Camp and Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad whose steam engines from the 1890s still ply tourists up steep grades in the redwood forest.
The fog hangs low this morning. Swishing through it, the motorcycle’s windshield becomes a catchment area that traps smoky vapor at the top and coalesces it into tiny rivulets that converge again before rushing down into one large stream at the bottom—a microcosm of how even the world’s mighty rivers are born. It also directs some of that mist onto my head and I have to crack open my visor a bit, letting in both the cold mountain air and the rolling boom of the big parallel twin engine.
Motorcycles are like spirited steeds. They love to be ridden as long as you leave them alone. Just put them in the right stance—speed and lean—and they will take the mountains on their own. Keep messing with the brakes or tussling with the handlebars and they will take the fight to you. This is all easily said but a rider must practice this on every ride, so the two can act as one.
A big sign with a flashing light announces that the road to Big Basin Redwood State Park is closed four miles ahead, thanks to the fires of 2020 that destroyed many magnificent trees, among the largest living things on our planet. I turn left and head south.
A scenic half hour goes by in a continuous blur of advancing trees, broken by isolated mountain homes marked by inescapable blue trash cans standing up like sentinels by the roadside.
I ride past the Brookdale Lodge that hides a deep history behind its nondescript row of three-storey cabins. I had little idea that, in its day, it hosted the rich and the famous and among its visitors were Marilyn Monroe, Mae West, and Rita Hayworth. Clear Creek passes right through Brookroom—its main dining hall—and President Herbert Hoover loved fishing right off the dining room bridge, perhaps to take his mind off the Great Depression that loomed over his Presidency and ultimately doomed it. The lodge also housed some of the delegates of the San Francisco Conference that resulted in the formation of the United Nations, back in April-June of 1945.
I make a mental note to stop and poke around the next time.
A few miles before Felton, I turn into a rutted road that leads into a county park. The motorcycle’s Pirelli racing tires don’t like this one bit and all that love of being ridden starts to fade, as the union of one rapidly begins to turn into a scuffle between two. There’s a large green meadow ahead, segregated into three or four small soccer fields. It’s Saturday morning—tournament time for little tots.
In the foreground, the Blues are playing the Pinks: teams of young girls about five or six. I drop down the kickstand to lean on the bike and watch for some time. Excitable parents in jackets are huddled on camp chairs by the sidelines, clutching coffee cups that send up wisps of steam.
“Go Laura!” “Come on Ashley!”
Watching six-year-olds play soccer is watching Brownian motion in the large. The ball darts around aimlessly and randomly, colliding repeatedly within the forest of short legs, until mere chance brings it near a goal. A plucky little leg might dart out from the melee and tap the ball in, whereupon the field ruptures: “Goooooal!”
I was a timely witness to one of them and watched about half the parents stand up in lusty cheers. It was the Pinks this time and they promptly secured my loyalty.
In the tiny leagues, there’s always that one precocious kid who’s way ahead of the others through some combination of skill, flair, size, or sheer chutzpah and runs the ball in circles around the others. I spotted that one girl today in stripped blues, weaving around like a miniature Maradona. A raucous pair sitting right by the sideline clapped at everything she did and I cleverly concluded she must be theirs.
I reach Felton and stop by The White Raven that promises “Peerless Coffee & Tea, family roasted since 1924”. I settle down at a street-side table and watch people go by. A Dalmatian shows up, dragging her owner behind. She stops and repeatedly sniffs at my boots, making me genuinely wonder if motorcycle grease and dog poop hit precisely the same sensors inside a dog’s prodigious nose. Mindful of a simpler explanation, I turn my boots over just to make sure. The dog bounds along, rams into the next table and drops it, along with several chairs. Her charge pulls at her as he tiredly picks up everything in her wake, with a resignation that can only come from weary habit.
I’m tempted to use my motorcycle analogy to ask him to go along with the beast, rather than try and conquer it. Common sense thankfully prevails and I sip my peerless coffee instead.
I get back on the bike and decide to visit the Felton Covered Bridge, an 80-foot long wooden structure over the San Lorenzo river and a California Historical Landmark. For years it was the roadway to get anything into Felton and now it can only be pedestrians. I meet a father and son and request them to take my photo against the bridge. The kid happily accepts my phone and takes the shot. I wonder if he would have had the same zest had I handed him my old bulky Nikon with its badass lenses and tiny viewfinder. The father asks me if I had come all the way to see their Bridge. I don’t have the heart to disagree.
It’s time to get back home. I stop and check the status of my recent oil leak. It’s holding up, for now. The oil filter on a Triumph screws vertically up into the crankcase right at the bottom of the bike. To replace one without hoisting up the bike is work for a contortionist on the ground—a task I had attempted without any prior circus experience. Without a clear line of sight, I had screwed in a new oil filter on top of the old stuck gasket that I should have first removed, instead of artfully wedging everything tightly and stubbornly inside that tight space.
The bike now displays its displeasure by leaving a few exasperating oil drops on the garage floor after every ride, not unlike an unhappy and pernicious cat that might deliberately dribble on your plush Turkish rug. Well, that’s a problem for another day.
I decide to take a faster route back on Highway 17 that I usually avoid. This is among the most dangerous highways in the state, with a combination of blind curves, sharp banked turns, venturesome deer, critters determined to end up as roadkill, and drivers who imagine they should be drafting like Junior Johnson rather than getting back to their damn coding.
I ride conservatively, watchful for mistakes and roadway bravado, rolling in home shortly before noon.
Thorough enjoyed it Vijay. Thank goodness you are writing again.