Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Sep 25, 2004

Part 9: Petaluma and Cotati

25th September 2004

On the way home from Monterey, or rather from base camp in Santa Cruz, Arnie began to lose power and it felt as though no power were coming to the bike. I put it down to being in the wrong gear, but after he started backfiring every few seconds, sometimes so loudly that people looked around to see if they were about to succumb to gunfire, and after the V-twin was suddenly a single-cylinder thumper…I decided “no more.” Not only was I due to attend this year’s California Wind Dancers Pacific Rally soon, I was one of the organizers and it wouldn’t do to get stranded. With a sense of dejá vu, I arranged a ride up in the supplies car, arriving at my own motorcycle rally with no motorcycle.

I was okay until about the time when I arrived and caught my first glimpse of a row of motorcycles, lined up outside tents and cabins. Whimper. Arriving at my own rally on four wheels seemed abruptly very wrong indeed.

Over s’mores at the camp fire that night, everyone was full of their plans for the next day. I was resigned to staying “at home.” Saturday dawned, and the air was full of the roars of motorcycles and chattering women, ready to go. Despondently and enviously, I waved them off, engine after engine, flashes of yellow and blue and red. But then came The Invitation.

“My husband loves to take passengers,” commented Jane. “We were just going to go off and ride together: do you want to come?”

Does a bear poop in the woods? Is the Pope a Catholic? Suddenly the sun came up over Planet Raven. I borrowed a helmet and violently green jacket, and mounted the enormous wine-red Honda ST1100 with a mile-wide grin. I’d been talking up Markeroni, so they decided to take me to some markers they knew about and to find some that I knew about, and find out about this “snarfing thing.”

Our first stop was the Petaluma Adobe, in a pleasant parkland with mature trees and an earthy smell. Jane and I hiked up to see the building, or to find a plaque, whichever happened sooner. There wasn’t time to visit the building, which we could just see poking up over the crest of a hill, but we did find a sign for the National Register. I knew that there was meant to be a plaque for the state, too, so Jane asked a handy-dandy ranger where it was, and we were directed to a spot nowhere near the building. It was there, just where she said, divorced from its landmark by three or so miles of leafy country road. Go figure.

The adobe was built in 1836 on a land grant given to General Vallejo, whose job it was to help keep peace in the period prior to California’s statehood. His family used it as a summer home while he continued to live in nearby Sonoma. The Spanish/American war turned the tides; the rancho became much less profitable despite being increased in size with another land grant. In the 1950s it was deeded to the Native Sons of the Golden West, and they in turn passed it on to become a state park. It is considered an outstanding example of adobe architecture.

Next stop: Cotati. Here, the town center was hexagonal, one of only two instances of such a design in the USA. The responsible party was Newton Smyth, and the town was named for a nearby coastal Miwok village. I waved frantically when I saw the plaque, and my patient driver pulled over. Jane hopped along with me as I performed the rites of historical marker discovery, and we quickly toured the green village hexagon to check out other statues and plaques, just in case. One of them depicted a fat, happy-looking man playing an accordion–Jim Boggio, one of the most talented players in the USA. There is even n annual accordion festival here.

We had the munchies, and my friends knew just the place: Washoe House on the rural edge of Rohnert Park. We sailed through Sonoma countryside to an 1859 watering house (and former whorehouse) with a ceiling plastered with dollar bills and business cards. I wasn’t too surprised to see that the plaque had been dedicated by the Clampers; it seemed right up their alley–beer and crumpet! The tradition of The Ceiling arose from when men, newly paid, would come here, pin up a dollar, and that would be their drinking credit for a week. I tried to put up my own dollar bill and Markeroni bookmark, but even standing on the table I couldn’t reach and had to enlist Bill’s help!

The roadhouse was furnished with old-fashioned wooden furniture, worn by use and time. An elderly local serenaded each table in turn in a reedy voice, asking what tune we’d like and then singing the one he chose for us instead. Amused, we polished off our all-American fare. As we rolled rather than walked out, one of the permanent-seeming old-timers at the bar waved and said, “Harley?” We laughed and said, “Honda!” “Yamaha!” “Suzuki!” and left to the sound of friendly jeers!

Jane and Bill knew their way around, and had an idea where another wildcard might be found. We took pleasant roads through sun-baked hills until we found a place with two rounded stones atop a hill. “Dos Piedras” had been mistakenly translated as “Two Rocks”–it actually means “Two Feet,” as in the two feet of a sleeping giant. Originally a landmark on an Indian trading path, it later came to mark the confluence of four separate Spanish land grants.

I had not left books at these landmarks. Later that day and the following morning, I dribbled a steady stream of books across the campground, and my friends found books in their planters when they woke up. One ended up in Malaysia, via Amsterdam. A friend let me take her Virago 535 around the block: Katie, the same model, had been my first grown-up bike. The bike felt tiny and unstable, and I wondered how I ever coped. All disappointment was gone; I’d gotten my bike fix, introduced new people to the gentle art of landmark-hunting, and had helped to run a successful rally. Life was good.