If It’s East To Ukiah, Is It West From Haiku?

Another run. I always think of it as going over the hill, routes 128 and 253 east to inland Ukiah. We here on the Mendocino Coast know it well. This one took place on a warm day one season back before the recent blessings by the rain goddess of your choice.

It’s common for someone in the neighborhood to let it be known that it’s a Costco run, and did anyone want anything picked up?

And, a friend a while back related he and his partner planned to go over to celebrate the loosening of COVID bonds and reaffirmation of their nuptial bonds.

The intentional part of this trip was to visit another inland M.D., part of the burgeoning Adventist Health presence throughout the county. So, I’d likely share the necessity for vigorous attention to the sinuosity of the itinerary with thoughts about what kind of a Doc this one was gonna be? How would me and my arrhythmia get along with him and his demeanor?

The serendipitous part of the journey, as ever, would await my impulses once the important stuff was over with. And, would almost always include a visit to Ellie’s Mutt Hut, a long time local establishment I’m always content to support. The groaning avocado and cream cheese on whole wheat — with bacon when my denial is in full bloom — never fails…

Turning east to leave our community it wasn’t long before negotiating road space to avoid potholes in our version of a thoroughfare. All the recent political yammering about infrastructure came to mind, and wouldn’t it be sweet if my occasional impatience about one lane traffic included long overdue repairs and repaving of Mendocino County Road 404.

Soon there’s the largely guard rail-absent oceanside stretch of Route 1 south, and I’m reminded about paying attention to the driving at hand.

Then again, necessary rigor moves side by side with wonderment once enveloped in the community of majestic redwoods shortly after entering CA Route 128 at its westernmost terminus. My better half delightfully describes it as a ride through the panoply canopy. The interplay of sunlight and tree shadows in the morning never fails to evoke an inner smile and sense of reverence.

And this day, this eastbound leg of the trip I pretty much had the road to myself to take it all in. No need to mutter about those meanderers oblivious to CVC 216.56. That’s the one that indicates that slow moving vehicles need to use designated pull-outs.

There’s the almost obligatory stop at Mosswood Market in fabled, funky and somewhat fire-battered Boonville for an always comforting pastry doled out by always comforting women whose delightful-to-the-ear patter among themselves always finds me chiding myself for never having learned their language.

Shortly after, the hill-for-real part of the trip presents itself after a northish left turn just east of town. I always enjoy the sensation that CA Route 253 holds of climbing up to drop down into the inland, often hazy valley that holds our slapdash adaptation of a metropolis.

In times past, I’ve often wondered if the road repairs on 253 from previous water-induced earth movement would hold up? This trip? Would CalTrans ever need to undertake such repairs again? (This was the first of a cluster of wateresque musings this day.

Down in that valley on this arm-out-the-window day, I quickly found the cardiologist’s office. After a couple of expected tests, I learned that I was to leave with a contraption named Zoi taped to my left chest to monitor my ticker for two weeks. Laughter, as the MA (as her badge read) told me she would nonetheless shave off whatever remained of my left chest hair after I told her, at my age, there wasn’t much there.

Before being Zoied, she had run through the usual routine that includes asking whether I consume alcohol. Answering “not since 1985,” prompted her to acknowledge a ring I wear, the emblem on which stands for a mutual support group of those who no longer partake. She went on to relate that a close family member never made it into recovery from his affliction.

Then we had a tattoo talk, she noticing the weathered, embedded ink in my arms and the target left chest. I mentioned that my first two were Zodiac images eagerly sought out who-knows-how-many-years ago from the one and only Lyle Tuttle in San Francisco. This led us to expressing mutual admiration for Tuttle who, it’s reasonable to suggest, laid the foundation for what is now the body-inking mania all over hell and creation. She reminded me that he had been born and recently died in Ukiah.

She was a gregarious delight, embodying the connective interpersonal affect — for me the make or break factor in how a particular visit goes when in the maw of the health care establishment. (The Doc was all business.)

Out the door with my new taped contraption to lunch at Ellie’s before swinging by Costco to gas up. So much for retail therapy this day, and it wasn’t long before turning off Ukiah’s main drag and back up the hill.

My previous anticipatory musings about arrhythmia settled down to occasional thoughts about Zoie’s presence and what the contraption would end up relaying.

Better yet, I began to marvel at the natural trappings of the trip home. The curvaceous scar that is route 253 etched among fields gone non-aqueous yellow and roadside trees that remind me of Giacometti sculptures, were he to have done trees…

And as for more distant trees, I again marveled at their verdant undulations. I had recently read of the immensity of underground arboreal family connections, and this served to somehow convince me of their capacity to thrive, despite months without rain.

Then again, on this day, as ever in this part of the world, the 18-wheel timber hearses, redwood carcasses piled high, pulled over to let us pass. I imagined the wailing underground where they had loaded up…

After the climb up to the top of the road, two signs that I might have otherwise ignored struck me, one signifying the watershed for the Russian River, the other the Navarro River — that same Navarro river that was a trickle earlier in the day among the reverential redwoods.

There would be other musings about water as the trip continued.

The vineyards throughout the Anderson Valley.

The unseen grows all over the surrounding hills.

Noticing the “Water Delivery Call Rosco” sign.

Closer to home, cursing that jerk selling water out of the aquifer that supplies our community.

The water delivery truck headed west.

Water, water everywhere and not a drop spare…

Laughing again at the oxymoronic Senior Citizen Facility sign while heading west into Boonville. If ever there were a contradiction in terms for this senior citizen…

I uttered w-as-v Gschwend passing my favorite sounding road sign, wondering once more how Bavaria reached our part of the world.

Reminded myself to keep speeding — how fast would it need two be? The road sign reads Speed Enforced…

Then there’s that restaurant, The Bewildered Pig. I’ve never eaten there, nor will I. Did those who named it do so mindful of the expression I’ve seen on such creatures at the hands of those who render them for consumption?

Once again among those superior trees and a different variation of my thoughts of water kicked in. This time to imagine what it must have been like for the highway being inundated as it was 47 years ago, the evidence of which is seen by the slight discoloration several feet up in tree trunks and the high water mark sign how many feet above my vehicle.

So much for this jaunt, culminated by return to the community I feel grateful to call home. For everything that crossed my mind this time, I am regaled by the realization that there are additional quirks and qualities to be encountered every time I go over the hill…

As to Ukiah

May its reverse ever be

A delight for me