What to Find at Point Reyes, CA

"Never far from the ocean, their striking bluff-top groves seem designed by Japanese printmakers." – Elna Bakker, on describing the Bishop-Pine Forest









May 5


The strongest reported wind gust ever recorded at the Point Reyes Seashore is 130 miles per hour.  Lying underneath Tomales Bay is the most active faultline on the west coast.  Fog hangs so low and so thick at times that it is virtually impossible to conceive of 16th century schooners anchoring along these rock studded shorelines for safe anchor.  It might very well be the volatile nature of the peninsula, aided by the promise of much sunnier micro-climates and unparalleled views, that bring millions of visitors here annually.  As you walk along the Esteros, a quaint and rustic roll to the hills house several still running dairies, which used to grow, produce, and ship from these tumultuous shores to the hungry markets in San Francisco, like Murphy Ranch, the oldest running original operation at Point Reyes proper.

The Bishop-Pine Forest, not far-off, is a great testament to the adaptability of species to climate.  Dependent upon the very moisture and and shaped by the very wind that is feared, the Bishop Pines used to be a strong influence up and down the California coastline, but now reduced to mere pockets where not intruded on.  Much of the Point Reyes stand burned in the 1995 Vision Fire.  "The pines often take on a bonsai-like shape, contorted by strong winds and dwarfed by thin, nutrient-poor soils. Under ideal conditions – bishop pines grow into tall, regal trees, reaching heights between 40 and 70 feet."

One of the more famous batches of these majestic trees rises above a road out the old RCA signal facility, an geographical location that was found to be ideal for picking up radio signal, the very place where Amelia Earhart's last radio signal had landed.

What to Find at Point Reyes, CA

May 4


It would be hard to imagine the prospect of a more dramatic seashore than Point Reyes National Seashore, located around 30 miles north of San Francisco, and a place we hope to visit in mid June.  This is a place of the world where ancient cliffs meet head-on a pounding shore and at the same time hold back at places along its backside bays that are famous for its variety of species and water clean enough to sprout world renown oysters.  If the surface of earth could in some way

indicate activity below the surface, this also would make for the perfect symbol as the great San Andreas Faultline lies directly below. The peninsula that is the shoreline verifiably moves out toward the ocean every year, creating cracks and fissures between masses.  Where great diversity of geography exists so too very often does diversity of species, flora, fauna, and sheer landscape beauty.  "Within the seashore live nearly 15 percent of California's plant species and nearly 30 percent of the world's marine mammal species.  Close to 45 percent of all the bird species in North America visit the seashore."  Surrounding and interlaced within, agriculture, including cattle and dairy, offer bold green backdrops to the plateaued summits of cliffs; looking back over the front sides Drakes Bay (named after the famous Sir Francis Drake who allegedly anchored here on his historical 'world' trip in the late 16th century.  The Reyes point, descending down Chimney Rock trail (watch out for rock slides), is the oft visited Lighthouse built in 1870.  Pre-lighthouse, as records and much lumber at the bottom of the bay attest, this point of the cliff shore was a navigational nightmare, cited as the foggiest geographical position on the entire western shoreline, second only to that at Nantucket over on the other side of the continent.  Although the lighthouse still works to this day, the old hand-cared light itself is now computer generated.  From the lighthouse, 2.7 miles northward to Point Reyes Station, might be a

good place to park the car and take a stop at Osteria Stellina, a small Italian eatery specializing in brokering those locally grown cheeses, prime rib cuts, and oysters on ice.

On the Yahara A-Z

G.

Green Owl.  There is what might be an unverifiable fact floating out there about the Madison food scene: there are more eating establishments per square block here than any other city in America.  As a hopeful observer of this fact – true or not – it's easy to see how this might seem true.  Not only has there been a food renaissance in Madison, but as you walk along the streets of various neighborhoods, east and west, you can still see the old Wisconsin heritage streetside tavern culture alive and often thriving.  And so for every new L'Etoile, Graze or Ocean Grill, there are five old taverns mixed-in still offering ale and grub.  Combined, the old and new create a sort of walkable food zoo and it becomes hard to know how to see it all without instructions.  With all this variety, and knowing Madison's movement towards sustainability and progressive styles of food, it takes a minute to realize that a place like the Green Owl Cafe, a few blocks from our house (and surrounded by those old taverns),

is the only strictly vegan / vegetarian option in the city.  Suffice it to say that even though going meatless is something many folks on the food scene certainly talk about, chefs notoriously like to cook meat and offer customers a diverse selection of proteins.  How to offer only meatless and succeed, then, is a great feat.  Walking past on Atwood street, the Green Owl could just as well be a green bar, connected to the Ideal Bar next door, but this place, along with a thriving trend throughout the city, has chosen an understated location to house an ambitious concept.  Another great example of this is the Manna Cafe, located next to the Maple Bluff neighborhood.  The cafe is tucked back in the elbow of a fairly decrepit old strip mall, next to a neighborhood liquor store; inside, the Manna cafe is one of the more dynamic cafe experiences in the city and run by high quality chefs.  The Gail Ambrosius chocolate shop, just a brief walk from the Green Owl, is not an overwhelmingly shiny modern building, but instead it is one more strong central link connecting people to areas in the city they might not have ever visited otherwise.  The result, in the case of the Atwood district, is a completely overhauled and revitalized portion of the city that had seen its more difficult days up until the mid 1980's.  Build the food joint, and they will come.

The inside of Green Owl is certainly homemade, but authentic and matches its theme and name in a very interesting way. On the menu are items reserved for the adventurous – not so much for their actual taste and texture, but simply because they have not been encountered by most folks like ourselves who are not vegan or vegetarian.  But why not try the Hummus, tabouli, muhammara and baba ganoush with toasted pita? The vegan schnitzel is a "tender protein" topped with a creamy porcini mushroom sauce; the Groundnut stew is traditional African sweet potato dish with cabbage, ginger, peanuts and cilantro, over brown rice with steamed kale.  We tried the TLT with Avocado, not quite knowing what "Smoky tempeh" was, but it was nice.  The dried kale chips good stuff.  Next trip....? The Madison Philly: Beefy seitan thinly sliced on a toasted roll with sautéed peppers and onions and a local Fallin Oats Oatmeal Amber Ale by Hopothesis Brewing Company.  In Madison, you never know what you've got until the plate appears on the table and local brew is poured and served alongside.

On the Yahara A-Z

F.

French Hot Chocolate.  The east side Willy St. and Atwood neighborhoods would be difficult to live near without a sweet tooth.  We assumed the main and only sweet draw in the neighborhood was the

world famous Gail Ambrosius Chocolates, down along Atwood maybe a mile from our house.  But we are finding out, visit after visit, that Ambrosius is merely one link of a never ending chain of chocolate, confections, cakes, pastries and, yes, 'ugly cookies.'  No more than a .1 mile walk from the cozy, undersized Ambrosius is the outstretched French Bistro style Chocolaterian Cafe,

a shop that opened up as a collaboration in 2009 between a chocolatier and a convenience store founder who wanted to create a candy company specializing in a toffee recipe created by his mother many years ago.  The toffee itself became virtually world famous as it found its way chosen into Grammy grab bags some years ago and has since grown into a bronze winning chocolate making facility in Madison.  The shop is an old laundry and spans the width of a narrow block, offering entrances on two sides, one end as a register and display case, the other end as both seating and, most interestingly, an open window candy making kitchen, so that you can watch the process as you indulge.

As you read about the cafe, you find out that even though toffee is still the founding attraction, they have since also become a patisserie, making a quiche to die for, authentic French macaroons, 'ugly cookies' (flat, misshapen, but beloved), and the newest sweet draw, French style hot chocolate.

Variously described as 'heaven,' an 'addiction,' and the "only necessary meal of the day," the Parisian style concoction is really nothing more than melted chocolate and some heavy cream, just barely liquid enough to sip not eat.  On our trip in, after we breathed in the chocolate fog, we ordered two 'Monona Bars,' rice krispie chocolate bars but with a special secret ingredient: a thick layer of homemade caramel under the top chocolate coating... about the size as an iPhone.  As we finished, we looked out the back door and wondered momentarily if we should cross the block to see what Ambrosius was whipping up.

"The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,
The liliput countless armies of the grass…." – Whitman, "Return of the Heroes"







Frautschi Point


Lakeshore path University Bay a rich cold blue –
one boat off the dock at Memorial Union testing divers
and the black coots scuttle off among the bunchgrass
swooping to the chug of the parading April shore.
All to come! All to see! The sail dinghy's stacked
collecting the cold monotony of winter no longer,
Sycamores lapping up the moist rocks tired no longer.
We pass by in the hundreds, walking legs, runners,
elbows pumping fast as the heart of the biker
circles and sags to the speed of wheel rubber
down the pass to Frautschi Point, past the Mendota
Garden where the gates and fences hold rising vines
from the waters of the sleeping Lake no longer.

"Or from the sea of Time, collecting casting all, I bring, A window-drift of weeds and shells." Whitman, from "Autumn Rivulets"







Pelican



Savannah time, old plains, meadow, rocky outcropping,
the oaks at the top chiseled and bled by time itself,
hill time carved out by the unseen labor of the glacier
that left the fields ripe for the seeds of lupine, spiderwort, columbine –
Circling above it all, above the hill and marshland,
above the back channels endlessly weaving in secret spindles
and worn back by the beaver's born industry,
the prehistoric pelicans shaking air by shorn wings.
What do they see? Do they know the old glacier receding,
the channel waters rising and falling below the oak trunk roots?
Does the eye of the mind know where to roost for two days
in among the yet colorless April fields unfolding?

Nature Journal

"An eagle soaring above a sheer cliff, where I suppose its nest is, makes another striking show of life, and helps to bring to mind the other people of the so called solitude...." Muir, from My First Summer in the Sierra



April 10


The vast backwaters of the Trempealeau Wildlife Refuge teem with waterfowl in spring.  There are so many pockets of back bays, so many made dikes splitting ponds, bunches of floating marsh grass and timber for beaver mound construction that you are seemingly never more than a short walk along a path away from some new flock of species.  We parked at the head of the Wildlife Drive

down below the Prairie Road.  The bike trail is fine gravel and easy to bike – a side channel waterway to the right and a vast naturally occurring savannah to the left.  By late spring bloom the prairie is an array of hundreds of splashed colors from spiderwort to lupine.  Underneath the unseeable portions of the marsh grasses a heavy croaking hum of spring frogs. At the beginning of the bike loop, besides the occasional solo mallard or black tern, the main species of bird that we saw was the utterly majestic American White Pelican.  Flying up over the tops of the sparse Savannah oaks, maybe 30 pelicans circled the hill lines, slowly flapping their wings, then diving down in unison with one another, their

wings peeled back for the sake of aerodynamics.  At various spots along the biking loop, we would encounter the pelicans again and again as they must have been determining their preferred landing zone in the backwaters.  Sometimes they would shake no more than a hundred feet above us.  What would strike us and leave us standing in amazement, was the sheer size of these birds, considered one

of the largest North American birds.  The overall sound of a bird that close becomes somewhat equal to its size.  As you sit below two geese leaving their own comfortable roost floating on the lake, you can hear their wings flap and the wind literally split in their wake; as for the pelican, they are virtually silent vocally, but their bodies carry the same kind of wind energy as a small craft as they fill sky directly above you.

Geese sat in their marsh reed roosts, honking as we approached.  White and Sandhill cranes flung up from the deep edges of bays. Across the surface, this visit anyway, were hundreds of black ducks with particularly astute radars.  Any motion from two hundred yards or inward and these black ducks quickly bunched together and rose up to find another spot along the water roadway a few more feet down and went on about their business.