Trip 9 - California Dreamin'

On this trip we set out to immerse ourselves in the culture and the nature of California. To discover its textures and see some of its natural wonders. We discover that California is very big. It is not a state that you can just pass through, it is, more than any other place we have visited, more like another country. It is a land dominated by mountains, the spaces between and like nowhere else, water.
Our start in the heavily populated area to the East of Los Angeles, known as the Inland Empire, is crowded into the lowlands surrounded by magnificent mountains. The feeling is of a cauldron which is trying to boil over the mountains to the fresh air of the rest of the state.
To the South is a band of Desert, which is the buffer to Mexico, which we did not explore on this trip.
We travelled North through the mountains (everywhere in California you can see mountains) to the desert, and on again to the huge Central Valley, mile after mile of intensive agriculture. Culture here is dominated by food, flatness, low income and trying to impact on the 'sameness' of the flat lands through music and festival. It is the communication and administrative corridor that links all other areas of California.
To the East is the huge mountain chain of the Sierra Nevada which clearly demonstrates the magnificence of the natural world, both in its geology and nature, reflected in the pysche and pride of most Californians. It is Eldorado, dominated by Gold!
To the West of the Central Valley are the coastal mountains, San Francisco and the magnificent coast. More isolated cultures, from mixed resources, communities seperated by mountains.
To the North of the Central Valley more mountains and a culture which looks more North towards Oregon than South to Sacremento.
This blog details our journey through California, where we pick and choose, or just scratch the surface, of this diverse and beautiful state.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Santa Rosa

We arrived at the Santa Rosa Fairground after driving through the Anderson Valley, well known for its vineyards, which passed every mile or so for the last 30 miles from Boonville. Each vineyard offered the promise of tasty tastings of the wines they produced. If we had stopped at one tenth of them we would have had great difficulty in driving straight to Santa Rosa. However the many fields and terraces of grapes, with their leaves now turning golden, made a very attractive landscape.

This morning we were determined to explore Santa Rosa, having revealed to Sally the one important must see tourist spot: The actual house used for filming Sally's most cherished childhood film - Pollyanna. The house was the McDonald Mansion on McDonald St. We savoured the moment all day, saving our visit until the end of our day of exploration. To this we also added another legendary figure, that of Charlie Brown.
We started at the Railroad Square, a pleasant enough centrepiece of the Historical Center of Santa Rosa, had a coffee and walked the few streets mentioned in the self guided walk - stopping off at a couple of Thrift Shops (Charity shops), where we saw some interesting items and got some books. We stopped to admire and pose with some life size statues of Charlie Brown, Lucy and Snoopy. Their link with Santa Rosa is that Charles M. Shultz lived and worked here for many years, there is even a museum to him (we did not visit this). We were also looking for our likely lunch spot, unfortunately none of them came up to our tight specification (yes they were all too expensive), so we went out of town to the retail area and had a very pleasant lunch in Chilli's.
The afternoon was given over to visiting a garden in the centre of Santa Rosa, one owned by Luther Burbank (who?). He was a horticulturist who set up in the nice fertile Santa Rosa and through cross pollination, selection and the use of cuttings was responsible for producing some 800 different plant species which could be bought from a catalogue. It made for a fascinating afternoon.
Finally we drove to McDonald St, to find Pollyanna's house. The street is a very leafy upmarket street in the old part of Santa Rosa, with many big old trees, including one huge acacia tree that looked like it was a couple of hundred years old. We eventually found the house, which was very exciting, and identified the front garden and drive, also the steps up to the front door, and the front door, also the mezzanine roof and wide frontage of the first floor. Alas, the top floor of the perfect Pollyanna House was missing! Strangely enough the Disney Team had chosen a house with only two floors! The top story was added to the building in the art studio, painted onto the film using a matte process. Though slightly disappointing the rest of the house was exactly the same and a beautiful example of Victorian architecture. Only slightly disappointing because we already knew that only the two floors of the house was real. In the film the house was painted white but now it is a wonderful combination of green, russet red and cream, which emphasises all the intricate wooden tracery. Still it made for a great afternoon, one of Sally's childhood icons made real.
Tomorrow it's Petaluma and another film icon location: American Graffiti.
Posted by fastrak at 8:23 PM

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