Lunch with friends

....and ten minutes into the road, I forgot to bring my camera. We are to meet at The Ryde Hotel in Walnut Grove for their brunch.


I really regret not bringing my camera because the drive became atmospheric in a way. From where I live, the sun was shining and the sky was blue but up in the horizon, towards Walnut Grove, in Highway "Blood Alley" 12, I could see the rolling, gray and overcast fogbank draping on the hills. Visibility was about 1 mile, the drive was slow, almost leisurely; but I was not in a rush. The fog was fairly thick because I didn't even see the windmills on my way there.

The River Road for me is treacherous. Who ever thought of posting the speed limit at 55 miles per hour? It is a narrow winding one-way-in-each-direction road. On one side you have the murky river and on the other, you have about a 20-30 foot drop to farmlands and orchards - below the river level. It is bare this time of year. The landscape looked almost monochromatic - with bare fields draped in a foggy haze. During the drive, I can't help but marvel at the lunacy of building this levee road and the courage of the denizens who live along this road.

I was counting the miles until I reached the Ryde and I saw it - Coral-Terra-Cotta in color framed by Palm Trees perched by the Sacramento River - it really stood out in the bluish gray surroundings. I pulled in the parking lot and waited for the rest of CDP.

What's interesting about The Ryde was it was built around the late 1920s - during Prohibition ( I mean, that's a killer right there, I'm glad this country has gotten over that). The Ryde bore witness to speakeasy gatherings at its basement where liquor I can imagine was easily bootlegged via river transport. It later served as a boarding house for those men and women who made the madman's levee road idea possible.

We entered the hotel to find that there was no brunch that day because it was their low season but it will resume next week. A little disappointed and hungry, we drove another 30 miles to Oakley to eat at Black Bear Diner. It is a chain diner but their biscuits and pancakes are great. Again, I wish I bought my camera.

It's so great to spend time with friends whom I only get to spend time when we are doing paranormal investigations.

I hope we get to investigate this wonderful hotel. I mean , come on - a hotel from the 1920s? If only the walls of that hotel can talk.

The drive back from Oakley through 160 and 12 was uneventful , but this time, you can see the windmills - white industrial giants in the fog - juxtaposed by cattle in brown and dark brown grazing on grass-turned-green by the blessed rains. Industrial and agricultural at the same time.

and again, I wish I had my camera - to at least take a blurry photo of it. :D