Lock Your Doors in Bigfoot Country

Its my last night on the West Coast and I didn’t have anything planned so I set out on my own adventure.  I was in Mountain View, CA and really wanted to see the ocean, and maybe get some seafood for dinner.  I checked the map, saw an interesting curvy road that went from Saratoga to Santa Cruz, so I put the pedal down and made the trip down California’s State Road 9.

There were several wineries on the side roads, one of which was the Paul Masson winery, which made me giggle thinking of Orson Wells chugging a glass of champagne and scolding TV viewers “We will sell no wine before its time.”  Outtakes of that commercial is above via YouTube.

The next thing about the trip that was unusual was the sudden temperature drop when I left the Valley and crested the ridge into a Redwood Forest.  Those trees were big, and they were menacingly close to the road on several occasions too.

As the road curved among trees and switchbacks, a few small towns came and went.  In Felton, I saw the funniest tourist trap-  The Bigfoot Discovery Museum!

Finally the road wound down into Santa Cruz.  I expected a bright, hip, colorful beach town.  Instead I saw a dirty town full of burnouts, homeless, crackheads and hippies.  The homes had bars on the windows and the convenience store refused to let anyone use their bathrooms.  I had to use the john in a scary laundromat, the first I’ve seen in California.  And nope, I didn’t stay to eat any seafood.

So if you are travelling through Bigfoot Country, lock your doors.  Hippie crackhead hitchhikers may decide they need a ride to the tofu palace.