Day 50, above the bay

I am in Rancho Nicaso, the bar where Huey Lewis cut his chops, and where tonight's entertainment is some peppy, uptempo jazz. As I can't go any further, I've resigned myself to eating in rhythm. And bless uptempo jazz, especially standards, because it can warm you when you're cold and in a cloud.

We have a responsibility to our dreams: they are our burden. I had three hours today to decide whether I was going to carve my dream of crossing into San Fran over the golden bridge or just follow the maps and ride the ferry. I knew getting to the bridge would be longer, but I didn't know it would be one of the hardest days of the trip. Good. Nothing is hard when you are almost done and you have no place to be but slightly closer to the end.

And nothing is prettier than Northern Californian farmland. Napa county is stunning. Sonoma is stunninger. And Napa city has an In-N-Out burger which got me through an awful ride on a highway without a shoulder and all of Saturday's tired wine tasters. The wind pushed me off the road a couple times. Once it pushed me into a particularly paltry golf course. The man at the caddyshack had this to say to me:

"The wind, she's a bearcat."

The women's marathon is on TV. People are drinking odd drinks in the jazz section: sambuca rocks, plain kir, vermouth with a splash of vermouth, gin with two mothballs.

I'm dead tired here, but I should mention this: I plan on illegally camping in the dugout of the little league field opposite the Rancho. I hope no gray hairs head out to the park to get saucy. Speaking of gray hairs, this trip has started (or coincided with) the graying of my hair. Add to that the cracking of my knuckles, the pain in my back and knees, the fact that I'm up at 6 on a Saturday, and that I take leftovers of everything and I think we'll find that for all the weight I've lost I've gained some age.

Some bigger thoughts will come, but I'll wait on them. Tonight I'll rest. In the morning I'll head down to the top of the bridge and pause.