The Piano Shop on the Left Bank If a book cover has the words “Bookshop” or “Paris” or anything evoking those memes, I’m liable to pick it up. If it has “Piano”, that’s almost as magnetic. This memoir of living in Paris and finding access to the neighborhood hidden behind the courtyard doors is charming, full of information about French life and culture, and about the history, development, mechanisms, and lore surrounding the pianoforte.
A perfect bedside book, as it alternates between personal experience and historical reflection in alternating chapters.
Outdoors in South Carolina is a lot different from outdoors in Northern California, where I spend most of my time. SC is green, the air is moist, there is water, and there is history. Columbia’s Riverbank Walkway is a wonderful illustration of the difference, with its effortlessly un-irrigated green spaces, its leisurely meanderings along the Columbia Canal, and its unexpected evocation of the workers who built the canal.
We parked at the Laurel Street entrance, just late enough to avoid a major fun run which had been organized for the morning – volunteers were folding tables and taking down canopies, but they cheerfully directed us down the pathway to the canal.
On the way we pass a steep stairway leading upward. Signs let us know that there is a restaurant above, probably with a fine view of the canal and the river beyond. We resist the temptation.
Further down we spot a building off to the side, which turns out to be the former operating station for the canal. Facing the building is a monument to the Irish worker who helped build the canal. I remember that at the time of the canal’s building there were probably signs in downtown Columbia reading “Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply”, and felt pleased that this maligned immigrant group was receiving recognition.
At the bottom of the trail is a playground for children who have not worked off enough steam on the walk down. No, wait; it’s not for children, it’s a workout center for adults who have not worked off enough steam after jogging the four-mile river trail. Whichever – it’s a beautiful location.
As we turned to go back up the slope to the parking lot (not feeling up to a four-mile jog on this particular day) we spotted this whimsical artwork just up from the workout center/playground. It’s a testament to a light-hearted spirit that we felt throughout our visit to Columbia.
Columbia, South Carolina is a walkable state capital, and the area around the Capitol building has plenty of agreeable spots to walk to. The Capitol building itself is a peculiar architectural folly – a classic Greek/Roman base complete with grandiose steps and towering pillars, but topped incongruously with a weathered bronze cupola and dome which seem to have wandered over from some eccentric Victorian’s mansion. The Capitol grounds have the requisite number of monuments to the fallen heroes of various wars, interspersed with (in March at least) truly splendid beds of blooming azaleas, dogwood, and other gifts of nature.
The main street of Columbia starts at the Capitol. Called, appropriately, Main Street, it is the core of activity every Saturday, when a craft/produce/food truck fair takes place from 9-2 year round. Folks line up for barbecue, for chicken with grits, and even just for coffee. If you are a fan of vintage clothing, kitchy art, and herbal cosmetics, you’ll have fun here. If not, you’ll still have fun watching the parade of people and pets that wander the street in search of that perfect vintage leather jacket, or the ideal potpourri.
And there’s the food…
And the street musicians…
And if you get tired of the crowd, you can always go to the art museum, only a block off Main Street…
Or to the Richmond Library, a truly amazing collection of books and nooks to read them in. only a couple of blocks in the other direction…
If you must be on a freeway, make it forested. Stretching out on either side of Interstate 77, the road between Charlotte, South Carolina and the state capital at Columbia, is a piney woods. Almost no bill-boards, almost no signs of habitation for miles. Just green and rustling trees on either side, two strips of well-maintained gray asphalt, and a green lawn median.
If you must be on a freeway, make it flowery. I-77 is lined in spring with flowers. Gnarled wisteria vines twine through the long-leaf pines that line the road, bursting into garlands of purple blooms. In the understory are drifts of white dogwood. Every so often comes an accent of bright yellow – is it Scotch broom, or a Carolina native? At 70 mph I can’t quite make it out.
If you must be on a freeway, make it fast. I-77 heads almost due south from Charlotte to Columba, and once you clear the clutter surrounding Charlotte and its abysmal airport, it’s a very straight shot, with excellent signage directing us to our desired exit near the Capitol.
My well-traveled son swears that the Newark Airport is the worst he has encountered in several cross-country and round-the-world trips. Based on my recent experience, I would contend that the Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) in North Carolina is a challenger for the worst organized transit point that I have seen in the US. (Some middle-European airports have been worse, but they have the disadvantage of operating in a foreign language, so some allowance must be made.)
What’s wrong at CLT? It started when we landed. Most major airports swoop the traveler over ocean, beach, green farmland, with maybe a view of soaring skyscrapers in the distance. At CLT, you come in over red clay, bulldozers, and cranes. Construction is ongoing and omni-present.
Then you land. In some airports (Austin-Berstrom International in Texas is a good example) , the runways are bordered with flowers, shrubs, and other welcoming landscaping. At CLT it is dirt and asphalt, dirt and asphalt, as far as the eye can see.
Once we were off the plane, we needed to navigate to pick up our rental car. Should have been east, but the construction was endemic inside the terminal as well as outside. Signs for the rental car desks seemed to point in both directions. Passengers thronged the endless passageways, most looking anxious. Per its own website, CLT “has one passenger terminal with 115 gates (more than any other single airport terminal building in the U.S.). That’s a lot of places to be intending to go.
If we hadn’t had a guide, we would have been wandering for hours. Fortunately, my companion’s limited mobility had moved us to reserve a wheelchair. We have learned that a wheelchair at an airport is the equivalent of a magic carpet, operated by a genie who can whisk you through doors marked “Emplyees Only”, take you to the front of the line at Security, and work other magic. But CLT puzzled even our expert.
We picked up our baggage on the second floor, and the rental car center, per our airport map, was also on the second floor – of the parking garage opposite. So near, and yet so far! There is no direct access from the terminal to the parking garage on the second level, so we followed the signs saying “Go to Level One and take Walkway to Garage.” It was a long wait for the elevator, and a long echoing bland tunnel to the other side of the street. There was another elevator – and a line a dozen people long. “We’ve been waiting quite a while,” said one of the queue members. We looked for signs of movement in the elevator cables visible through the glass walls of the elevator shaft. No visible activity. We waited a while longer, and our wheelchair attendant whispered, “There is another way.”
Back through the underground passage, and an elevator shaft in operation. Up to the fifth floor, and across the bridge to the parking garage. Another wait for an elevator down, and we were finally at our destination.
Once in the arms of Hertz, we felt safe and comfortable. Our car was waiting, the exit was marked, and we were on our way… almost. Even though the center of Charlotte is well away from the airport (see skyline in photo above), somehow the downtown traffic was RIGHT THERE. Several stoplights and many brakelights later, we made it to Interstate 77.
I was attending a Women’s Camp on the west side of the Rockies in Colorado. My sister-in-law was at the camp also, along with one of her besties. One evening one of the other campers (DH) drove me and my friend DB to dinner and a theatre in Grand Lake, while my SIL and her friend spent the day touring nearby Rocky Mountain National Park.
Dinner was lively, with sixteen campers chattering away, and afterward we hurried to get to the theatre as it was beginning to rain. I pulled out my phone to check the location of the theatre, and when we parked I hurried around to help DB extricate herself from the seat belt. Only after we were in the theatre and I reached to put my phone on silent mode did I realize that it was not in my purse where it belonged.
Had it fallen out in the car? Or in the parking lot where we had stopped? I rushed from the theatre – the car was locked, and there was no sign of my phone anywhere along the walkway to the theatre. I figured that best case, when the show was over I could ask DH to call my number; if the phone was in the car we would hear it, and if someone had picked it up maybe they might answer a call.
After the show I relayed my plan to DH, and she pulled out her phone. First thing she saw was an urgent message from my SIL: “Allyson’s lost phone was picked up by an Australian man named Barney. He and his friends are at the One Love Rum Kitchen and Bar for trivia night. If Allyson doesn’t get the message he will leave the phone with the bartender.”
Great! DH and I left DB to guard the car and hustled along to the One Love Rum Kitchen. We walked into the lively, well-lit pub and immediately a gentleman was waving my phone in our direction. ( Barney could not have looked more Australian if he had been sent from Central Casting.) Lots of excitement, thanks, hugs, and my phone was restored to me in perfect order (Nancy and Barney at left above). But how had the message reached DH’s phone?
Chain of circumstances:
I had not gotten around to putting a password to secure access to the phone. (Shame on me, but…)
When Barney and his friend Nancy opened the phone, they were able to see that I had recently called HOME.
But when Nancy called HOME, she caught my husband drowsing over a book. He did not understand what Nancy was saying and, thinking it was a prank call, hung up on her.
Undaunted, they went to the next call on the recent list, my younger brother C, who was trailer camping in Wyoming, but happily with decent Internet coverage.
C got the message, and fortunately remembered that our mutual SIL was in Colorado at the camp with me. But he didn’t have her phone number.
So C called my older brother D in Texas, who relayed the message to his wife, whose roommate happened to have the cell phone number for DH, who relayed it to me.
Happy Ending! thanks to the miracle of modern communication, and as always, thanks to the kindness of strangers.
One afternoon W needs to rest, so I take a walk down our hotel’s street. Bodega Avenue is sidewalk free and pot holed, lined with little bungalows with bright-colored but peeling paint and cheerful geraniums in containers. At the end of the road are three redwood posts blocking access to what is beyond. I step through – into another world.
Sidewalks. Gutters. New pavement. A green space to my left with a fountain burbling. And houses, all painted in placid neutral shades with gleaming white trim. At least half of the houses have the driveway blocked with big red fenders – to keep squatters out? Some of the houses are large, two stories with a deck looking out to the harbor. Some, to my surprise, are small attached cottages no bigger than our suite at the Harbor Bay Inn. A few seem inhabited; in one, a BBQ party is happening on the deck. It seems I’ve been transported to Suburbia, but no, it is the Harbor View development at Bodega Bay.
I go out the flag-bedecked front entrance to the development and make my perilous way along the sidewalk free, shoulder-free Highway 1.
W is still resting, and the fog has lifted completely, so I take the car down to Duran County Park, the long finger that curls across the south end of Bodaga Bay. There’s an entrance fee of $7, which takes my last folding money. I drive past a Bird Walk, a Day Use area, several Reservations Only campgrounds filled with tents and trailers, a Visitors Center, and a Coast Guard station, all the way to the tip of the finger, site of a Day Use parking lot and a fine view of the headlands we had been on in the morning.
The Visitor’s Center is closed, but there is an information sign posted nearby explaining what you can see from this point: Jetty, the coast guard station, Mt.Tamalpais in the distance on a clear day, Point Reyes in the near distance, and then to the east “South Harbor Bay” and “North Harbor Bay”. These are clearly seen and they are developments, which from this distance look very much like Harbor View. They encrust the hillsides south of Bodega Bay like barnacles. Who lives in these developments. Are they all second homes? How long will it be before their residents demand a Safeway instead of Diekmann’s Bay Store or the Pelican Point Grocery? How much longer than that before a Costco sets up in Valley Ford?
Better visit Bodega Bay quickly. Blink and it’s gone.
Our Personal Travel Agent has made a reservation for us at Drake’s, the most elegant restaurant in the area. I am a bit intimidated since the fine print on our reservation says “Smart Casual” is the dress standard, and I left my smart pants at home. Not to worry – the guy in jeans, suspenders, and a fishing hat has a window seat, so they are not being too picky on a Monday night.
We splurge on a drink apiece beforehand. The Artisan Bread Basket comes from the delightful Della Fattoria Bakery in Petaluma, and includes delectable olive bread. We each have a bowl of onion soup, a delicious variation on the French theme – light broth full of barely caramelized onions, and just a small circle of toasted baguette with cheese melted on top floating in the broth. Plenty of room left for us to split a dish of mussels and pasta. Be warned – the most elegant restaurant in Bodega Bay has pricing to match. But it was worth it.
The next morning the fog is in, and we dilly-dally about the suite until the fog has lifted enough for us to see the headlands across the bay.
Bay Flat Road curves around to the west side of Bodega Bay, which shelters the bay against the Pacific. The bay side of the road is lined with boat ramps and marinas, the hill side features crab shacks where you can again find “the best clam chowder in Bodega Bay“, along with crab cakes, crab cocktail, crab sandwiches, crab tacos…. Too bad I’m allergic to crab. But there are plenty of people sitting outside at picnic tables who apparently are not worried about allergies. My #2 son assured me that for crab lovers these shacks are the epitome of gourmet delight. I’ll bet their clam chowder is pretty good too.
For our second night we have dinner at the Tides, a large family-friendly restaurant with ample parking right next to the harbor. There is not so much elegance here as at Drake’s, the food is ample but just so-so, and service on a Tuesday night is slow though friendly. On the other hand, the dining room boasts a terrific view of the harbor, and the cost of a glass of red wine or a shot of good Scotch is about half the charge at Drake’s. If I had it to do over, I’d come to the Tides first, and move up to Drake’s as a finale.
Past Petaluma and on through rolling hills and farmland, we roll through a few scattered small villages (Two Rocks, Valley Ford, Bodega) and then up a narrow two lane version of highway 1 to Bodega Bay. On the left the road bristles with boat masts, fishing shops, a fish market, and small restaurants all boasting “the best Clam Chowder in Bodega Bay”. On the right, small bungalows perch on the hillside, with pink naked ladies (more politely known as amaryllis lilies) thrusting up out of the bare ground, and brilliant geraniums overflowing from containers. A hairpin turn past The Birds restaurant (bodega bay was a filming site for Hitchcock’s classic) and the Candy and Kites store, a sharp right on Bodega Road, and we are at the Bodega Harbor Inn, our refuge for the next few days.
The Bodega Harbor Inn exceeds my expectations. For about $270 a night we have an attached cottage, including a spacious living room with a 180 degree view of the harbor, a tiny kitchenette with a mini fridge and freezer (real ice cubes!), a microwave, a coffee maker, an electric tea kettle, and plenty of mugs and plastic utensils. The two bedrooms offer a queen or king size bed. The smaller bed shares the space with an ample wardrobe and has the harbor view again, the larger one has no closet but is completely sheltered from road noise and street light. Outside, a pair of Adirondack chairs invites laid-back appreciation of the scenery and the passing parade of cars and families on the way to the Candy and Kites store.
The afternoon is warm and sunny, and we spend it driving north along the Sonoma Coast Beaches: Salmon Creek, Shell, Carnet, Schoolhouse, and a half-dozen others all tempting a turnout. We have our sights on Goat Rock at the end of the string of beaches. There we find a wonderful view of sea and surf up and down the coast, with Arch Rock perfectly positioned for photos to the south, Goat Rock looming due west, and a sandy beach with easy access to the north. We take the photos, descend to the beach, get our feet sandy and our toes wet, and head south again. Southward we are on the scenic side of the road, and we enjoy the panorama of rocky coast and soaring spray all the way back to our refuge.
On the way to a Getaway Weekend in Bodega Bay, we plan to stop in Petaluma for lunch, with fingers crossed as far as what we might find. Our apprehensions at first seem justified, as our first lunch choice has an empty parking space right in front (always a bad sign) and a sign on the door saying, “CLOSED FOR VACATION – see you soon!” So, we walk up the street to Della Fattoria’s Downtown Cafe -Bakery and Breakfast, where the waiting line on a Sunday morning is 30-40 minutes long. But there is a chair for W, other options are few, and I set out to stroll the block while W waits and checks her email.
Petaluma’s “historic downtown” boasts impressive bank buildings and movie theaters from the 20’s which have been converted to event venues and antique malls, and storefronts of boutique shops – a bridal salon, exotic housewares, a pie shop, Tibetan handcrafts, and children’s clothing and toys. I’m tempted by the sale rack in front of the Bliss Bridal Salon – it almost would be worth getting married again if I could score a satin wedding gown for only $20! A closer look revealed the size 6 tags – a dream I could not fit into even in my youngest and curviest days.
Back at Della Fattoria our number comes up, and we are glad we waited. The decor is eclectic (“No two chandeliers match!” remarks W) the service is a bit slow but friendly (servers seem to be the gating factor for the 30- minute wait – or maybe the kitchen – as there is plenty of seating at long tables, a breakfast bar, and lots of smaller tables.) The menu offered lots of interesting choices for breakfast/brunch/lunch. I opted for my favorite Avocado Toast – an extra $2.50 for a poached egg on top- and W had Stacy’s Special Breakfast Salad, involving lettuce, arugula, two poached eggs, lots of bacon crumbles, and a heritage tomato. The side basket of Artisan Bread includes delectable olive bread as well as excellent sourdough slices. (We learn later that Della Fattoria’s bread is famous throughout the North Bay.)
Replete with bread and avocado and eggs, we make our way out of Petaluma and onto the next adventure, but I have a secret resolution to return and check out some more of those interesting little shops, fortified by more of that wonderful bread.
Allyson Johnson 