Earthquake Berkley & Explorations of Sonoma County - Petaluma, Sebastapol, Snoopy’s Ice - 12.17.22
I was awaken at 3:29am this morning by a rumble and a shaking bed and house in my Berkeley neighborhood. Yup… earthquake thingy. 3.6 magnitude on the Richter scale and the epicenter was in El Cerrito, 4 miles away from where I rest my head. I’m new to the area but it’s universal knowledge to run into the streets naked and screaming during an earthquake. I had put on my new San Francisco Giants hat first, so as not to look foolish. Anything goes in San Fran you know…
Anyboop, since I was rudely awakened by the forces of colliding tectonic plates of planet earth… here’s the balance of my photos from my 3 hour getaway that turned into a four day adventure. Like the S.S. Minnow and Gillian’s island.
There’s a great junk art walk on Florence Ave in Sebastopol, CA. It’s the work of Amiot and Laurent. Here’s the story I hacked from “Visit Sonoma County (or else)” website:
***The works were jointly created by Sebastopol couple Patrick Amiot and Brigitte Laurent (he makes the sculptures; she bestows the bright-hued paint). It all started back in 2001, when Amiot placed a large sculptural piece that he'd made for fun — an outsize fisherman fashioned from an old water heater — on his front lawn.
Neighbors loved it and wanted their own, which is why nearly every Florence Avenue front yard now sports at least one sculpture by the couple. So do quite a few local businesses. Visit the Amiot/Laurent website to learn more.*** Visit Sonoma
After the fun art stroll, I drove up to Santa Rosa… my bordering house mom told me that Charles Schultz and Snoopy’s Home Ice Rink is there. I loved Chuck Brown as a kid because Snoopy played hockey… just like me. The rink is in a bit of a sketch hood but it made it an authentic experience for me. They had a public skate going on when I arrived and since there was only 15 minutes left they let me skate for free. I had just put my hockey gear in storage in Berkely a few days ago so I needed skates. They were a size too big and the right one had no edge and I couldn’t dig in like I wanted because I didn’t want to break my important ass bone… but smiles happened. If you know the feeling of being on the ice… just zen It truely made my day.
I did all kinds of cool things on the land and the sea. Took all kinds of pictures and met a handful of cool people. It was a quick loop to see what the hell Sonoma County is about. It’s all within an hour and a half from homeBase3.1. Yup... I dig you Cali… even if your earthquakes shake me out of my bed.
I stopped by a country road side coffee shop the morning after I left my boarding house. There was a delay in service because there was only one person working and it’s apparently the country and no one is in a hurry to do squat. Some kid dude cut in front of me because I was off in the corner looking at crochet things and post cards waiting to be helped. I let it go…
Then the service person said to the kid dude, after asking what he wanted, “your name is Ben! That’s funny!”
He said “whaaaa?!?”
“Lots of things rhyme with Ben. That’s funny dude.”
“Awww yeah… and Benny too.”
“Totally dude, and Benny”
My guess is they were both under the influence of modeling glue and I walked out because I figured this exchange would last until the sun burned out in one thousand million billion thousand years. And I also was confused by trying to rhyme shit with Ben and Benny…
That was my cue to get back to civilized life… city life. I stopped by the road stand ‘Sequoia Burger’ on my way out for my morning snack… and ate my food in the sun while leaning against my car, and in a very mindful and profound moment… “Penny! Penny rhymes with Benny!”
For the extended story of how you can take a boy out of the city… but you can’t take the city out of the boy… so the boy always runs back to the city at the end of every episode… see my adventure blog at zenbirdstudios.com
