Bodega Bay is one of the many places claiming to be the mooring place of Sir Francis Drake on his jolly jaunt around the world in 15-somethingorother. It is also home to the San Andreas fault, which is as good a reason as any to hang out there for a day looking for survey benchmarks (those little steel plaques on the ground that you see on triangulation points).
A sunny day, a nice variety of sites to look for, cheery rangers down by the beach, 2 generous baskets of fish and chips for lunch (not just for me; young Romain was with me and was suitably hungry too), and the day was rolling on by nicely. Well ahead of schedule, at around 3pm we drove to Bodega Head to look for the last site of the day, a short walk from the parking lot, with pretty views of the ocean on one side and the bay on the other. Following the directions and a handheld GPS, we arrived at the top of a hillock, feeling optimistic that we might be done early and skip off home.
The hill was completely grassed over.
No problem, said Romain, I'll get the metal detector and the shovel (such a can-do attitude, he'll go far; I went nowhere, to be sure to 'mark the spot'). And so we set about our search. The metal detector went 'WEEEEEEEEEEE', and we started digging. (When I say 'we' I mean my young French friend, of course.) One foot beneath the surface, we found our prey: a rusty nail.
One hour, nine more nails and no benchmark later, we decided to "fuck it" and go for an ice cream. Rumbling the Suburban through downtown Bodega Bay (a post office, a cafe and a dog grooming parlour), it was clear that something funny was going on. Both sides of the (narrow) street were lined with Ferraris. About 30 more of them were parked in the lot of the yacht club, including a heap of 60s old 'uns, a Testarossa, a couple of F40s and an 'Enzo' which Romain assured me was worth 4 million on its own. And I, driving a vehicle with all the manouverability of a tank. I have never parked so carefully, I can tell you.
Another standard day, then. The ice cream was very good, incidentally.
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