Lost Coast for the Third Time

Michael Long-time newsletter readers know what the "Lost Coast" is, namely a remote coastal strip 200 miles north of San Francisco, almost near Eureka. Not even Highway 1, which runs along the entire West Coast, goes through here, too mountainous and inaccessible is the area there (Rundbrief 08/2004, Rundbrief 10/1998). Why we're always drawn back there, is probably because it inhabits a special kind of people, superficially perhaps a bit aloof and eccentric, but on closer inspection very warm and helpful.

To get to Shelter Cove, the adventurous tourist must drive about 25 miles from the small town of Garberville, located on Highway 101, crossing a hill range, and down to the ocean. Once there, they must make do with what is available; they can't just quickly go to the nearest grocery outlet or make a visit to the emergency room of a local hospital. For any undertaking, they must overcome the 25 mile winding road back to civilization. There is only one restaurant with a brewery attached, and only one supermarket of the "Mom-and-Pop" variety in the area. The "General Store" at the entrance of Shelter Cove is small but surprisingly well-stocked, from vegetables and bread to fishing gear, it has everything one needs for daily life. Sure, the goods there are slightly more expensive than in the big city, but not unreasonably so, considering the remoteness of the place.

Regarding supplies, there is electricity and Internet in Shelter Cove, but only weak mobile phone reception in some places. For example, we had no connection at all on the entire drive over the hills, but luckily you can't get lost there due to lack of alternative routes. Most of the residents there heat and cook with gas, which they store in large tanks in their frontyard, and the gas truck comes from time to time for a refill.

Since only very few tourists find their way to Shelter Cove, you'll hardly see anyone while hiking along the legendary several miles long Black Sands beach. Instead, you can find all kinds of washed up sea creatures, such as the otherwise rather rare sea urchins and starfish. Every half hour, we saw pairs of backpack-laden globetrotters, hiking south on the legendary "Pacific Trail" on multi-day tours that can only be done at low tide.

With our Honda Fit, nicknamed "Brummi", we took the time this time to explore small mountain roads along the coast, driving through remote villages with just a few houses. Especially the particularly potholed and amateurishly patched coastal road south of Cape Mendocino had caught our attention. Such tours, however, require good stamina, because sometimes you can't drive faster than 40 km/h due to the potholes, and occasionally even over unpaved sand tracks. We spent a great week, but then a rainstorm broke out, which, absolutely unbelievable for California, even brought a few inches of snow.

It was unusually cold this time during our visit. Despite being so close to the coast, the temperatures dropped to 32F during our stay, which was also a record for California. When a few raindrops came down as snow, which even stayed on the ground due to the cold weather, newspapers and news channels were filled with breaking news! Also, typical for California, this was enough to cause total traffic chaos.

The only road connecting Shelter Cove to civilization was temporarily closed due to storm damage, and no one could get down to ShelterCove or back up to Garberville on 101 to connect to the rest of Northern California. The only business in town had only one server the next day, who pointed out that the fish dishes on the menu were unfortunately not available due to lack of fresh fish. And when I ordered a burger, I was told that I could have avocado on it but unfortunately no bacon, as that was also out. We like the simple life!

When we wanted to drive home when our vacation ended after a week, the next problem came up: Although the connection from Shelter Cove to the main Highway 101 was now open again temporarily, on Highway 101, the only connection south, a few fallen trees, power poles and stuck trucks led to a complete closure.

It was no longer possible to drive down to the San Francisco Bay Area, unless one was willing to put on snow chains and crawl over adventurous small mountain passes to the east to reach I-5, which would have extended the four hour tour to more than eight hours.

We had booked a cottage in the town for a week through AirBnB, and had originally planned to drive back to San Francisco on Saturday. Our landlord, who was not on site but had been following the situation in the news, suggested that we just wait until the situation normalizes and generously offered to let us stay in the house for free for one or two more days.

It was also interesting that all communication by government agencies like the state road maintenance authorities was happening exclusively through Twitter and Facebook. We signed up on the Facebook group for Shelter Cove and read about daredevils reporting their adventurous and failed attempts to cross the mountain range back to Highway 101. "Caltrans", the state agency for traffic in California, reported on Twitter with photos about the closures of Highway 101 and recommended to monitor the situation and wait.

On Sunday morning, a favorable window of time opened up for us; the weather had cleared up, Google indicated that 101 was open with just one small detour, and brave local drivers had reported that the road from Shelter Cove leading over the hills was now passable despite some fallen trees and icy spots. Now or never, we thought, and set off, and it was no big deal. I drove our Honda Fit with summer tires slowly over the few icy spots on the mountain pass and pulled over twice to wave pickup trucks with balloon tires through and to let them barrel down the road past me. As readers can imagine, under normal conditions I would have mercilessly snubbed such vehicles, but these were not normal conditions!

Except for a few places where Highway 101 southbound had only one lane open, and Caltrans employees directing traffic with "Stop/Slow" signs, letting traffic through in one direction while cars had to wait in the other, we made it through fairly quickly and then arrived safely back in the Bay Area.

Heavy California Rain

Angelika California is used to distress when it comes to natural disasters. Wildfires, earthquakes, and droughts are usually on the agenda. It's a state that not only counts among the most populous, but also has a lot to offer geographically. From the ocean to the high mountains, desert, and rich agricultural land, there is something for everyone. The sparse rainfall in recent years has caused concern, as extreme droughts lead to constant forest fires, not only during the California fire season, usually in September and October. Everyone was longing for rain and this year it came in abundance. This, however, led to catastrophic conditions again, namely to massive floods, landslides, fallen trees, power outages and evacuations.

In California, it seems like everything always plays out to extremes. It was unusually cold in the winter, as Michael mentioned previously in his story on Shelter Cove, and it snowed not only in the mountains but also in lower areas. Since the average California driver is already overwhelmed by normal rainfalls, chaos broke out during the winter storms. People in the Bay Area were almost begged not to drive to the ski resorts at Lake Tahoe, which is normally a popular weekend destination, as the snow masses there led to road closures.

Some people who thought they were clever blindly followed apps like Google Maps or Waze to get around these closures, but they quickly learned that neither Google nor Waze knew which roads were cleared from snow and which weren't. The storms went on for months, one storm after another since December. Many smaller coastal roads simply broke away, and in Santa Cruz, the cheerful surfer and student city, 50 miles south of San Francisco, people were kayaking in the flooded streets. In the Los Angeles area, up in the mountains around San Bernardino, some people were snowed in for weeks.

Here in San Francisco, the strong wind that came with the rain was particularly troublesome for us. Countless trees fell because their roots could no longer find a hold in the muddy ground and the wind blew some of the huge trees away like matches. Even the huge tree in front of our house gave up and just fell across 24th Street on New Year's Eve. It crushed a parked car that belonged to the waitress in the restaurant next door. Thank God nothing worse happened and nobody was injured. Normally there is always a lot of activity on the sidewalk in front of our house, but since it was raining and New Year's Eve, the flow of pedestrians was limited. And typical for San Francisco, neighbors put up a Gofundme Page to buy the waitress a new car.

In other news, some of the windows of the skyscrapers in downtown San Francisco broke, and the pieces flew down from dizzying heights, which was naturally quite dangerous. But miraculously, no one was hit, which is probably also due to the fact that the city center of San Francisco has been deserted for years. One then wonders how it can be that skyscrapers have such flimsy windows that they shatter in a storm. The windows did not only break in older skyscrapers but also in relatively new structures like the Salesforce building. But I had learned many years ago in my earthquake training with the firefighters that skyscrapers only have safety glass from a certain floor. For this reason, first responders advise to seek protection at the entrances of skyscrapers in case of an earthquake, in order to not get hit by flying debris. Skyscrapers themselves are allegedly built particularly earthquake-proof. Whether one can rely on that, however, I now have my doubts.

Superbloom

Angelika The heavy rain also brought some positives with it. The natural water reservoirs in California had not been full in a long time. We therefore hope for a less destructive fire season this year, as the soil and landscape have been well drenched. Also because of the heavy rain, nature is currently pulling out all the stops.

Not only are the California hills finally lush and green again instead of gray-beige, but wildflowers are also sprouting from the ground and seem to be competing to see who can conjure up the most beautiful orange, yellow, or purple. Whole stretches of land are currently covered with these flowers, coloring the hills yellow and orange. This phenomenon of an abundant bloom after a stronger rainy season is called "Superbloom", a visual spectacle that is hardly captured by photos.

During my Easter holidays at work, we drove down to Los Angeles. Along the highway, we enjoyed the green hills and the abundance of flowers. Then we took a trip from Los Angeles into the interior of the country near the city of Lancaster and drove to the "Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve Park". We didn't get into the park because there was already a long line of cars waiting. But the adjacent fields, meadows and hills around the park offered a similar spectacle. As the name of the park suggests, there is an abundance of California poppies there.

The bright orange California poppy, known to botanists as Eschscholzia Californica, has been the state flower of California since 1903. Quite fitting, I think, as the California poppy not only shimmers orange-gold in homage to the gold found in California a long time ago, but the plant is also a real survivor. The seeds can sustain long periods of drought in the soil and patiently wait for their big moment. When it rains, they quickly bloom and those impressive fields of flowers appear. The plant is also poisonous, so it's probably best not to eat the flowers in large quantities. In any case, I couldn't get enough of this color show. By the way, you shouldn't behave like a nature barbarian and sit in the middle of the flower field to take pictures or trample on the plants, but take your souvenir photos from the walking path.

After experiencing this natural phenomenon, we were hungry, and I found a restaurant nearby with good reviews. We drove about 15 minutes on straight roads through a deserted area that reminded us more of the outskirts of Las Vegas than California, and reached the small town of "Antelope Acres". And lo and behold, in this population 2800 town there is a restaurant named "Iron Cactus". At first, however, we had to find the entrance behind the not very inviting tinted windows. But inside it was all cozy with the typically American padded "booths". We ate delicious juicy burgers with the best fried onion rings I've ever had.

Top Product: Selfie Mirror for the System Camera

Michael Nowadays, a cellphone camera is usually good enough for decent photos and video recordings, but a perfectionist like myself always looks at it closely and therefore needs professional quality. As luck would have it, Angelika got one of these ultra-modern "system cameras" as a birthday present, which is what Germans call mirrorless cameras. The Sony a7ii, combined with a good (but expensive!) lens, takes breathtaking photos and videos, and I'm also allowed to use it from time to time to revive my original passion for photography and shoot my Youtube-Videos.

Unfortunately, the Sony engineers who designed this camera didn't think it through and simply forgot that some people use it in selfie mode. That is, pointing the camera at themselves, and while doing that, it is absolutely essential to be able to see one's face on a control monitor so that you don't cut off your own head and have to reshoot the whole scene while cursing loudly. Now while the display on the back of the Sony a7iii can be folded out and swiveled, this can't be done in a way so that you can see it from the front. Clearly a major brain fart by the Sony engineers.

But be that as it may, luckily a clever tinkerer has now invented an accessory to be stuck on the camera's flash shoe. It's a prism-shaped plastic housing containing a mirror visible through the front viewing hole at a 45-degree angle, through which you then can see the rear-folded control display with the ongoing recording from the front of the camera! Brilliant!

On Ebay, the item was available for the reasonable price of $12.95 with free shipping, and now during my recordings, I can perfectly see if my head is in frame without an extra cameraman. What a relief! Top product!

Corona finally caught up with us

Angelika After we had held out for a whopping two years and nine months and had not infected ourselves with Corona, it finally caught up with us both in December 2022, despite two booster shots. Everyone thought that Corona was almost over. We were convinced that we would not get it anymore or maybe already had it without noticing. Then came the Christmas party with my colleagues. It took place in a restaurant, and two days later Michael complained of sore throat.

At first, there was hope that it was just a normal cold, because Michael's Corona test was still negative, but the next day the fever and the coughing came. And the two stripes on the test strip were could no longer to be denied! I still felt great and took care of the sick person in the household. Monday morning however, before work, I had to take a test to make sure I wasn't positive either, because I work at a school. In a good mood, I made myself coffee in the morning and then packed my lunch for school. Then I looked at my test and had to rub my eyes a bit, because two pink stripes were already shining at me after about three minutes.

So I was positive as well and therefore had to put my lunch back in the fridge, because I couldn't go to school anymore. Throughout the day, my condition worsened and the fever came. I have to say that I have been sick many times in my life, but Corona felt different. I had never had such sore throat pain before, which came on the third day. I was so out of it that I begged Michael to take me to the emergency room, and if you knows the state of ERs in the US, you'll understand that I was no longer in my right mind. Michael of course refused this, thankfully. Interestingly, I had no cough at all, while Michael fought from one coughing attack to the next. We were both really sick for five days and after two weeks everything was completely over. After about seven days, the Covid test was finally negative again and Christmas was saved.

Declaration of goods upon entry

Angelika The last few times we've been flying from Germany to San Francisco, we noticed that we no longer had to fill out a customs declaration form on the plane. Since we always have a lot of stuff in our luggage when we come from Germany and have to list these items on the form, we were initially a bit confused. Of course, there was no clear messaging about this on the plane. Those of you who are familiar with traveling to the United States know that everyone, including tourists, green card holders, and American citizens, must fill out the so-called "CBP Declaration Form 6059B" upon entering the US.

On this form, not only goods brought into the country had to be listed, but the traveler also had to answer a series of questions, such as whether they had food in their luggage or had been on a farm. The question of fruits, vegetables and meat products in the luggage was also to be answered with "no". Usually, the immigration officer then took the form from you, after he had glanced at it, and perhaps asked one or two questions, stamped it, and gave it back to you. A popular question for travelers coming from Germany was always: "Do you have sausages with you?" which of course you didn't. Then you went on to get your luggage, and finally handed the stamped form back to another officer at the exit of the baggage claim.

The last few times we've been traveling, however, it was different. The officer we showed our passport to only asked if we had brought anything from Germany. I mentioned a few things and the officer was satisfied with my answer. I then did some research and found out that most airports in the US are moving away from paper documents. In the style of the EU, they want to rely more on random customs checks, e.g. by service dogs at the baggage carousels, which sniff out unauthorized goods, after which officers pull out suspects and thoroughly inspect their luggage. That's fine with me. After all, it was always me who filled out our family form, and I can really imagine something better to do than rummaging around for a pen after hours in a cramped airplane and do paperwork. However, there still seem to be airlines that distribute the form amongst the passengers of the flight. As mentioned previously, there's hardly anything to be found online on this topic, I'm just telling facts from experience.

Also, right at the beginning of the immigration area in San Francisco, there used to be a barrage of so-called kiosks, which passengers had to use to scan documents and get their photos taken. Those are now gone. Behind the word kiosk was a terminal with a monitor, on which you answered the customs declaration questions electronically and scanned your green card and passport. This was supposed to speed up the entry process, but the machines were pretty clunky and often didn't scan properly or inexplicably didn't accept the documents. The officers we went to after the kiosks often got quite annoyed because it meant more work for them. Not to mention that I had to fill out a paper customs form a few times while standing in line, because the kiosks were out of order.

Nowadays, all international American airports rely on facial recognition. Upon entry, when the passport is shown, the responsible official takes a photo of the face of the passenger, which is then compared electronically with the biometric data stored in the passport document. A photo is taken of anyone over 14 years old, including American citizens. If you have an American passport, the photo is allegedly removed from the database within 12 hours, while for those entering without an American passport, the photo goes into the biometric database of the American agency "Homeland Security". Allegedly, American citizens can refuse the photo. However, what happens then remains unclear.

Something else is slowly disappearing due to digitalization: the entry stamp in passports that foreign travelers used to receive upon entering the U.S. is no longer needed in most cases. This stamp indicated when and where the traveler stepped on American soil, what class of entry they received (e.g. as a tourist), and how long their stay in the country was going to be permitted. Our old passports have many pages with these stamps. The clicking of the stamp was the familiar sound when we stood in line at the immigration counters at the airport. It's a shame, because other countries are also eliminating entry stamps. I still have an old travel passport with DDR entry stamps. A truly historical document.

California, the Nanny State

Michael You probably know that the legal framework here in the U.S. depends heavily on the state you're currently in. Our home state of California, for example, is very quick to pass laws that (allegedly) serve to protect the public, which is why conservative voices give it the label "Nanny State".

An example from recent times: As an old penny-pincher, I almost always buy dairy products at the Aldi-like supermarket "Trader Joes" here in San Francisco. Butter, which is otherwise extremely expensive in America (about $10 per pound), here only costs about $3.50 per half pound. The brand "Kerrygold" from Ireland comes as an import to the U.S. and tastes great, and is also sold unsalted, while otherwise American supermarkets mainly offer salted butter.

Recently, from one day to the next, the Kerrygold butter had disappeared from the refrigerator shelves. Well, such things happen from time to time due to supply shortages, like recently there were no eggs or toilet paper during the pandemic crisis, so I grudgingly bought the slightly more expensive American butter. But after weeks, when the Kerrygold butter was not only missing from Trader Joe's, but also from the organic supermarket Rainbow, Whole Foods and even our megamarket Costco, I decided to get to the bottom of the matter.

Turns out that California had enacted a new law, "Assembly Bill 1200", on January 1, 2023, restricting the chemical compound "Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances" (PFAS) from use in wrapping of edible goods in foil paper. Unbeknownst to me, the Kerrygold Irish people had mixed the devilish compound into their silver and gold packaging, and due to the new law, they stopped delivery of their butter to the U.S.! There were promises that Kerrygold butter should be available for sale again soon, in a new paper wrapper.

Similar restrictions apply to old-fashioned light bulbs: As you can see in Figure 29, Amazon is happy to ship these to less restrictive states like Kentucky, but refuses to send any to California.

Another "aha" moment is the sale of lighter fluid, also known as butane. Four years ago, the overzealous politician Grayson came up with the idea of drafting a law to regulate the sale of this fuel in California - allegedly many hash oil producers used it for the illegal manufacture of their hippie products. The law was promptly accepted with some modifications (Grayson also wanted to set up a database with all the sold butane bottles, but that was rejected) by the California Senate and Governor Newsom put his seal on it. Although the text of the law explicitly excludes refill cans for lighters and my crème brûlée burner, Amazon stubbornly refuses to deliver refill cans to our address in San Francisco 30. Even locally, you have to search for a long time to find a bottle for sale in our supermarkets.

In Mid-February, San Franciscans were rubbing their eyes to some surprising news: in the relatively quiet residential "Sunset" area of San Francisco, home to a mainly Asian population, suddenly a random house exploded and burst into flames, as seen in the video. It turned out that the tenant there had been running a drug manufacturing lab! Thick barrels of chemicals and large-scale giant gas cylinders with butane were revealed. Representatives of the Nanny State were amazed to learn that criminal drug manufacturers do not order small bottles of lighter fluid, but get the raw materials in a more efficient way. You never stop learning!

Greetings from the Central Office of the Asylum

Angelika and Michael