The valley is still very beautiful, but it is also very different when it rains. It is not so much that there is rain on everything, but that the rain is everything. It is usually very dry here, but when it rains the entire valley becomes unreasonably wet. The ground turns to a very rich and dark mud, a moistness that can not be negotiated with. It is impossibly fertile, this ground. The roads become just slightly slick from the oils that have accumulated on them. When this happens everybody collectively decides to drive at exactly half the posted speed limits, effectively doubling my commute times to work.
It is not just that they drive slowly, they drive with a level of caution that would inspire Tom Ridge. Light rain in Sonoma County goes immediately to threat level RED, a severe risk of actual motion. The only patriotic solution is to die from old age while still in your car. If you see something then prepare for a stroke...
Wait, I had hoped to write about other things.
The rain.... I know that I'm probably driving old Selavy additionally crazy with my hackneyed descriptions of natural beauty out here, but even the rain is lovely. Instead of the seemingly endless blue sky from mountain-line to mountain-line there is a soft gauze-type effect over everything, softening all of the light in the valley, as if Cybill Shepherd's guardian angel was drifting through the dale.
Ok, I must send one camera off to get repaired and then order image-chip cleaning solution for the other. After attending that hippie festival in the park my camera is plagued with dust particles and patchouli oils.
Will I ever learn?
"Never follow a hippie to a second location." - Jack Donaghy
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