Bolinas: Mellow scene with lounge vibe.

Before leaving the bay, I took a little day trip with my good friend Heidi to Bolinas. Bolinas is a wacky little town that is loathe to promote tourism, so much so that it's residents go out to the main road and steal the road sign showing how to get there. Not to be deterred by a little thing like locals not wanting us around, we did the obligatory couple of U-turns required to get on the right road and headed in to see it for ourselves.

First impression: cute. Lots of little gardens and hand painted signs and whatnot. The beach has an interesting sign poking out of the water reading "GROIN." Not sure what that means, but it's funnier imagining what it might mean, so we didn't ask anyone.



We meandered around a bit before finding some food. We saw a couple of awesome cars as we walked, one of them had a brass-knuckle gear shifter. That's got to come in handy when your drive-in movie date gets out of hand.





Here's another lovely car:


There was also a funky old Volvo, not so glamorous but with the best "For Sale" sign I've ever seen.


Zipping down the street was a... something. Sort of a go cart? A three-wheeled-something that looked to me like a sidecar that had taken off without it's motorcycle.


That and a truck that looked ready house a fortune teller on tour with the circus.

These are all evidence that Bolinas is clearly in an alternate automotive universe.

We walked into a teeny shop full of crystals and wind chimes and other Northern California small town detritus, and were immediately turned away because the shop owner had a class to go to. I'd like that kind of work schedule. We also passed a dentist's office with a "Gone Fishin'" sign.



There's something the people of Bolinas know about work that I don't. Like how to get out of it when you don't feel like doing it. The dogs of Bolinas also apparently have an edge on me- they just wander around town by themselves. People stop to pet them and feed them, but otherwise they are just doing their own thing.

We sat on a bench to take in the lovely view of the tide coming in between the beach and a little bay.



We spied a harbor seal swimming around and got all excited and waxed poetic about the beauty of nature the way only true city folks can. Suddenly one of the ownerless dogs of Bolinas jumped in and decided to have some words with the harbor seal. They swam around each other in circles with their little heads poking out of the water. I don't know what the dog was thinking, the seal had maybe 75 pounds on him and some obvious advantages in the swimming department. The conversation went a little something like this:

"Arf! Arf!"
"Woof!"
"ARF!"
"WOOF!"

I don't really know what they were saying, but at some point the dog realized he was outbarked and got out of the water. Like any good public argument, a group of people had gathered on shore to watch.

I think maybe the dog felt pressure to repair his reputation with the people of Bolinas, because he jumped back in for more. The conversation pretty much went the same and the seal was again victorious. The dog meandered off toward the center of town with his head hanging. The seal disappeared, probably off to brag to his friends. I decided that going to the countryside is not that much different than sitting on a bench in Oakland across the street from a dive bar: maybe dumb turf wars are inevitable.

Back in town (a block away), we found another bench to sit on(maybe you are sensing a theme?) and absorb some more local color. There we met a dude named Merlin who was handing out flyers to a "Independent Film World Premiere" later that evening of a movie he had made at school. He explained that if we attended we'd be privy to a "like totally chilled out scene" and a "mellow lounge vibe." We explained that we had mellow vibes and chill scenes to attend to back in Oakland that evening. He invited us to sleep over on the couches in his parents' barn in town, and "party" with him and his friends. We decided to mellow out and chill on our bench instead. I imagine that for every fellow like Merlin there must be a gal named Stardust for whom partying in his parents' barn and sleeping on the couch is like a dream come true. He continued his publicity tour on foot.



We crossed the street for dinner when the restaurant opened. Our friend the seal-fighting dog wandered up and joined us to beg at the table.

We just looked at him for a while and then the two nine year old girls (who were also unattended) eating hot dogs at the next table over from us gave him most of their food, bit by bit, by throwing chunks of it. The only bits he didn't get were the ones that landed on the tops of cars, to be found much later by confused tourists.

All in all we managed to escape with a few life lessons:

1) It's worth going where you're not wanted because it's probably good.
2) When selling your car, it is important to point out its mechanical highlights.
3) It's okay to close your windchime store in the middle of the day even if there are customers inside the store.
4) You don't have to be the same species to get into a pointless argument at the top of your lungs.
5) Even people who live in the most laid back place I've ever been want to go to a lounge party with a chilled out vibe.