| july, 2004 - ranger martha has fridays off, so we like to have lunch and a fieldtrip sometimes of a friday. this time I took bart over to martha's and she drove us via the backroads up to crockett, the old sugar company town right under the carquinez bridges new and old. and if you go as the crow flies, ignore the lack of roads and head for the waterfront immediately under the bridges, you'll end up at nantucket. it sits right on the edge of the bay on a dock. we sat on the patio by the water and watched the barges go by in both directions. it's a fine and unusual view of the bridges from there, too. our lunch was great - I'm sorry, but I was so excited by mine that I forgot to take any photos of it. I had a perfectly executed fried cod sandwich - 2 big filets 100% grease-free and wonderfully crunchy, on a sweet french roll with a tub of tartar sauce and other sandwich additions on the side. also french fries, nothing special. martha had a scallop sauté with mushrooms in a sherry-butter sauce, with white and wild rice pilaf. she said it was wonderful. we drove the curvy roads through crockett - it doesn't take long - and with She Who Knows The Backroads at the wheel... well, let martha tell it: "we drove through the town of crockett a little (like this, this,
and this), stopped along the water (the
river) to figure out what the thing on the barge was (an enormous crane),
kept going out of town, passed by the reallly
wild house & front yard/compound belonging to clayton bailey, the sculptor --
with the crazy figures on top of the fence & on the roofs-- (when
i told my boss that we went by there & by his house in port costa, he
said when his sons were little, when he said they were going into crockett,
they thought he was saying they were going to ROCKET, because of that rocket
on the roof pointing into town --- and when i mentioned that his house
was really skinny & small, he said all those teeny houses were company
houses for that big wheat dock that's now the restaurant that houses the
polar bear & the huge round wood
table with the really bad painting of the last supper over it!, then
down that weird little dead-end road with the "pacific materials" factory
at the end, with all those dumps all over. next was eckley pier park,
with the twin trees and that strange little brick building with what looked like
a 4-foot ceiling, and then the blackberries
next to that neat little pond with bullfrogs, the skinny little windy road
where i took cocoa on our last road trip together, up to highway 4 to martinez
with the antique shops. |
