Hitch Hike

Here we are doing our best Tippi Hedren impressions at the former Potter Schoolhouse in Bodega, CA. Bodega Bay is a tiny but picturesque little area (seems to be the Down The Shore for Napa-ites) where Alfred Hitchcock set The Birds. In the film it's made to look like this school is just up the hill from the bay, but in fact it's about eight miles inland in the actual town of Bodega. It closed as a school the year before the film was shot, and now is a private residence but they've opened a gift shop with all manner of Birds (and birds)-related ephemera in a part of the schoolroom featured in the film.

For our first day not begun by drinking in quite a while, we headed straight west to see the schoolhouse and resume our Hitchcock-related sightseeing. The Birds has special relevance; my mom saw it when she was 12 years old and has retained a mortal fear of our avian friends ever since. This one's for you, mom.

We then headed down to Bodega Bay itself and visited the Tides Wharf. The Tides restaurant is the hub of BB, but the original burned down in 1968 - in fact, the schoolhouse is the only remaining location from the film.

Turning out of the Tides parking lot you pick up Route 1, which is the scenic and nerve-wracking Pacific Coast Highway. We (well, Jenn, let's give credit where credit is due) drove the PCH down to SF. It's full of the types of views for which people dust off the word "majestic", and is an endless, winding mountainside drive down narrow roads with a huge, sheer drop off the side. But just check out this scenery:

We had originally planned a stop at Muir Woods National Monument, a midsized redwood forest just north of SF - Jenn wanted to see some redwoods, and coincidentally, to stick with today's theme, it's the setting (though not the actual location) for the redwood park scene in Vertigo. A word of advice: don't plan a trip to Muir Woods National Monument on a July weekend. The place was thronged, with two parking lots full and cars lining the approach road for miles on either side. We gave up and decided to just head for the city - the PCH had Jenn stressed enough without cruising for parking for who knows how long.

But with our entry into SF, we finally got what we'd been hoping for last week: a fog-free view of the Golden Gate Bridge:


There are, of course, about a hundred other pictures of the bridge, but I won't bore you with them here. (I'll stick 'em all in a Flickr file when we get back.) That large stone building under the bridge is Fort Point, and that is of course the site where Kim Novak jumped into the bay in Vertigo. Thus concludes the Hitchcock tour.

But, having just learned that George Lucas had opened a new digital arts complex in the nearby Presidio (and having neglected to bring back that Skywalker Ranch Merlot for Shawn and Jen), we stopped by and got a shot of the Lucasfilm/ILM headquarters. Here ya go, A-3ers:
We have a few other pics of the Yoda fountain and the Boba Fett and Darth Vader costumes/statues (not sure which) in the lobby that we'll get to you when we get back.

After checking back into the El Rancho and grabbing a quick bite at the local diner, we headed back into the city to Slim's, where we had tix for the second of two sold-out Melvins shows. Last night they were performing ther albums Lysol and Eggnog in their entirety with Trevor Dunn on bass. Incredible show, though way too heavy and loud and heavy for Jenn, who had this expression on her face like a wounded animal throughout. It was intense. So here's a shoddy phone-shot pick of King Buzzo and his unnatural fern-fro: