Spending the weekend on the Russian River, I felt the weird magic of the Sonoma Coast. I remembered my first exposure to that place, at age 17 going up there with friends, going to some bonfire on the beach and then crashing on a couch in Guerneville. And I felt like, despite a similarity between Guerneville and Nevada City, the coastal region on the whole is really different from inland rural California. It’s more bohemian, less conservative. It made the point to me that the division is not just between urban and rural California, but between coastal and inland California.

There in the dark groves under the redwood trees there is the feeling of something old and strange. In between family time and reading I went out to wander around. I came across an old cemetery and walked winding country roads, came across houses tucked away in the shadows; trailers, cars with hoods perpetually popped, some cabins that looked abandoned, others that looked almost like palaces. It felt like someplace you could disappear to, get lost in.