Camp Meeker

14th November 2015

There was another hostel South of San Francisco that is located in a lighthouse.  It had been my plan to stay there but there were no vacancies so I decided to head straight to Camp Meeker North of San Francisco, where I would spend about ten nights.  I reasoned that I could return and stay longer in the Big Sur and Monterey on the way South.  But right now, I had the opportunity to stay in Camp Meeker in a place by myself for ten days.  And for free thanks to an extremely generous and helpful fellow birder from the Birding California group on facebook.  Who knows, maybe I could even get some writing done.

I passed the lovely lighthouse hostel and many other coastal sites before hitting the traffic of San Francisco.  Before long, I'd crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and attempted to park in the viewing area, but gave up pretty quickly.  These areas were built before everyone in America had a car I'm sure.  These days, with the huge number of tourists visiting the bridge it's insanely congested.  Traffic crawls across the bridge whilst tourists cycle dangerously in the right lane.  Thousands of pedestrians are present at any given time on and around the bridge. It's only a bridge!  I'll be back to join their sheeply numbers soon enough.

Another hour or so and I'd make it to Camp Meeker.

Camp Meeker is a fascinating place, located amongst, and beneath a towering canopy of Redwood trees that block out a lot of heat from the sun in the morning and evening.  It was built to house the logging industry back in the 19th Century, but now are often used as second homes and a cool summer get away.  I imagine the shade from the trees gives welcome relief in the summer months.

About a week into my stay I realised that the somewhat famed Bohemian Grove from the adventures of Jon Ronson was located nearby.  I briefly considered sneaking in to the site before remembering that it was no longer a mystery what went on there.  That is another story which has already been told, exposed and passed over, but in a nutshell, rich and powerful people get together once a year and burn a ceremonial giant owl in some kind of adult frat boy club.  For more on that, read Jon Ronson's Them: Adventures with Extremists.  

And for the wiki page on the club itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove

All very fascinating back in the day, and still something conspiracy theorists will likely cite when speaking of the so-called "illuminati".  These days the nutcases are more into new brands of fiction like "Chemtrails", the 911 conspiracy theory (that one's never going away) and other nonsense to do with GM products.  And let's not forget the moon loading "hoax".  The thing that most bothers me about all these things is that they're easily debunked with a small amount of research.  I can't understand why these apparently "awake" individuals, can't wake up enough to and use simple reasoning and critical theory methods.  Perhaps, just open their eyes to reality a little more.  It's been said before, there's comfort in thinking that someone's in control, because the truth that no-one is, and the whole world is thrashing along quite randomly is a terrifying concept for many.  But beautiful for astronomers and evolutionists alike.  This very randomness has created the world we know and the life that resides here.

I would stay here for the next eight to ten days (not sure which), visiting the coast and bird watching most days and watching Amazon Prime; Deadwood, Curb Your Enthusiasm season 8 and Master of None, in the evenings until I'd seen them all!  Good times.



The evening temperature fluctuated between cool to cold, but the days were pleasant and occasionally hot. I made use of having access to a kitchen most days.  The nearest store was a few miles away, and the nearest supermarket around fifteen miles away, so there wasn't any popping to the shop from this location.  I made sure I always had fresh milk for tea, you can be assured of that.  Without a car, I'm not sure what someone would do, but then, nobody does without a car.

For the next week or so I enjoyed Sonoma County, visiting the picturesque coastal towns like Jenner and Bodega Bay on many occasions.  The Russian River opens up into a lagoon at the beach and joins with the ocean at high tide or when the river levels rise.  In this area you can see seals and a lot of bird life.  It was here I saw my first Bald Eagle.

Bodega Bay is nature reserve with a spit separating ocean from the bay and saltwater march where thousands of birds spend each day.  The species change with the season but there's always something to see.










It was here I saw my first Bobcat.  It was only spotted when it crossed the path in front of a couple of people out enjoying the sunshine.  As soon as they're under cover it was near on impossible to see but they watched, and noticed where it had picked to slump in the shade of a bush.  I tried to get good photos and this is the best I could manage this time.  I haven't seen so many wild cats, other than a Jaguarundi in South America so this was great.

Bobcat

More to follow...