Page 169 – Bohemian | Sonoma & Napa Counties

Best Cannabis for a Boomer in Disguise

Will Carruthers

Mar 21, 2023

Dad Grass

I recently admitted to myself that I’m a boomer trapped in a millennial’s body.

The evidence has been accumulating for nearly two decades. I played in a classic rock cover band in middle school, I spent my early 20s reading Ramparts and other magazines which peaked in the 1960s, and I work for a print alternative weekly, an invention of the same decade. Yet, the fact which broke the camel’s back was my recent realization that I simply can’t handle modern, commercial cannabis.

To put it, er, bluntly: Legalization has created too many options, most of which are too strong for a lightweight like me. When I visit one of the North Bay’s many fine dispensaries, the eager-to-please employees quickly overwhelm me with a whirlwind tour of the dizzying number of options on display. The combination of strains, brands and dosage make my eyes glaze over before I’ve purchased anything, let alone ingested it. When it comes time to inhale, I’m left without the ability to do much of anything.

All this makes me pine for the weed of my youth… 15 or so years ago. Luckily for me, capitalism has identified my need and delivered it in Wes Anderson-esque packaging.

Founded in San Francisco, Dad Grass sells a wide array of CBD and CBG products, presented in a variety of attractive “decoy” boxes and tins, which can be used to playfully hide one’s habit from children.

There’s just one problem: Millennial me can’t afford to bring a child into the world. For now, buying Dad Grass will be the closest I get to channeling my middle school bandmate’s dad. It took me more years than I’d like to admit to realize that he wasn’t just soaking when he retreated to the hot tub for hours at a time, emerging a much more relaxed and giggly version of himself. — W.C.

Best Place to Have a Semi-secret Orgy

Mark Fernquest

Mar 21, 2023

Bodega Dunes Campground, Bodega Bay

It’s no secret that sleeping in the sand dunes at Bodega Dunes Campground is an experience second to none. But it’s the long strip of beach just over the dunes where the real night magic lies. On a mile of starlit sand, why, anything can happen. And I do mean anything.

Now maybe that’s a secret.

Driftwood that accumulates on that stretch has a habit of magically turning into huts and stick houses. Just imagine what racy North Coasters could and would get up to in those shelters out there after midnight if it were possibly possible and conditions were ripe … and they are, six months out of the year. I’m talking scantily clad artistic nomads dancing and writhing and sweating on colorful carpets to the soft light of candles and the background drone of drum beats and ocean surf.

Now, I’m not saying anything improper does happen out there in the unmonitored freedom zone after lights out, but I’m not saying it doesn’t, either. Because if it did, only those in the know would know, you know? Let’s just say that the next time I book a campsite at Bodega Dunes, I’ll be headed out to the beach around the time everyone around me turns in for the evening. <wink> <wink>

Bodega Dunes Campground, 2485 Highway 1, Bodega Bay. 707.875.3483.

sonomacounty.com/lodging/bodega-dunes-campground — M.F.

Best Place to Spot a Cryptid

Mark Fernquest

Mar 21, 2023

Partrick Road, Napa Valley

Bigfeet live too far north for my pocketbook, and California doesn’t even have swamp monsters. So imagine my ever-cryptid-loving surprise when I found out that a legendary freaky beast lives practically under my very nose. That’s right. Napa Valley is home to a cryptid called a rebob, and rebobs are paranormal creatures of no small renown.

Rumored to be flying robotic monkeys, facts concerning ’bobs are scant while stories abound. Word is they were created by a mad scientist at a secret government lab and escaped into the surrounding forest, where they still terrorize horny teens far up Partrick Road in Napa Valley on dark nights. Other stories suggest they are a flight of fancy concocted by local parents in the ’50s during the era of B monster movies to keep their daughters from getting pregnant.

Regardless of rumors, it is a fact that Partrick Road exists, that it has a mysterious graveyard near it and that stretches of undergrowth along the roadside are blocked off by long sections of cyclone fence festooned with NO TRESPASSING signs. I have yet to explore the site myself, though the adventure is high on my bucket list. How high? Higher than a flying robotic monkey, truth be known. — M.F.

Best Place to Buy Bathroom Tiles to Admire Whilst Inebriated, Incapacitated and Throwing Up

Isabella Cook

Mar 21, 2023

Best Place to Buy Bathroom Tiles to Admire Whilst Inebriated, Incapacitated and Throwing Up

Humanity Home & Cabinetry, Santa Rosa

I’ll begin by saying that this story is about home improvement, but the hero’s journey that led me to the North Bay’s best of home improvement (spoiler, it’s Humanity Home & Cabinetry) requires a more sordid tale.

It all started when the day was departing, and in the darkening neighborhood of Guerneville, I discovered the hallowed halls of El Barrio, home of artisanal mezcal, tequila and bourbon cocktails. This seemed, I thought, to be the perfect place to release some sorrow and toil and perhaps forget and/or create some memories.

Oh, reader, I was right—in only two hours and “a few” drinks, I came to, wrapped in a near-intimate embrace with a toilet so beautiful, so ornate and so majestic that it roused me from my drunken stupor…just long enough to feel bad when I, again, threw up in, on and around what may be the finest work of art I have seen or will ever see.

I spent a long time in the bathroom of El Barrio with only this most tastefully gaudy of toilets for company—knocks at the doorway, of other patrons demanding entrance, came and went and were easily ignored. After all, a true connection, such as that between me and this masterpiece of plumbing, is impossible to break. Until, of course, the employee with the keys came in, kicked me out and told me never to come back.

But I had experienced something in that bathroom, something that I wanted access to at all times: Whether it be food poisoning, drunkenness or the flu, I knew I needed to find a way to recreate that experience at home! So, I scoured the North Bay for a place that could give me what I needed—a way to deck out my bathroom, dress it to the nines and make sure that, no matter the reason why I’m lying incapacitated on the bathroom floor, I have something to admire. And, thanks to Humanity Home & Cabinetry, now I have a bathroom I love to throw up in. — I.C.

Humanity Home & Cabinetry is located at 799 Piner Rd., Suite A in Santa Rosa. For more information, visit humanity-home.com.

Best Place in the North Bay to Eat Your Feelings

Best of Restaurants

Isabella Cook

Mar 21, 2023

Best Place in the North Bay to Eat Your Feelings

Mitote Food Park, Santa Rosa

In the middle of a journey through wine country, I came to myself in a dark sort of mood—you know the feeling: sad and hungry, craving a pile of food so massive it just may start to fill that black hole-sized pit of woe in your stomach.

Then I saw it, a shining beacon in the distance promising a smorgasbord of satisfying snacks. I cannot say exactly how I entered Mitote Food Park but, as I passed through the gates of this Santa Rosa Shangri-La of street food, I knew I had found the perfect place to eat my feelings.

The smell of churros wafts through the air. To my left, birria tacos. To my right, a bar (open seven days a week…am I in heaven?). Surrounded by a one-man feast, I sit alone in the darkest corner of this bright and festive outdoor food park and sip my drink—a single tear falls from my eye. Bliss, I think, to eat your feelings at Mitote Food Park.

Mitote Food Park is located at 635 Sebastopol Rd. in Santa Rosa. For more information, visit their website at mitotefoodpark.com. — I.C.

Best Place to Settle Your Differences That Isn’t Twitter

Evan Davis

Mar 21, 2023

Best Place to Settle Your Differences That Isn’t Twitter

Scandia Family Fun Center, Rohnert Park

“You know where we get the game of mini golf, bud?” I ask as I take my turn to putt, and it goes wide.

“Um, like golf,” posits my poor, dumb nephew, “but mini?”

“Ha, not quite, sport. We get it from the Vikings. See, when Lief Erikson landed in America a thousand years ago, they developed it as a way of settling disagreements after they lost all their swords in a big storm. That’s also why there are 18 holes, it’s the minimum needed to crew a longboat,” I say.

Poor, innocent Kyle thinks for a minute. “Why not just punch each other?” he asks.

“Well, because they were civilized, right?” I reply. We finish the hole, and I start tallying the scores. “It became such a strong tradition, that’s why we still play it today. It’s the game of kings.” I pump my eyebrows. “Vi-kings.”

He rolls his eyes at me. “That was dumb,” he says.

“Yeah, well,” I say, as I toss him the scorecard. “I won 58-to-65, so we agree Shrek 2 was the pinnacle of cinema and your stupid Marvel movies are repetitive, formulaic garbage.” — E.D.

Best Place for Losing Your Child(ren)

Evan Davis

Mar 21, 2023

Windsor Bowling Center

With the boom of hand sanitizer sales since 2020, public pools probably seem less like a great place to take the kids and more like big mugs of human tea, steeped with the armpits, hoo-has and jelly beans of total strangers.

But what those places have going for them is the idea of adult swim, and that’s why I’ve always loved coming to Windsor Bowling Center. It’s got lots of colors, things that sparkle, a full bar complete with doors to keep out kids and a whole lot to do: bowling, blacklight mini golf and an escape room—tons of perfectly viable reasons to say how the little scamp or scamps got away from you.

If that ain’t enough, my sister dropped off my nephew here once for a birthday party but got her days mixed up. When she got her calendar right, it was six hours later. She comes in all manic thinkin’ she just Home Aloned him, but there he was, up at the bar nursing a free root beer.

So looks like they have a Lost & Found system in place.

They’re prepared for you taking some time for yourself, so take advantage, I say. — E.D.

Best Place to Keep Legends Alive

Best of Services

Evan Davis

Mar 21, 2023

Salt Tree, Santa Rosa

When I was a kid, there was a place in the Santa Rosa Plaza known far and wide as The Disney Store. No mystery, then, when I say that they of course sold plush dolls of beloved Disney characters, poseable action figures, play sets, movies and all the rest. Just as unsurprisingly, the staff were outgoing, endlessly pleasant and notoriously helpful—which I realize may strike as odd phrasing, but it remains accurate.

As kids, we devised a game around that known dynamic within the store, and it went as follows: Simply enter the store and try to make it to the back wall, placing your palm fully against it, then exit the store again, all without being offered help by a staff member. It was easy enough when we were kids, but became tougher to do as we grew into teenagers and the tenured store associates developed pack tactics.

After all, ours was an individual sport, for what we had in numbers we lacked in cohesion, and the organization of Team Disney was commendable.

But nothing good ever lasts forever, and The Disney Store did eventually close, and in its place now resides Salt Tree, a boujee clothing store with mannequins on their tables and perfume in their vents.

We used to throw water balloons at busy traffic, joust on roller blades with plastic lightsabers and steal street signs (minor ones, nothing important), just as storefronts that used to house emblems of childhood innocence now offer a simple variety of pastel shirts.

The world changes, and we all grow up eventually.

“Anybody ask you if you needed help?” I ask my nephew, who I’m watching for the day. He’s 10.

“Nope,” he says.

“You plant that dog turd you found on the mannequin in the back like I dared you?”

“Yep.”

“Sick. Let’s go get ice cream. Wash your hands.”

Gotta help rear the next generation, y’know? — E.D.

Best Trashy Birthday Celebration

Chelsea Kurnick

Mar 21, 2023

Santa Rosa Creek Cleanup

While people bike, walk and live alongside Santa Rosa’s 100 miles of creeks each day, they may never think about the city’s storm drain system, which has more than 1,500 outfalls into these waterways. Our daily activities create pollution that funnels directly into our creeks from these storm drains—everything from dog poop to soapy water used to wash one’s car to garden pesticides can empty into our storm drains and into our creeks.

On a sunny Saturday in late February, a small group gathered at Brush Creek for our friend Derek’s birthday party. We weren’t there to bike or picnic; we were there to spend a few hours cleaning up the creek.

There’s often trash to pick up along the paved trails, but to do more intrepid creek cleanup, it’s best to wear thick-soled waterproof boots and sturdy clothes one doesn’t mind getting dirty. The City of Santa Rosa will provide volunteer creek stewards with all the tools needed to collect trash—trash bags, thick gardening gloves and long rubber-tipped grabbers.

At first, it was hard to see much trash; recent storms brought tons of plant debris through, making a lot of the trash that was there difficult to see. Yet we quickly trained our eyes to search for plastic bags and wrappers embedded in the thorny branches underfoot. As our bags filled, we all felt compelled to keep going.

Three people told me they’re addicted to creek clean up. Two volunteers told me they go out for a couple hours most days.

I get it. Beer cans and packaged food wrappers were numerous and boring to pick up, but their monotony made finding unusual items all the more exciting.

Since it was Derek’s birthday party, I polled everyone: If you had to choose a gift for Derek from the trash you found, what would you give him?

Choices included a rusty bicycle frame (no wheels), an area rug, a pair of boxer briefs, a wallet (no ID or money inside) and a plastic cactus-shaped dog chew toy. We didn’t actually give Derek these “gifts,” but Derek himself found and kept a ceramic owl knick-knack.

After we cleaned up the creek, we cleaned up ourselves and headed to Shady Oak Barrel House for hard-earned beer and pizza. A few of us were already planning our next creek cleanup day. — C.K.

Best Place to Contemplate the Passage of Time…With Chicken

Evan Davis

Mar 21, 2023

Best Place to Contemplate the Passage of Time…With Chicken

Humanity Wellness Dispensary, Santa Rosa

Time doesn’t slow down. Not for a single one of us. One day, you’re a young, hopeful, real bright-eyed son of a bitch, then tomorrow becomes today, becomes yesterday, last week, then suddenly you’re 35 at the grocery store and the bag boy calls you “sir.”

I think that’s why I get drawn here to Humanity Wellness Dispensary. Location’s key, right? And this place is, like, dead center on a leyline nexus of “Where the hell is life going for any of us?”

Humanity’s great (the weed shop, I mean; people are still TBD), but they’re couched right next to the grown-over plot of land that was, once upon a time, home to K-Mart before wildfire had its way with the place like a pack of preschoolers raiding an unattended candy cart.

No irony then that Goodwill patiently lurks in the background, like a living reminder of futility that hungers for the resale value in the memories of your late grandmother’s keepsakes.

It’s almost enough to keep a guy from getting out of bed.

But El Pollo Loco is right next door, and few things give life meaning like one of their quesadillas. — E.D.