A Bordello Barolo, Chapter Three

Continued from October 6th: A milestone birthday bash in the making, complete with pictures!

Saturday morning broke like your favorite wine glass in too-soapy hands. I crawled out of bed anyway and was breakfasting within the hour in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood with a foursome of friends. Andy and Cheryl, forks and knives blazing, were happily stoking for the day’s fun and so was Niki, a good friend who had flown in from Zurich, Switzerland, to celebrate with me.

After a sumptuous nitrite and cholesterol breakfast, we hit the road. It wasn’t long before we were off the highway and into the cow-dotted hillsides of Contra Costa County, dangling our fenders over the most tortuous and hopelessly ridiculous ribbon of asphalt I’d ever encountered: the road to Port Costa, California.

It was a pretty exciting drive. That is, until we arrived in the narrow postage stamp of level ground that Port Costa occupies. After much meandering over and through and down-down-down a big fat wedge of a hill, we began to see a few buildings followed by a short main street, then all at once we were at our destination: a big dirt lot behind which there’s nothing but a railroad line and a mile of water.

That’s when it became clear to me why Port Costa’s prior status as a shipping port was effectively erased when the rail line went in. Since the evening freight trains could carry more goods more efficiently than the tiny and remote Port Costa could store, process, and distribute them, there had come a time when it no longer made sense to dock cargo ships here.

I peered toward the water, a moment’s observation yielding only the rail line and a cyclone fence to keep people off the tracks. There was no freight dock, no fishing pier, no official public facility connecting people to the water. The nearly-pure isolation of this little notch-in-the-hillside town is palpable.

So why were we here, again? Andy??

I glanced at Niki, who shrugged her shoulders, silently asking the same question. Andy, though, was sporting a broad grin; the guy was in his element. I looked over at the two large, time-wrenched buildings framing this rather bleak and unassuming edge of town – the Warehouse Restaurant and the Burlington Hotel – and then I looked back at the rail line: with a space of about 200 feet of separation across the dirt lot, it was clear what Andy had foretold: it would not be a quiet night for sleeping.

And as if to put a fine point on it, an Amtrak passenger train suddenly arrived from behind the nearest hill and roared through, nearly blowing us out of our boots with a loud, abundantly prolonged blast of its horn!

Oh well, we knew we hadn’t come to Port Costa to sleep, anyway.

We came here to eat, to drink, and especially to drink barolo in a bordello. We came here, ostensibly, to par-TAY! 

But first we had some exploring to do. Once our handful of hiking hooligans were assembled, we shambled off down the tracks toward Crockett, the next big town on the Carquinez Straits.

The Bordello Barolo Gang on the noble outskirts of Port Costa, California, and ready for hiking (such as it is here).

One didn’t need a map to know we were quickly – and very clearly – on the outskirts of town, even the outskirts of comfort and civility. There surely wasn’t much redeeming value to be found among the wild assortment of forgotten human debris, notable among it being a used syringe, several rusted railroad spikes, skeleton fishheads and headless babydoll bodies. Undeterred, we continued on down the rail line, a narrow and otherwise featureless strip of land tucked beneath a long hillside at the water’s edge. About two miles later – industrial façade of the C&H Sugar Refinery announcing its presence – we strode safely into Crockett. 

The day was perfect for a visit to Crockett, California.

In contrast to Port Costa, Crockett certainly appeared more interesting – especially the Crockett Museum, the unique and offbeat downtown area, the hodge-podge of residential architectures, and one of its most famous landmarks, the Nantucket Restaurant, which was situated on the marina under the 680 overpass, just back of the sewage treatment plant.

The Crockett skyline is breathtaking. If you can actually call it breathing.

Arriving at the wastewater treatment plant. I am loath to take credit for tagging this shipping container; I only give such cooties to my blog posts. 

At least it would smell better inside the Nantucket than it smelled out here. Or so we hoped.

Lunch was… well, let’s just say that lunch got us up and over the next hill.

Finally, open space! Suddenly the day seemed brighter. At least less disparagingly bleak.

The view looking west toward the Carquinez Bridge and the San Francisco Bay beyond. 

The view north across the Carquinez Straits. One can dimly make out Napa’s Mt. St. Helena, shrouded in overcast on the upper left. Just out of sight over the near hills is the railroad line.

Looking to the northeast along the trail that makes up the backbone of the Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline.

The teeming burb that is Benicia reaches into the channel as we trudge eastward. The refineries of Martinez lay in the background.

A brooding Mt. Diablo governs the view to the east as we approach the notch in the ground that is Port Costa.

Looking upon the town of Port Costa, in all its formerly-radiant splendor. Note the (lack of) distance between the rail line and our hallowed hotel which is the yellow building just left of center.

On our downhill descent into town, we were in a merry mood despite the weather and the surroundings. I, for one, knew I had a bottle of Barolo which I suspected needed to breathe awhile before we gathered to sample the many wines we’d brought with us. Little did I suspect that bottle would be just as ready to be drunk as everyone else!

~winehiker

Stay tuned for the breathless confusion conclusion of A Bordello Barolo, coming soon to Winehiker Witiculture.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 9:47 am and is filed under grape squeezins, winehiker's trails. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.