After Thursday's hospital visit I went home by a longer non-freeway route. Preferred to take my time, clear my head, take advantage of the evening off. (Side report: My father is much better now, more or less his usual alert self, albeit sick abed.)
One goal of my wandering was to find the ferryboat Solano. Constructed in 1878, it served the transcontinental railroad as the only possible means of taking trains across Carquinez Strait, through which the sea-bound waters of California enter San Francisco Bay, towards Oakland and San Francisco. This shaved 50 miles off the original route through Niles Canyon and up the Peninsula. As it could haul an entire train in one go (disassembled into four sections), it was for a time the largest ferryboat in the world.
Following construction of a bridge in 1930, the Solano was scrapped, and scuttled near Antioch to serve as a breakwater. In '83 it burned to the waterline from being misused as a fireworks platform. Its outline is clear in satellite photos.
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I set my mobile phone GPS to a biker bar near it and was thus able to wander the shoreline roads and decrepit streets more or less at will, getting redirected as needed. Towards the end I found myself on an unimproved dirt road that Google Maps did not recognize but that looked clear enough, so I bumped along between the weeds through foot-deep potholes, taking care not to run over any biker gang body dumps.
I ducked under the bridge, pulled up near Antioch's ancient oil-stained boat ramp, looked across the shattered remains of the long-dead Fulton Shipyards, and there it was. The A-frame that supported one of the two walking beams was still standing.
I wandered round a bit. The biker bar was a freshly-painted hangout for middle-aged MMA members made out of an old caboose, and of course there's nothing wrong with that, but I preferred to walk back to the scenic area and see what I missed when driving through. What I missed was a victim of violence dumped unceremoniously by some lowlife or other.
The sun was setting, and there was no sound, not even of birds, and the spot was developing a fine atmosphere, the sort that has you idly glancing around, and staring into the deepening shadows. I'd already been down a few weedy dead-end roads, and walked under the broken windows of an abandoned factory, so now it was time to just head home. I can't be sure what I was really looking for amongst the broken-down industrial ruins of Suisun Bay's southern shore after visiting my dying 85-year-old father, but I found the Solano anyway, and that was good enough.
5 comments:
I find lizards, and you find donkeys. I think your find trumps mine, only by sheer size and gruesomeness.
Is it a requirement to be made from an old caboose in order to join the MMA, or can regular middle-aged bikers join?
Oh. Not a donkey. Deer.
Sometimes it can be good to simply walk the streets.
The Solano must have been a huge monster vessel in its time.
I often find my peace wander among broken down industrial ruins. I don't know why I find them so reassuring.
Holy god! Your photo of that poor deer is one of the saddest images of death I've ever seen... her life stolen and her empty body dumped along the road like garbage. I'm infuriated and heartbroken.
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