Bolinas

There’s no good reason to come to Bolinas.

It wouldn’t be unexpected to hear that from one of the locals in Bolinas, CA, an unincorporated municipality that doesn’t even have a local police department. Fact is, many of them would rather you not know where they are, so much so that there’s a long standing tradition of ripping down the sign on Highway 1 that points the way to town.   As soon as a new one goes up it’s gone and that’s just the way this community of “surfers, poets, artists, writers, and aging mavericks” likes it.
Of course, in this day and age of GPS and Google Maps, that’s more a quaint tradition than realistic goal.  In fact, local businesses and museums seem to depend on the visiting dollar as much as the local one.
In the late sixties many poets made Bolinas a refuge of sorts from the city life of San Francisco. Interestingly, it was two oil tankers colliding off the coast of Northern California and spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the waters in 1971 that in many ways formed what Bolinas would become in the seventies on through the present day.  Members of the counter culture movement (hippies I believe they were called) flooded into Bolinas to help with the clean up efforts and wound up falling for the place and staying.  When they got wind of town officials’ plans to turn the town into another golf course speckled tourist destination they set in motion a strategy to take power of the town water district, placing a moratorium on new water meters, successfully killing any plans for future development.
Bolinas was part of a “back to the land” movement in the hippie culture of the 70s that required members of the community to depend upon and have demanding expectations of on another.  It was a community of artists and poets, but very much one that required a willingness to work hard, be involved, and get your hands dirty.  What ensued was an experiment in community that “wasn’t simply a hippie alternative situation, an easy comfortable scene for artists, but a rigorous place—involving commitment.” (A Literary History of the San Andreas Fault: Bolinas Section).

All this to say that we would’ve never known about Bolinas had we not been on our trip to Point Reyes with friends who knew this area quite well.  So we had the treat of driving through the Reyes National Seashore, over the hills, and down into Bolinas (half way between Point Reyes and San Francisco) for lunch and a stroll of the museums, a look through the Free Box (where Seb found a cool book we’re still reading to him), meeting local artists and potential connections for future adventures for our crew.  We ate at the Bolinas Coast Cafe, worth a mention because it was delicious, has a great outdoor area, and all their ingredients are locally grown or harvested, keeping with the vibe, history, and offerings of the area. As you can see, we didn’t like it at all.

Cool little place, interesting history.  Can’t see living in a place that small and insular, but certainly appreciate the story behind it, where people were coming from, and the efforts they took to keep it from being overrun by commercialization.  It’s certainly interesting that people who found their way there liked it so much they saw fit to keep others away, but so much of that speaks to the time and age I imagine.  That, and the unavoidable truth that people will be attracted to a good thing, and that, inevitably, brings change.

Speaking of change, Bolinas sits on the western side of the San Andreas Fault, which is the Pacific Plate (the eastern side being North American Plate). This means Bolinas (and Point Reyes) moves north relative to the rest of us at a rate of about one inch per year.  Here’s betting the locals wouldn’t have it any other way.

I was going to post a map pointing the way there, but it kind of felt like a betrayal….you’ll have to look it up on your own