New Year’s Eve found us driving up the coast to Bolinas, a small beach town north of Stinson Beach. It’s the town that the state of California has given up signposting – every time they’d put up the green direction signs, residents of the town would go out to Highway One and take them down. It has no stoplights, lots of dogs, two restaurants, and one saloon called Smileys. The saloon, and by proxy, the town, has embraced the Whoreshoes as their own personal band, and the girls are celebrities when they come to town. It’s kind of nice to be a celebrity by association, actually. Once the main restaurant re-opened late at night, just to feed the band and friends free quesadillas and root-beer floats.

I was a little worried about going up – you might have seen on the news the flooding we’re having in this part of the world. There are three roads that lead to Bolinas. Two of them were having flooding problems, and we’d never taken the third. But Lala was driving, and we made it out just fine, her reliable car fording the small rivers running across the twisty back roads.

There was no power anywhere on that part of the coast. It was quiet when we pulled into town. The one grocery store sold me a pack of emergency cookies by candlelight.

The saloon, however, was the one place in town with a generator. So when I walked the dogs down the pitch-black road toward the water, this is what I saw when I came back.

The saloon is also the hotel, so I had electricity to run the curling iron, thank god.

Anyone know what’s on the back of my jacket? Present from sister Bethany, and I’ll get a better photo later this week…..

We ate dinner before the show, as we always do, at the restaurant across the way from the saloon. What’s it called? The Coast Café? Something forgettable like that, but it’s a delightful place. The owner lived in Thailand for seven years, so he’s used to running on propane, and they were offering their full fare minus deep-fried products, all served by candlelight. We walked in to hear tinny music, and Lala was the first to notice that a real live Victrola propped on a front table was making the sound.

I had a lovely catfish sandwich. We were merry. We were actually shushed by another diner, but Kirk was in the middle of telling us about catching a mahi-mahi in the lobby of a Hawaiian hotel last week after bribing the hotel lobby security guard (thirty-four pounder! Dude!), so we probably deserved shushing.

The show was great. The had an opener called KemoSabe, a great boy-band who rocked out, hill-rockabilly style. The girls put on a great show. Of course. They always do.

    Being a rockstar is rough.

    Nate, great knitted beer-cozy maker.

    The objectification dance. Don’t ask.

Then, when we woke up to another incoming storm on the morning of the New Year, I said to Lala, "Hey. The holidays are over."
She said, "Thank god. I might throw a party to celebrate."