SANTA ROSA, CHARLIE BROWN AND LUTHER!

It wasn’t far to Santa Rosa from Napa and on Saturday morning we arrived at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds which had a huge graveled parking area for RV’s. The host was very friendly and soon had us in a nice site with a friendly tree for afternoon shade. BTW, the hookups were excellent with 30 or 50 amps, sewer and water, all fairly recent and well laid out.

Not long after we set up, Brett and Dianne Wolfe arrived and we all enjoyed Fran’s Mexican Tortilla Soup (actually, she says to give credit to Connie Gridley for the recipe). Fran had guessed the Wolfes might be nearby; and sure enough they were staying in Forestville on the Russian River so it was easy to get together in Santa Rosa. We made plans to get together again in Ukiah in a few days. That evening Fran’s brother Rick and his wife Lynda joined us for dinner at “Sushi To Dai For” in Old Town; for a guy who didn’t like sushi, I’ve become addicted to it, you just have to know what to order.

Sunday we headed to the Charles Schulz Museum which opened in 2002, two years after his death in 2000. It is a grand structure commemorating the work of the Peanuts creator who lived most of his working life in Santa Rosa. The Peanuts comic strip was started in the early 1950’s and soon became one of the most popular cartoons in the world, translated into many different languages.

On entering the main room one sees the far wall with ceramic tiles that make up a two-story-high mural, Charlie Brown, Lucy and The Football, designed by Japanese artist Yoshiteru Otani. It's made of over 3,000 black-and-white Peanuts strips printed on two- by eight-inch ceramic tiles, arranged to recreate the classic scene with Charlie Brown running to kick the football held by Lucy and, of course, she always pulls the ball away at the last second sending Charlie into a backflip, landing flat on his back.  The museum has a number of his original cartoon drawings with descriptions of the life and times of the period. Schulz drew Peanuts (he apparently never liked the name of the strip) with an eye to current events in times of political and social change; and although Charlie Brown and his friends never aged, the world they lived in certainly did. Fran read through most of the strips, and it was hard not to laugh out loud, even decades after the strips were printed.

Upstairs, we wandered through a couple of rooms housing a re-creation of his workshop and a gallery chronicling his life through photos and memorabilia. Schulz was also an avid ice hockey player and fan and had an ice rink built along with the Warm Puppy Restaurant where he would often grab a bite to eat while watching the ice rink action. While we watched through the large windows there was a tournament of senior citizens playing a pretty rugged fast-moving game. These were players in their 60’s; we overheard a staff member talking about the 70-year-olds who had played the evening before. Many of the senior teams had clever names and we especially liked “The Seattle Seniles”. While we had passed here many times over the years, we finally stopped in and are certainly glad we did.

 Later that day we passed by the Luther Burbank Cottage and Garden which is on the Horticultural List of Landmarks. The Gardens are well kept and very beautiful. Burbank once said that Santa Rosa was the best place on earth and the local folks have loved him ever since. We agree that it is certainly among a handful of really neat places. Then we were off to eat again, this time to Rick and Lynda’s home for dinner.

Monday morning we were invited to a delicious breakfast with cousins “Niki” (Zaft) Dilles and her husband Frank, (Paul) Tommy Zaft and Debi Zaft who had all just returned from a family week at Yosemite National Park. Frank and Niki had recently completed an complete renovation of their kitchen which provided an excellent place to get together after a few years of separation. It is good to keep the family together from time to time but we were soon off to our next destination which was Ukiah, CA.