As I drove home on Sunday the sun was low in the west. An eerie mist lingered over the flat fields of the Central Valley, creating mysterious islands out of scattered stands of trees and farms. The mist floated over the ground and then rose in the distance to create a high haze which turned the air bronze and gold when I looked ahead, and a pale, glazed blue when I glanced into the rear view mirror. For several minutes I thought I was looking out over a vast delta shimmering in the faltering light. Then I rounded a corner, and the light altered slightly, and I saw the neat rows of soybeans under the tule fog. A few tendrils of fog blew across the old, cracked freeway as I raced the sun to the western horizon.
Navigating the Benicia bridge in the haze was exciting. No one was slowing down, even though the light was fading and the tendrils had turned into tattered clouds. I chose an inland route south, hiding behind the tawny hills from the bay and the waterside traffic so I could continue my soothing high speed. Twisting the wheel almost without thought to match the curves, and adjusting my rate with no conscious thought so as to match the cars around me, I ruminated on time and tides. The bronze was growing deeper, and I saw more headlights flicker on the further south I went. At last I swung west again to take the long, easy cut-through across the Oakland hills, going past black cattle scattered over pale grass among dark clusters of gnarled live oak.
Descending the west side of the hills was like falling into a dream. Fog, thick and substantial, gradually blotted out the light and blurred the landscape until all I could see were the white center line streaking past, and the red taillights stretched out in front of me. The night drew down around me, and I was not displeased to bid goodbye to the day in so poetic a manner. I drove more and more slowly as visibility was reduced to a couple hundred yards, practically creeping across the Dumbarton bridge, and taking a wrong turn on the other side because the sign was impossible to see in the white night. I got home without further trouble, settled in for the night, and was suddenly struck with horror.
"Oh god," I thought, my panic mounting, "this means no planes will be getting through tonight or tomorrow."
Monday was hell. One co-worker was unable to return from her Christmas vacation, so I had to deal with all her work plus try to rebook and/or soothe the entire traveling population of Silicon Valley who absolutely had to get out (or in) when the airports were barely functional. We were also short our manager so there were lots of people who expect her normal V.I.P. treatment, and instead got overworked peons who could barely remember their own names let alone a V.I.P.'s. To top it off, our bookkeeper had emergency surgery so I had to do the fiendishly complicated ARC report as well. The fog finally burned off after sunset, and when I walked the dog last night a bright moon illuminated our path.
We talk about our earthquakes, but we forget about the intense fogs of the great bay. It's been a while since we've had such a memorable one.
