I camped in Sonoma last week and spent part of Wednesday seeing some local sights. First was the Old Faithful Geyser of California. The word geyser comes from the 3,000 year old one in Iceland, named Geysir (“gush”). The others known as Old Faithful, due to the regularity of their eruptions, are in Wyoming and New Zealand. Strangely, the National Park service website says Yellowstone’s Old Faithful is actually NOT the most regular geyser (it does not say which one is).
The Calistoga geyser was drilled, it’s not natural. Same for nearby The Geysers, the largest geothermal power station in the world, which provides about 60% of energy to the surrounding counties. Natural geysers are much rarer and often occur near volcanos. Geothermal fields are areas with hot springs or thermal vents or geysers.
The eruption is not terribly dramatic but I enjoyed it! The property also has goats, llamas, sheep and horses. There are numerous comfy seating areas and visitors are welcome to bring picnics while they lounge about 40 minutes for each eruption.
Next I visited The Petrified Forest, where redwood trees were felled by a volcanic eruption 3.4 million years ago. “Petrified Charlie” discovered a rock hard log in his pasture in 1870 and soon scientists showed up to investigate. In 1880, he met Robert Louis Stevenson (as shown on the plaque) who was on his honeymoon squatting in an abandoned house. How romantic!
The petrified wood I’ve seen before has been polished and is quite colorful. These logs are in their natural state and look, well, like regular logs. I kind of liked seeing the examples in the gift store better, especially this cool fireplace surround. There is also a petrified vintage coffee shop (ha, ha). The store clerk guessed it was be too expensive to bring up to code so it must be admired through the windows.
My final stop was a brief visit to the “Cyclisk,” a bicycle obelisk in Santa Rosa made from 340 (unusable) bikes welded together. It seems funny that it’s at the entrance to a car dealership, but that’s because when that business was built, developers were required to spend 1 percent of costs on public art. It’s on a busy street with no public parking I could find. Would be nicer if it were in a park. Or along a bike path!