Touring the Biscuit’s Home

When I was in Tennessee last May, the last place I wanted to see was Graceland. Oh, I know loads of people crave a visit to the home of the so-called King of Rock n’ Roll, but it wasn’t my cup o’ tea. But... you know, sometimes a King just demands his due. So today my friend Diane and I visited the home of a Superstar of yore – Seabiscuit!


Seabiscuit aka 'The Biscuit', the 4-legged Superstar!
The morning walking tour took place at Ridgewood Ranch, that turned out to be just along side of HWY 101 – which leads north to the Avenue of the Giants. I’ve driven past the ranch without knowing it at least a half b’jillion times. From now on I’ll know to nod respectfully as I zip pastthe Ranch on my way to Crescent City. Now for some Biscuit History.


The Biscuit kicking arse at Santa Anita
The Ridgewood Ranch is currently owned by a religious sect that is working hard to restore the ranch and its buildings to its former glory. In the Biscuit’s day the ranch was 16,000 acres, but now the ranch is down to 5,000 acres. I’m hoping the National Park System buys into the original 16K acres and makes it a National Historic Site. Hey, it’s the least we can do for the Biscuit, a horse that kept up America's spirit during the Depression years leading up to WWII.

The biscuit tour starts in a large dining room, which is decorated with loads of Biscuit memorabilia.


The Howard's Racing colors along with typical eensie racing saddle

Diane reading some of the multitude of
scrapbooks of Ridgewood Ranch in its prime
After everyone’s had a good look around, the tour starts with a 15 minute ‘home movie’ filmed by one of the Howards, the family that owned Seabiscuit. Then the walking tour begins. The tour was lead by Tracy Livingstone, whose the enthusiast behind the scenes - he collected all the photos and such. He has also 'rescued' loads of Biscuit artifacts, many shown below.


Tour leader Tracy Livingstone, who lives on the Ranch
Of course the tour began with a look at Seabiscuit himself – this statue just a tad smaller than Seabiscuit in life.


Seabiscuit's Statue - one of three made in his likeness

The pedestal says it all… I got all choked up
on the first bit of the tour
Next we toured the original Howard’s Home, which was in place when the Howard’s bought the Ranch. Loads to see but I’ll cut to the bits that interested me. If you want to see more you’ll just have to go there for yourself.


Hearth inside the Howard's home
I was tickled to see the center fireplace mantle is an homage to the last Elsie Allen, a now world famous Pomo basket weaver. Elsie was influential in reviving California Indian basket weaving.


Elsie Allan - another legend connected to the ranch
At the base of the fireplace is ‘The Last Rut’. The ranch has Fallow Deer herds – a gift to the Howards from the Hearst Castle folks. A pair of rutting Fallow stags got barbed wire tangled in their antlers and... uh… it didn’t go to well for them.


The Last Rut
The carriage house, which in it’s day was stuffed to the rafters with shiny new Buicks (Mr. Howard ran the Buick Company) isn’t renovated yet, but word up is PBS's This Old House may be interested in doing the honors.


100 yr old Carriage House

Side of carriage house - even the old rose arbor is 100 yrs old
In its day, the Howard’s ranch was host to the likes of Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, Carol Lombard and loads of other 40s movie stars. We saw the pool with its mens & ladies bath houses, where it is rumored Shirley Temple learned to swim.

I saved most of my enthusiasm though for Seabiscuit’s Barn – renovated with the help of the local Willet’s Rotary Club. Go BISCUIT!


Seabiscuit's Barn
Seabiscuit’s barn is awesome! It has four corner stalls all shined up for four of Ridgewood’s primo racing stallions. There was a room for the horse handlers to sleep and of course storage and tack rooms. The only thing the place is currently missing is that lovely scent of hay and horses.


Happy at the Biscuit's Stall

The Biscuit's personal private pasture back-in-the-day – the paddocks are gone

Next we were off to visit the Mare’s Barn

Mare's barn isn’t renovated yet
The stall doors all bear the Howard's Ranch racing emblem. The two color motif was adopted out of respect for Seabiscuit when the great horse died at the age of 14. The great horse had an oversized heart and lungs, which is probably how he could run so hard and had such stamina. The over-sized organs may well have lead to his death at such a relatively young age. Pampered horses can reach the age of 25 and more.


breezeways keep the Mare's barn cool, even on a hot day like our tour day
Our last visit on the tour was to see the few horses that remain on the ranch.


This chestnut filly is a real princess, carrying the blood of
Man O' War, War Admiral, Seabiscuit and Secretariat

Weather Vane on the Biscuit's Barn
I've only relayed perhaps 5% of what I learned of Ridgewood Ranch's history or Seabiscuit. And as for showing all the pictures I took? Don't get me started. And the day was only half over. We still had the Grace Hudson Museum and Sun House to tour back in Ukiah. I'm tired just thinking on it!

First Leg of a Week Long Mini-break: Ukiah

Yeah! Onto day one of a week touring and camping with my high school buddy, Diane who is down for a week from Yakima Washington. I picked her up at the airport and bright and early we were driving alongside Clear Lake on Hwy 20. Know what I found out? That I drove through Clear Lake, once or twice a year over more than a decade and NOT notice the flippin' volcano sitting next to the lake! If there was a T-Rex on the route, I wonder if I would have noticed it? Well, never mind.

Mount Konocti beneath which eyeless fishes creep
While I drove, Diane also told methat long ago the Pomo Indians told the local Whites about large caverns hidden beneath the mountain, in which there dwell fish without eyes. No one but the Indians took the stories about the underground caverns as anything but 'Indian Legends'. Hum... eyeless fish in dark underground caverns... haven't I heard of such a thing before? Diane and I suspect the Pomo tales are fact and as usual, it will take latter day Whites another century or three to catch up with the Pomo.

The existence of a volcano was just the first bit of info Diane shared. A bit later she pointed out a State landmark I've driven past at least a dozen times, without bothering to stop for a look-see. On this day however, prompted by Diane, I stopped and here is what I saw.



Details of Dreadful Events in California History
Like other lands of European 'discovery', California has a ghastly history of murder of native men, women and children. Diane knows of such historical happenings, not because she completed her K - 12 education in California, as there is residual denial of the gawdawful treatment of Indians, but because she's keen on history. Driving about with Diane was having my own personal historian at hand. I am not going into it all here, look it up for yourself. Really. Do so.

Now, the last thing you see as you drive from Hwy 50 through Lake County a lazy herd of bison on the south side of Hwy 20 - a sure sign you are about to intersect Hwy 101. For once, I did not take the 101 dead north, headed for Eureka or Crescent City. Instead I drove us south a bit to Ukiah.

Ukiah is a special place to me. When I graduated high school, I was gifted by friends & relatives with a grand sum that approached $100. I decided to use the money to fly north - on PSA, an airline no longer existing - to visit Diane, her mother and sisters, who left San Diego and returned to Northern California where Diane, Aveeda and Heidi were raised. I'll never forget what a great time I had when Eunice, Diane's Mom, picked me up in San Francisco and spent several days driving up hill and over dale sight seeing in California. To this day, Aveeda & Diane told me when they see California Quail they think of the first time I ever saw the birds. I pretty much pitched a happy fit at the sight of the up tight little fowl, marching along, then scrambled into the rural shrubbery. On that trip I also saw my first wild California Mule Deer as well as the magnificent redwood trees of Montgomery Woods State Reserve. Nineteen-seventy was when I fell in love with Northern California and developing a wish to live here.

Enough hisherstory! As I said, Diane once called Ukiah home, and we began our visit, driving around the town in search of placed Diane once called home.

First up was a beautiful yellow Victorian, where Diane, her Mom and sisters lived for a short while. As soon as Diane told me the place was haunted, other interesting info about the place mostly flew out of my head! The family heard steps and other noises from the upstairs, which was entirely devoid of people/things. Cool!

The buttercup yellow haunted Victorian
Diane's parents bought this house, at one time shaded by a humongous Horse Chestnut tree. The house was only a couple of blocks from Diane's high school so she could come home for lunch every day.

Diane's former family home still retains a welcoming look.
This is the house I remember - sort of - as it's the one I visited in 1970. The only visual memory I have of the house itself was Diane and her sisters playing with their two Siamese kittens.


After the house tour, we did a little downtown strolling and light shopping, then were on for a great lunch at the Ukiah Brewing Company.

It was Diane handled the details of this trip, arranging for us to rent an adorable little home, nestled among wine vineyards in the country for a couple of days. The house is very pretty and my first thought on seeing it, was that it shows potential for future hen parties. The inside was prettily decorated and the stats was a bedroom for each of us and a living room with fireplace & comfy chairs. The kitchen had a cute & funky old stove, and was fully outfitted with microwave, fridge, coffee maker and BONUS! An expresso maker which I didn’t know how to work, damn it. But my favorite thing about the house was the back porch. Every time I stepped onto it, I had to say, or at least whisper, "I had a farm in Africa...!"


View from the porch, showing the walk down past the vineyards to a rushing river

I couldn't look at the porch view, without expecting giraffes gracefully striding past

Chili on an August Evening

The first Tuesday every August is my neighborhood’s Block Party potluck. It's held conveniently held just outside my front door. Un-conveniently, today it was my second potluck for the day. The first was at my office for lunch for which I took the easy way out opting to pay $5 and not having to bring a thing to the event other than my amazing appetite. But for the evening potluck I showed with a cast-iron pot full o’ homemade chili.

Local sheriffs and Neighborhood Watch crew start the ball rolling
Now here’s a first – I totally enjoyed myself. At first I sat hunkered down like I usually do, the fat deer in the headlights, tragically alone and feeling like a pariah. Eventually neighbors began to seat themselves at my table. All were, like me, disgruntled State Workers. We chatted all about what the hell is being done to us as State workers and what was going to happen to us, depending on which gubernatorial candidate wins. I’d explain our conclusions but you really don’t want to hear the kind of swearing necessary to complete our collective thoughts. Anyway, in short, we had a ball.

As the sheriff explains how to stay safe, a neighborhood garage band gets ready to get down
While we chatted a rock band was laying down a beat & was actually pretty good. Their playing was rather better than their singing voices, but with enough great chow in your mouth, you don’t really feel like fussing. And anyway, they played Rock & Roll from my era, i.e., when dinosaurs ruled the earth, so while we chowed down potluck fair, we grooved to the mood.

♪♫Play that funky music white boy! Play that funky music rig-ht!♪♫
Two fire trucks attended the gathering and we had the local sheriff & Neighborhood Watch people give us all the bad news that every year our police protection shrinks a bit. We just lost our Sheriffi’s station that was about a mile from my house. Now there is only one station to serve numerous neighborhoods and it’s quite a drive’s distance from my house. Hopefully we're all to po' to rob now anyway.

♪♫Lay down that boogie and play that funky music till you die! ♪♫

Enough speechifying, TIME TO EAT!
I was told by lots of people were curious what was the dish I brought, saying it was delicious but no one knew what it was. THAT my dears, is the first sign your chili recipe might need adjustments. Someone told me they were puzzled because my beefy dish tasted like mild chili, but wasn’t red. It was like an hour later before I realized the ‘problem’ was that I don’t use pinto or kidney beans. Making chili for myself I use mung beans, quinoa and/or black beans. I use ‘all-of-the-above because those are tastier and healthy grains. For the potluck attended by 'normal' people, I just used Black Beans – my compromise - and the usual ground beef. I cooked mung beans too, but then changed my mind at the last second. Black beans do not cook up red and though I use numerous cans of diced tomatoes with jalapenos. My chili was tasty, but not red. Who cares! They ate it up and that made me feel just grand.

Chow down time - my house is the one in the background

Right outside my front door around 8:30, when I was off to bed.