M aker

What Rough Beast

Slouches Toward Arcata?

MAKE goes to the World Championship

Kinetic Sculpture Race. By William Gurstelle

WHILE IT COULD BE NAVIGATED FASTER, it usually takes at least eight hours to drive up Highway 101 from San Francisco International Airport to Arcata, Calif. If you go, it’s worth taking your time, because this road takes in a lot of interesting society and scenery changes along the way.

At the start, you cross the heart of downtown San Francisco, slowly cruising up Van Ness Avenue northbound across the Golden Gate Bridge toward the congested freeways traversing the Bay Area’s northern suburbs. Soon, though, the milieu changes for the better as you pass through bucolic Sonoma County; the vineyards of California’s wine country

are wonderful viewing even at freeway speeds. Farther north, the Japanese and German luxury cars of wine country become less dominant, their space on the highway usurped by pickup trucks and far, far older Fords and Chryslers. Winding on, the 101 slows down, speed limits changing in inverse relationship to the height of the redwood trees flanking the road. As it morphs into the main drag of the small towns of Laytonville and Willits, the 101 slows to 25 miles per hour. Finally, the highway meanders north and west through Rio Dell, Fortuna, and Eureka before reaching the tranquil burg of Arcata, the starting point of the World Championship Kinetic Sculpture Race.

Photography by Karen Hansen

28 Make: Volume 09