The Delta is this weird, hard to define place. Its where all the major rivers of Northern California eventually escape into the Bay and thence to the Pacific where they will be reformed as oceans and eventually rain.

Between the ocean and the last point they are known as rivers they devolve into a maze of channels and islands that seem to escape time and location. Each town you pass seems like some sort of movie set, some more touristy than others and some downright frightening.

It is out here where I spent the afternoon at the Ryde Hotel consuming a number of potent cocktails under the guise of rehearsing for a wedding.

Someone needs to be intoxicated at these things I've always felt, and as the second Best Man I feel a certain obligation to make sure these things get done properly.

The delta in fall is probably the place around here where you'll most feel the season. Leaves fall from trees in number, the ground starts to get moist. Mist forms on and around the roadways.

Its a treacherous place from here on until spring.

Kind of macabre too, these old places. This old hotel seems haunted a million different ways, from the bar straight from The Shining down below to the bathrooms across with their oddly closing doors.

Springs, weird pneumatics, you tell yourself.

At this point in the old radio programs E.G. Marshall would come on and tell you that act one would be in a minute and we'd break for a very loud, very fast ad.

Perhaps this is the gin talking, or else some of the horehound I had earlier in the day.

I have a singularly weird conversation with the bartender and it only serves to make me feel more irregular, more disjointed.

She concludes with: "You be careful out on those roads."

We are heading to dinner and she says this twice.

"The roads out there are very dangerous, especially right there in front of the bridge. People will slam on their breaks or go too fast...rainy night tonight..."

I reassure her that I'll make certain we slow down before the bridge.

"Those roads out there are dangerous," she says by way of goodbye and now it really feels like we're in a movie.

I'm at the whim of others for my transportation this night and I have two convenient options: ride with Ingle in the minivan or else with Jonesey in the TT.

Oh, the TT is ever so much more attractive.

It is as dark as the road outside and the interior is as dark as the road and its like stepping into some piece of stealth technology.

I muddy the immaculate floor and feel instantly guilty.

Did the seats have warmers, or is this a detail I am making up in hindsight?

Probably the latter, but then again, I think of it as a very sexy ride, so it therefore must have seatwarmers.

I advise caution up to the bridge and just as we pull up the phone rings.

Its Ingle -- she's lost out here someplace on the highway.

I am too incapacitated to offer much in the way of directions so I will serve as signpost and wait.

I watch the TV towers blink off in the distance. Maybe they are FM but I could have sworn TV 20 used to showcase it around Christmas time. (We've got what you're looking for: TV twen-ty! [arf! arf!])

Hell, did that station even exist? The Internet gives no sign either way but I could have sworn I watched Twilight Zone marathons on it every Memorial Day weekend. One year I was lucky enough to have a TV of my own to play with up here, watched nothing but the marathon as I hid from the summer heat in my grandmother's air conditioned house.

Time stands still by the bridge as I contemplate the river and the bridge adn the dangerousnous or the road and coming across some dark figure standing by the roadside like some sort of descansos waiting in mourning.

Damn, probably cause an accident all by my lonesome.

I think positive thoughts Ingle's way, just in case, text message a friend because the two-way nature of it seems the only escape from this Poe-like state.

Seek misadventure in the Delta? Nevermore!