• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

Boonville and the Anderson Valley have their own language, Boontling, a mix of Scottish, Gaelic, English, Spanish, and some Pomoan Indian, that's been around since the eighteenth century. Heavily popularized during Prohibition, when bootleggers used it to disguise taboo words that might reveal the illegality of their work, today it's used both by old-timers and by many of the medicinal-marijuana growers who harvest another one of Mendo’s quasi-legalized cash crops. Pick up one of the Boontling dictionaries sold in all the local delis and gas stations in town so you'll know what to say if someone offers to buy you a horn.

Published on Nov 5, 2009 as a web exclusive.