Mount Harkness

From a hike up to where most of Desert Solitaire was published. After my absence from blogger, I'm having a difficult time getting something to post. This is a test.

Luck...

A walk with the dogs this morning. Swimming with the girls this afternoon. We went to a place on the middle fork of the Feather River--fifteen minutes away---along the canyon but still under the influence of the giant reservoir. Of course, it is a travesty that they flooded this canyon in order to provide water to southern California. Yet, it is there; might as well enjoy it.

Joni and I have lucked into settling in an undiscovered, little-known treasure of a very natural segment of California. The beauty is amazing.

Plans for some form of double occupancy floatation device (canoe, raft?) so that Joni and I can spend twenty years exploring the canyon.

Edwin Way Teale

While waiting for new tires for my car, I dropped into a used bookstore that is going out of business. Twenty-five cents a book!

And so I picked up a bunch of enviro classics: an old book by Paul Hawken where Paul looks like a very young Preppy from the early 80's; A couple copies of A Sand County Almanac; some old Sierra Club books on wilderness (from those halcyon days of the early 70's) written by David Brower. And the book above on taking a daily walk by a naturalist I've never heard of before. This is a guy who wrote about taking a daily walk in 1978.

I guess I'm not original. Different generations strike the same themes all over again. Ed Abbey borrows from Joseph Wood Krutch who borrowed from Thoreau. In a sense, there is nothing wrong with that. The classics need to be updated for ever newer generations.

Waiting for the car to be fixed, I opened A Sand County Almanac and read how Aldo Leopold despised consumerism. In 1948. Geese, give me the problems of 1948 instead of the ones of 2011. What would Aldo think now?

Democrat Petting Zoo

Down to Chico today to sit at the Butte County Democratic Party's booth at the fair. I sat across from a guy giving a cooking demonstration (the indoor grill). Across the way, a couple were selling hats. Since it is unusually cold and I had the first shift, I wasn't too busy. Just a few polite people dropped by to buy bottled water (which I really wasn't too happy about selling--but then again, this is the Democratic Party and not the Green Party).

The information was appropriately lefty enough for me to feel comfortable sitting there. "Medicare for All" and" Bring the Troops Home" signs. We also had some information on the State Bill which advocates a single payer system in California (it has a good chance of becoming law).

What we didn't have was a sign up list. No e-mail list. No flyers for our monthly meetings. No upcoming actions. No information on the Neanderthal Congressman Wally Herger or the Climate Denier State Assemblyman Dan Logue. Nothing to get the people fired up; nothing to get people connected to the party in this most Republican of Districts.

In short, I felt like an exhibit in a museum. "And here is a living, breathing Democrat--an endangered species around here. Note the pony tail." Joni called the booth a "Democrat Petting Zoo". Only they didn't feed the animal.

Next year we will do a better job.

Socked In...

Had a relapse of this powerful bug which has kept me confined to the Monastic Dorm for a couple of days. Days of watching, endlessly on CNN, the crises in Japan.

Nuclear meltdowns aren't as frightening as they once were. I guess Chernobyl and TMI desensitized us to the dangers of irradiation. Estimates on the deaths resulting from Chernobyl range from a low of 4,000 to a high of nearly one million. The problem is that it is very difficult to establish a causal link between the specific event and cancers that show up thirty years later.

All in all, watching CNN's reporting on the disaster, it has become apparent that CNN is not the news network they once were. They seem timid and young (without any youthful fresh ideas or creative approaches to reporting). And to make up for the lack of decent reporting, they seem to have cornered the market on reporter's with English accents. Is this supposed to heighten the self-esteem of the network?

New Clairvaux Vineyard And The Famous Unknown Writer

Down the canyon on Thursday.

On Friday, Joni and I went with the Abbot and his wife to check out a restaurant in Vina and also to explore a monastery. The monks make wine there. We had fun investigating a 12th century chapel they are building on the grounds. William Randolph Hearst brought the chapel over from Spain in pieces many years ago. The unfortunate thing is that they lost the plans as to how to put the pieces back together. So when the monks aren't making wine, they are busy trying to figure out how to reassemble the chapel. Blocks sitting around; a big jig saw puzzle.

The wine is unbelievably good. I've tasted other wines from this region--most aren't good enough to put on salad. The monks were smart enough to hire a top notch winemaker. The brothers grow the grapes (barbera, some Spanish reds and a couple of whites) on the Sacramento Valley floor. This is not an area known for raising wine grapes.

But they pull it off. We will have the bottle in the photo above with dinner tonight (rib eyes on the grill to boot).

Today, a short walk with the dogs.

I've been invited to give my first speech as a writer to Butte College students (for you Packer fans, that is where Aaron Rodgers played his first two years of college football). I'll be talking to a class of writers on the challenges of being a Famous Unknown Writer. I've been invited by Jaime O'Neill (around here, the most Famous Known Writer), who writes for scads of publications, including the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

So I get to address the college crowd wearing a radical t-shirt, blue jeans and hiking boots. Scratch another entry off the bucket list.

At the Mall (Again)

Twice within a week.

I took two nine year old girls, a soon-to-be eleven year old girl and a one soon-to-be twelve year old girl to the Mall today. Shopping. After having not set foot in a Mall for years, I now have done it twice in one week. This is a pattern that, I hope, will stop soon.

I let the two older girls wander off to explore the Mall. Good Concow children; they rarely visit the artificial consumeristic world of the Indoor Mall. Kylie wanted her haircut. Did that (quite short). One of Kylie's friends came back with a pair of artificial fangs. She likes them. Makes her teeth look big.

I took the two smaller ones on an exploration of J.C. Penney, Foot locker and a bunch of other places looking for shoes. Boots, really. Jazzy finally settled on a pair of psychedelic slip on sneakers at Vans. Bought them.

I was proud of Kylie when she told her friends we should eat at "In and Out" burgers: "They have fresh food, not frozen like those other restaurants---and they try to get the food from local suppliers", she said. Good girl. And so Taco Bell (or Taco Smell, as we call it) was canned---and the fresh burger place was what was chosen. Burgers, Fries, Shakes for all!

We had fun riding the escalator up, then around and through the household furnishings of J.C. Penney, only to ride the escalator down again. Repeat six times.

A security guard looked at me with a quizzical look on his face on about our fifth trip.

So was it a lot of walking? Yes. Try following two enthusiastic nine year olds at the Mall. They act like Sailors on Liberty.

An idea: Malls should have a place where you can stop and get a shot of something strong (whiskey, tequila) while shopping. It'd make the whole experience a bit more pleasant. Locate them right next to the Orange Julius or the Sbarro.

But it was a good day. A day to be savored.

With Che' at the Mall

Joni had some doctoring to do in Yuba City today, so I went along for the entertainment value. While Joni filled out forms and did the obligatory waiting, I took a walk to the Mall.

Yuba City and its sister city, Marysville, has not done very well over the last few years. They have amongst the highest unemployment rates in California. They also have a stratospheric housing foreclosure rate. These two cities are an hour from Sacramento, so during the housing boom, scads of really, really ugly houses were built by shabby builders--selling the houses at (what was then) an affordable half million dollars a piece. Our State Representative, Minority Whip and yoko climate change denier (author of Prop 23), Dan Logue, made his money with his real estate business that sold these ugly cookie cutters to unfortunate people that were told that "housing values never go down".

The bottom fell out of the economy and Dan Logue moved forty miles north to Chico. He is one of the few people left with a steady job, taking State benefits, while regaling state regulations and plotting ways to debunk science.

But I digress.

I haven't stepped foot in a mall in years. This mall is smallish as far as malls go; just three department stores connected by the obligatory corridors of consumption. I didn't recognize many of the stores. The place was empty.

A few Goth teenagers bandied about (Goths make me nervous). A few of the Goths mixed with, what must be a rural Sacramento Valley phenomena: teenagers in wrangler jeans and wearing cowboy hats (cowboys make me nervous too).

Let's explore this place.

As I said, the stores were mostly unfamiliar. They seemed to be catering to mostly teenagers. Obey Propaganda T-shirt stores and other trinket selling places of teenagerdom. Spencers (a store I remembered from my youth) was still selling Beatles Posters. Yes! But they also were selling some very risque lingerie. This was an innovation that I don't remember Spensers selling thirty years ago.

You can tell that this country is slipping into barbarism by the absence of bookstores in malls. The Yuba City Mall doesn't have a bookstore in it; I don't believe this is because of Amazon. Nope. I just don't think people read anymore.

Not convinced we are slipping into barbarism yet? Here's another hint: the Yuba City Mall has a Yuba City Police Officer Station located within it. Is this meant to deter the Goth Teenagers hanging around, looking like they might pull out an Uzi at any minute? Or is crime so common now that the Mall is the perfect place to report a break in, while you head off to a shop to replace the item stolen? I don't know; I don't like it.

I stopped at a T-shirt store. Most of the T-Shirts were promoting gang type items: NorCal (which must be a gang) and Biker themes.

When I was in Costa Rica last January, I had some time to kill in a market in Buenes Aires. I wanted to buy a Che' Guevara T-shirt there, cause, well, I was in Latin America and it seemed to be the thing to do. I did find one, but had too difficult of a time trying to figure out how to wrangle for the shirt. Plus a drunken guy was following me and I didn't feel like accessing my money belt. So I didn't buy it.

At the T-shirt store in Yuba City, they were selling a Che' T-shirt. I bought it. Seemed fitting somehow. Why?

Because malls have become such empty places (literally and figuratively) that a bit of Revolutionary Fervor just might be the remedy. Yes, Che' promoted violence. But, at the same time, he has now reached almost Sainthood status. And Latin America has benefited from their leftward turn. Literacy rates are up; life expectancy is up; hunger is down; in short, there has been a vast improvement in the lives of poor people in Central and South America where experiments in socialism have taken root. The people are benefiting with almost no recognition of the fact in the United States.

I'll wear my T-shirt with pride.

The 7th Rib...

My ribs and I went to Paradise today to visit the doctor. I explained my history to the MD. I explained how my friend had hugged me, squeezed me and lifted me off the ground. I explained all the snapping sounds when this happened.

The doctor, who introduced himself as "Brian", smiled and quipped that my football career "is probably over". So we had the x-rays done only to show what I had expected: A fractured 7th rib. He wrote a note for me to be on "light duty" at work and also provided a script for my favorite opiates and muscle relaxers. If you are gonna have a broken rib, it is best done while in a medicated fog.

Since my job doesn't recognize a "light duty" status, I could be off work for six weeks.

Afterwards, I wandered the shelves of my favorite used bookstore. Splurged on buying a two dollar copy of "The Snow Leopard" by Peter Matthiessen.

Days 341 and 342: Oroville Brewery...

During this unusually long, early rainy spell, our generator's rip cord died. Had to go to Oroville to the Honda dealer to get it fixed. Which, of course, meant a five hour wait.

So I walked around this town which has hints of greatness to it. "Never marry a potential" a wise person once told me (I did it anyway---yet another personal disaster!). Oroville is much like that: full of potential. If I had enough money, I'd buy the entire downtown and wait for Bioregionalism and New Urbanism to win the day.

Walking around the town, I enjoyed the wonderful turn-of-the-last-century architecture that just calls out for restoration. Instead the buildings either sit empty or have tattoo parlors in them. Such a waste!

Time for a beer.

The new brewery sits in the old depot building that was built in 1910. Unfortunately, it was turned into a restaurant in 1979---meaning that the restoration of this building was done during a time when American architecture was starting to go into its dark period (and still hasn't emerged). Stucco on the outside. The inside has hints of greatness--but the restoration 70's style does its very best to hide it.

The beer is uncannily good. Much better than Chico's famous Sierra Nevada, which is much too hoppy for my tastes. I had an adequate sandwich and sat next to the railroad tracks and watched a freight train ramble through. Ten feet from the tracks with a beer in hand is a good way to watch a freight train.

Passenger service to Oroville stopped in the early 70's. I look forward to the day this starts again. You could catch a train through the Feather River canyon and the Sierra, all the way to Salt Lake City. It will happen again.

Day 305: Take Karl Marx Trick or Treating...

Joni's back has been giving her a bit of pain lately, so it was up to me to take the girls out trick or treating last night. To annoy Kylie and her ten year old sensibilities, I put on my farmer's overalls and wore a bandanna on my head.

"I have a reputation to uphold you know", Kylie pleading with me NOT to look like a Geek. Undeterred we headed out; letting my Geek Flag Fly!

Down to Oroville. We were accompanied by a couple of Jazzy and Kylie's friends. I've never been trick or treating in Oroville before. We spied a neighborhood consisting of those McMansions. You know, those absolutely huge ugly monster houses with a wooden front door, a small bit of yard and two or three garage doors that stare at the street and three or four thousand square feet to do your (totally) inside living. A cul de sac of the obnoxious domiciles.

Ding dong. No answer. Next house.

Ding dong. No answer. On to the next house.

Ding dong. No answer. On to the next house.

Evidently, this group of McMansions doesn't participate in giving candy to "off the grid" kids (or any kids for that matter).

And so we moved on down the hill to a neighborhood of simple, cottage type houses. And not nice cottages--but the kind that look more like fancy trailers. Shabby construction. The houses had, at most, 1,200 square feet.

But the neighborhood was alive!

Many of the residents sat in their garage-less driveways (most just had a roof over their cars with no walls)---having a fire in a fire pit or just sitting there shooting the crap with neighbors as they gave candy to hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of children. Some had turned their houses into makeshift "haunted houses" adults taking great delight in walking around with fake blood on their faces and knives sticking out of their backs; handing out candy that took money from them that might better have been spent on food for their own families.

This was an event! A time of sharing! A time of caring!

Juxtapose this barely lower middle-class neighborhood with the dead folks at the top of the hill and you can see just how much the class war of the last thirty years has left the rich vacuous, lifeless and soul-less. No wonder they argue so vehemently to not have the Government raise taxes on them by a mere three percent. Shame on them!

And so I drove to work thinking about this Marxian experience. And thinking about the election tomorrow. I took a walk with the clients today. Most poor; living on the handouts of SSI and living in drab board and cares that hand out peanut butter sandwiches for lunch while walking away with the majority of the client's social security checks.

If all goes as expected, the House of Representatives will be a Republican stronghold tomorrow. We will see an influx of Congressmen and women who think that climate change is a hoax. And most of this because Obama decided to attempt to get health insurance for the 15 percent who do not have such. That was the straw that broke the Middle Classes back: spending money on others less fortunate than them. Never mind that there wasn't any anger about spending trillions of dollars on war. No! We need the oil! We need the revenge! Money well spent.

No--it was spending money on the poor that pissed off the middle class and the upper classes to the point that (like those McMansions) they decided that the social contract does not include help for the poor, the depressed, the less fortunate, the mentally ill, those in despair, the ragged people, the immigrants, the uneducated, the drug addicted. Let them die. Lazy scum--they deserve their poverty. We can't even tell them to get a job anymore because the jobs have all been shipped overseas.

The poorest people I know are those who have all the money.

Day 216: An Adobe House Field Trip

A field trip with my daughter. We drove down to Red Bluff to investigate the last Adobe structure remaining in northern California. This house is made of mud bricks (mud and straw); has been standing since 1852. My camera's battery died while looking at the inside of the house (which was simple but beautiful). The temperature outside was in the high 90's; inside the house, it was lots cooler. Bearable even.

The plaster on the house is of lime from a local quarry. Lime plasters aren't mandatory; they do help the house last longer. The other alternative is just to apply more mud plaster every couple of years.

Too bad this sort of simple eco-friendly housing has been abandoned. It is cool in the summer. Warm in the winter. It has an earthen beauty and simplicity to it. The house exudes a sense of place (local dirt, local straw). Someday, when we finally bulldoze all that crap housing that we've built over the last seventy years, perhaps houses like this will become the norm.

The oak tree outside the house is 350 years old (according to the State Park Ranger who showed us around). I've never seen a bigger oak tree in California.

I leave this State Park depressed. Depressed that such beautiful, practical housing has been swept aside by the likes of the Home Depot Industrial Complex. I long for simpler times. Will I live long enough to see it happen?

Day 198: A New Canyon

On a hot day, we explored a new canyon (we drove to the bottom). This is another branch of the Feather River. We ventured to a new swimming hole.

And later that night, celebrated a birthday...22!!

Days 183, 184: Travel and Chains...

Cash coffers getting low, I picked up an extra shift last night. Drove to the Napa Valley, with the intention of working the shift last night, and then catching a talk by Jeffrey St. Clair and Josh Frank at the Socialism Conference 2010 in Oakland today. Sponsored by the Socialist Worker Newspaper, the people speaking at the conference are an eclectic mix of anarchists, socialists and other malcontents. An interesting bunch.

Got up this morning and overslept the Ferry to Oakland, so I drove home; skipped the conference.

I commute 165 miles to work. One way. Soon I will be doing this weekly. I'm not happy about the carbon impact of such long distance commuting. Thus far, I haven't found a way to avoid it. Gotta work where the work is.

The drive would make me nuts if it wasn't so gosh darned beautiful! And rural. I take the back roads across California. No cities to hazard through. Just the Northern Sacramento Valley and the Coastal Mountain Range.

My three hours plus on the road often corresponds to overlapping a meal time. All too often I've given in to the Burger Whop, Jack in the Jail sorts of places. Lately, I've decided to frequent the local diners instead.

The one below I stopped at today. I got an overpriced Tri Tip sandwich (which actually was quite good). This place (The Oasis) is on Highway 20 in the middle of nowhere.

It's a tourist trap.

But the fireplace is nice.

And the long deserted bar, a good place to relax...

Tonight we shall take a walk on the ridge. The mountain lion have been at it again. A visitor just told us some turkeys were snatched away the other night from a nearby property (once again I awoke to the pop of a pistol). I'm not sure livestock, poultry and wilderness mix.

As far as I'm concerned, we are guests on the mountain lion's property. Such losses are to be expected.

Day #27: The Homeless and Oroville...

Down to Oroville this morning. Once again, I got the time wrong for an appointment and had a couple hours to kill.

Walking around downtown Oroville, more shops are shuttered. Seems that about half of the businesses in this beautiful downtown are closed. Quite a few more than the last time I walked down here. Too bad really. Oroville has a quaint downtown that dates from the late 1800's. It is the sort of place where the Intelligentsia would love to sit and have a cup of coffee. Which I did.

Then off to Oroville's new Riverbend park. Again, another great place for the area's increasing Homeless population to wile away a few hours. Lots of people hanging out after having spent the night sleeping in their cars. You can tell by the pillows, blankets and sleeping bags visible in the rear seats of the autos. The park boasts an item that is harder and harder to find in our cities: a public bathroom. For a homeless person, the chance to potty and wash up in peace-- is a gift.

I sit here at the Public Library which is open for six hours today. I got here in time to wait in line for the place to open. Half the Folks had alcohol on their breath, as I waited with twenty other Folks for (again) one of the last places where you can be in Public for free. All the Computers are quickly snatched up. Looking around I see a few folks checking out Job Sites.

I guess we always have to have a place for Simon and Garfunkel's "Ragged" people to go. But in this recession, the Ragged folks are more numerous...with many of us having fears we will join their ranks.

So what is Obama expected to do tonight? Put a cap on Public Spending for Medicare, Medicaid and Food Stamps. All the while, the biggest Piggy in the Public Trough (The Department of Defense) doesn't get a hit to their budget.

Nope. We have wars to wage. Meanwhile, the war on poverty is being lost. Look around: the evidence is all around us. How long must we put up with these misplaced priorities?

The Gateway Update: My hard drive is toast. Hopefully, the computer will be fixed by tomorrow.

Day #4: The Feather River Falls Hike

Today I invited along a young buck to make a trek with me. Time to see what kind of shape I am in for this Costa Rica adventure. JP and I hiked up to Feather River Falls. This falls is the fifth tallest in the United States. Rarely visited. The hike's description is that it is strenuous. I didn't find it too horrible.

Below is a 2,000 foot granite monolith, such as you would find in Yosemite.

Here I am with JP. JP runs "the Abbey". An experimental, Lutheran intentional community. He is into two things: The Emergent Church and a New Monasticism. JP is married, but lives simply with his family within this Abbey. They focus on health clinics for the poor and providing housing (and community) for those searching for a more authentic Christianity. For you Lutherans out there, JP is to have a cover story in an upcoming issue of "The Lutheran".

We get to the falls. This is the view downstream.

And the falls itself.

This is a fun hike. The trail is well maintained. There are idiot bars at the end to help prevent you from falling to your death.

This was a fine hike with this extraordinary young man. Nice to have a perspective from him regarding baby boomers, the emergent church, technology and living in simplicity.

Walk #319: At the Beach with Hunter...

The hippy dippy bakery...

Hunter--doing his best to look intelligent.

Allan. In Jenner, California. With hair...

My neck feels okay; my back is a little sore.

I met one of my psychiatric nursey friends for breakfast at 6:30 am. We then hopped into his car and drove to the ocean. We drove some back roads through Marin and Sonoma counties. Visited some Redwoods. Stopped at a hippy dippy bakery shop.

Hunter listened as I talked about being attacked. This felt like a warning sign: Get in shape Allan! Start taking better care of yourself!

We talked and walked at one of my favorite beaches near Jenner, California. Hunter was in an especially good mood.

Psychiatric Nurses, who are often times in dangerous situations armed with nothing but a bit of muscle and a needle, bond with one another. You learn to rely on each other. It takes years to develop such teamwork--and even when you no longer work at the same job together, the emotional attachments continue.

If you want to know whether a psychiatric unit is any good, ask one question to a nurse: "Do you like your colleagues?". If the answer is "yes"--more than likely that unit works well.

Walk #268: Good Bye to the Feather River Salmon...

I spent the day learning about our local salmon. Drove down to Oroville to attend the weekend festivities of the Salmon Festival. Salmon were once plentiful in the Feather River. The Festival has a street fair feel to it. People selling trinkets. One church was serving salmon at a reasonable price ($6 for a salmon fillet, potato salad and beans). I like festivals that celebrate the natural environment of a given region. We need more of that!

Thousands attended. There were Maidu Tribal folk doing a ceremony. Belly Dancers. Trinket sellers. Even Tupperware distributors.

I spent a couple of hours walking around, and ducked into the local museum to have a look (it was free today). The Pioneer Museum in Oroville had quite a beautiful collection of items. One photo of a Sugar Pine amazed me, a whole family lined up around the (at least) ten foot diameter tree.

And in a corner of the basement of the museum, this photo of Oroville's most famous resident: Ishi.

But I was there for the panel discussion on the fate of the Feather River Salmon. Four experts lined up to talk for two hours regarding the demise of (what once was) the area staple. Of the thousands outside who attended the street fair, I counted 46 people who actually wanted to hear about the salmon (including the panel discussion leaders). Sad.

The salmon population in the Feather River has gone down by 80 percent in the last 7 years. Since 1966 we have seen a decline of nearly 95 percent. What are the culprits?

1. Dams. This caused both a barrier for the salmon to spawn and also changed the stream flow. Salmon need wide rivers that flood periodically. Dams changed that so now we can build McMansions right up to the river. The monstrous Oroville Dam (completed in 1966, the year the salmon population plunged to near extinction levels) did away with 75 percent of the salmon's habitat.

2. Invasive fish...brought in by sports folks who would rather catch a bass than a trout.

3. Overfishing in the ocean. Hopefully this will no longer be a factor, as salmon fishing has been outlawed south of Eureka, California.

At the end of the seminar, I asked an expert what dam removal would do for the salmon population? He said, "That would be the best thing...it would solve 80 percent of the problems".

He went on to elaborate: "But it isn't politically feasible. Everyone needs water". During the lecture he was sure to state that agriculture deserves it's water.

But do they really need Sixty percent of the Delta drainage systems water? That is how much they use. In the meantime, we trade the extinction of six species of salmon in the Feather River so that we can ship almonds to Minnesota. That is not worth it, in my view. Shame on us..

And counterproductive. Without the conveyor belt of salmon, who bring nutrients from the ocean to the soils of the Delta Valley, our fruits and vegetables will lose their taste. Even the wines of Sonoma and Napa depend upon dying salmon for part of their flavor.

Tear down the dams. Conserve water. Change agricultural practices. Will that message ever be heard?

Walk #267: The Feather River Bike Trail--Oroville

Brought our older car into the car doctor today. Seeing as I had around five hours to kill, I took a three hour hike around Oroville. Specifically, the Feather River Nature Bike Trail. Here is the Feather River Nature Center (in an old bath house from 1935). Closed, in these lean times:

I didn't see any bikes on the bike trail. I did see three cars. I didn't see any snakes, as this sign warns:

Oroville has done something right, I am happy to announce! When they had to replace this bridge, they left it up as a pedestrian and bike bridge:

Very few users of the bike trail on this 98 degree Fahrenheit day. There were four covered picnic areas along the bike trail. Three of them were being used by high school students smoking pot. Here is one of them:

A duplicate photo. How do I know they were smoking pot? Well, there are little information signs next to the picnic areas. I had to read them. My nose can still sniff out cannabis:

I hiked up to one dam:

And then the next. From here the water is diverted into channels for agricultural use. A small amount of water gets to continue on as the Feather River:

The sign where the bike trail portion of my hike ended:

Oroville has done a good job with this trail. The only users today (in the high heat of the day) were yours truly and around a dozen pot smoking high school students.

Walk #230: Chico...A Walk on the Old Highway

Took my new Yaris in for its 5,000 mile(!) check up. My cars get more check ups than I do. Since the wait was two hours, I took a two hour walk on the "old highway" into Chico.

Most towns of 90,000 souls or so, have an old way into town. Highway expansion and freeways have made the "old" highways into just city streets. Still, these old roads are almost always interesting. Pure Americana (what is left of it, since the franchises and corporations have taken over).


This $50,000 500 series BMW has a "peace" bumper sticker. An example of what conservative columnist David Brooks calls: "Bobos". Bohemian Upscale Yuppies. Chico likes to think it is a "green" community...hence the bike racks on the Bobos car.

I couldn't resist. Stopped in for a burger and a malt. Anything non-corporate is worth supporting.

Sierra Nevada beer is made in Chico. There are signs for it everywhere.

Jeffrey St. Clair would say companies like this is part of the problem. Fire suppression has destroyed the natural order of the west--and has created larger, tree stand replacing fires. Tree studies show that fire prone areas (such as where I live) should be burned over every 7 to 14 years. Anti-environmentalists always tout "fuel reduction" which means logging. They take out the large trees and don't bother with the under growth, which is what normally burns in a normal fire. Fuel reduction gets it backwards....

An old nut factory. Being a psychiatric nurse, I couldn't resist the photo...

This is a coffee house. I got there too late to stop in and ask about what the name means. I'm thinking it has something to do with the Spanish explorer.

This was a hot, hot walk. Having not showered for awhile, I looked like a homeless person walking the streets of Chico. People gave me wide berths. Way, way for the leper!!