We’re in the town of Visalia for the night as we end our Oregon and Northern California roadtrip. I haven’t been in Visalia since 1981 other than to pass through on one motorcycle trip I took a dozen years ago. We are staying overnight here in Visalia because it was too damn far to drive from Nevada City to home, especially since we have to drop off Gary & Oswaldo in West Hollywood on our…
Today Kim and I with Gary & Oswaldo head south out of Oregon and into the gold rush area of California that lies to the north and east of Sacramento. Frank tells me that every Fourth Grader in California has to take an obligatory show & tell trip into the gold rush area to see where the state got its origins and a lot more. Statehood came to California in 1850 as a direct result…
American Meadows is my wildflower seed purveyor of choice. They are a company that is located in Shelburne, Vermont on the banks of Lake Champlain and they have become a dominant purveyor of wildflower seeds in the country. Now let’s get serious here, among seed companies, Bayer (as in the aspirin people that bought Monsanto a few years ago) is still the 800 pound gorilla of seeds, but that is mostly general seeds for commercial…
I was just spent my first night in Portland, Oregon, the city that has a distinct reputation for being a liberal enclave and being the place where a lot of Black Lives Matter riots occurred after the George Floyd incident. I’m sure the Portland natives wouldn’t like the place that Portland occupies in my mind even though I am a liberal guy. I’m also sure that there is a lot more to Portland than one…
We thought our ride through Northern California along the coast and into Oregon would be an easy driving day. We failed to figure in the road renovation delays…and they were all over the place today. I’ve done this drive before, but I’d forgotten just how much primeval forrest we had to traverse and the delays this time over the rivers and through the woods were epic. Our first big stop after Ft. Bragg was Arcata,…
We have been to Mendocino a number of times now, which is pretty impressive for a town that only boasts a population of 900. Don’t get me wrong, its a pleasant town and a beautiful piece of coastline, but as was pointed out to me on one of my last visits, its 60 miles from the nearest Walmart, which makes it one of the most remote spots in the lower 48 states. We don’t actually…
We have traveled through the Central Coast of California quite regularly over.the past 18 years. For some reason, we enjoy driving up and down this 840 mile state coastline more than we like driving lots of other places. People drive down the East coast of America too, but that seem to be focused on getting to Florida and perhaps mostly to get to Disneyworld, and just pass through the places in between, Not unlike the…
We are in a very tentative place as a world right now. More so than normal and in more ways than normal. The bright spot seems to be the general economy as reflected in the fiscal numbers ranging from growth to inflation to unemployment, not to mention the daily record-setting in the stock market. I don’t mean to understate or ignore that entire piece of good news, but what we all understand these days is…
Last night, while Iran was planning its second flight of ballistic missiles aimed at Israel (luckily mostly blunted by Iron Dome) and Benjamin Netanyahu was being the ultimate Middle East Hawk by orchestrating ground incursions into Lebanon to root out the bits of Hezbollah that they have not decimated over the last month and simultaneously threatening Iran with brisk retaliation for their direct missile assaults, we had the Vice Presidential debate. The contrast of the…
I have written before about my extended family by virtue of my father’s multiple marriages and dalliances over his life. By last count there are nine of us siblings with six females and three males. I am the oldest of the males…at least as far as I know. That’s the thing about my father, you can never really be sure because owning up to his parental obligations was simply not a high priority to him.…