{"id":643,"date":"2015-06-25T17:34:15","date_gmt":"2015-06-25T21:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.Sarcastic-Travels.com\/?p=643"},"modified":"2015-06-25T17:34:15","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T21:34:15","slug":"california-the-long-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sarcastic-travels.com\/california-the-long-way\/","title":{"rendered":"California the Long Way"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Our latest trip took us back to my home state, California. As most everyone knows, California is a big place and we explored a good deal of the state from north to south. Over the course of 12 days we logged over 1,400 miles and never once left the state, although we came pretty close to Nevada. We moved from orchards and fields to volcanoes to ski resorts to deserts and major metropolises as well. There is something for every taste and every adventure in the Golden State provided you have a significant amount of time and a taste for the open, and often lonely, road.<\/p>\n
We started our journey, as almost always, with a drive from our home north of Atlanta to the Hartsfield-JACKSON International Airport<\/a>. There is a tempest in a teapot<\/a> brewing in Atlanta about some sources abbreviating the full name of the Atlanta airport to Hartsfield. Most reasonable people suspect this is done for the sake of brevity, and in some cases because it was long known as Hartsfield before the Jackson part was added. But, because this is Georgia, and Atlanta, and ultimately the United States, because Mr. Hartsfield<\/a> was a white man and Mr. Jackson<\/a> was a black man then when someone drops the Jackson it must become an issue of race. Personally, I seriously doubt most people ever stop long enough to consider who the airport is named for or that it is named for anyone in particular, much less make racist decisions about what they call the airport. But some will see racism in any act that doesn’t favor the minority, and I have to wonder at what point that act, in and of itself, becomes racism directed in the unusual direction. I do love to muse upon the imponderable.<\/p>\n As I write this, the roof on our house is being replaced due to wind damage which is common in the Southeast. And as I observe the workmen, I have to wonder who the immigration hawks think does this sort of work. For I assure you that the only language being spoken up there is Spanish and that there is nary a white, black, or any other “race” up there aside from the “White\/Latino” group so loved by the Census and reviled by those who are expected to check the box. Of course, I am sure if we eliminated all immigration that SOMEONE would still replace my roof, but in what time frame, at what cost, and with what absurd labor\/environmental codes and fees applied. Just wondering. I do wish they would ask to use the bathroom instead of trying to hide back in the trees, but I guess we don’t get everything we wish for.<\/p>\n We flew out of Atlanta into Sacramento <\/a>on one of the two daily non-stops Delta Airlines<\/a> offers. They also service Sacramento from Minneapolis <\/a>(2), Salt Lake City<\/a> (5), Seattle <\/a>(4), and LAX <\/a>(5). All told, there are about 18 daily flights in and out of Sacramento with Delta and I was surprised that traffic is so dense, but it served us well, arriving at around 11:30am after a slightly over 4 hour flight. Hertz <\/a>didn’t have the car we requested so we ended up with a Dodge Charger<\/a> that we couldn’t wait to dump, which Tim was able to do in Chico, much to their delight because college students, apparently, love their Chargers. Who knew that Hertz rented to college students and that said students liked Dodge. You learn something every day.<\/p>\n We ended up in Chico<\/a>, which is a perfectly pleasant mid-sized city in northern California with a state university<\/a> providing the backbone of the cultural life while agribusiness makes up the largest part of the economy outside of the school and its support institutions. But we were there for family reasons. Chico is embedded in my family life because my Dad spent his teen years there, my Mom went to college there, met and married my Dad there, and I used to visit my grandparents there every summer for years. Later, my sister would choose to go to college there and has come full circle back to the city of her birth as the Superintendent of the schools. We had arranged to visit my sister along with my parents for a sort of informal family reunion to coincide with my parents wedding anniversary (52) along with an early Father’s Day.<\/p>\n Despite the best laid plans, life intervenes and it turned out that my sister and her husband were in the midst of pulling up most of the flooring in their house so it could be replaced, a scheduling event that was completely unforeseen. It didn’t bother me a bit because I grew up in a house that was constantly under renovation so it all seemed perfectly normal to me. My sister had kindly arranged or suggested lots of activities for our stay so we knew all the options to be enjoyed. However, after a day that started at 2:30am California time, we were pretty well exhausted upon arrival so opted for food from a nearby taco truck that features amazing food completely unlike anything we can buy in Georgia and an early fall into bed.<\/p>\n The next day we would drive out to the small town of Vina to visit the Abbey of New Clairvaux<\/a> which features a winery. The Abbey is home to Cistercian <\/a>monks who originated in Kentucky<\/a>, although the order itself is French. My Mom and I don’t drink wine but Tim and my father do, so we wandered a bit about the grounds, carefully avoiding creating any temptation for the monks who might not be used to women. Mom was able, unsurprisingly, to learn a good deal about one of the monks and the others at the Abbey. Apparently the monastic life now attracts the very old and the very desperate, perhaps not mutually exclusive, with the newest members coming from sub-Saharan Africa, ostensibly for religious reasons but I suspect an element of economic refugee status is involved as well. The religious orders, especially in the Middle Ages, were a secure source of shelter and food for their residents, so even if your faith wasn’t the strongest, your desire to eat and not freeze to death might provide quite adequate motivation. For women, it was about the only route in life that didn’t involve domestic drudgery, marital rape, and frequent and frequently dangerous pregnancy. I suspect those motives are still quite real for the nuns of today, most of whom originate in the Philippines or Africa, both places where the lives of women have not changed significantly from the Middle Ages indeed. I found the place to be physically attractive if a bit odd, as would be expected, in its social expectations and practices. I am sure they have all found ways to compensate for that which is denied them through other avenues. I am certain you can figure out exactly what I mean.<\/p>\n We stopped at another winery in the foothills on the return drive and it was of a more familiar and realistic tone. The bright and airy facility featured a great many works by local artists and the owners were dog lovers to boot. What wasn’t to love?<\/p>\n Another highlight attraction for me of Chico is the Hughes Hardwoods<\/a> store located just minutes from my sister’s front door. They mainly deal in fine flooring but they also stock a decent selection of exotic hardwood lumber. Dad and I split the purchase of some bubinga, redheart, zebrawood, and paduak. All of it will turn into quite nice bowls and platters between the two of us. Tim and I also enjoyed shopping for some local food stuff, especially almonds, but we would also feast on cherries, plums, strawberries and blackberries, all from local producers before we left. Treats brought to me from home included several cases of olives <\/a>and multiple pounds of beef jerky<\/a> brought to me from Porterville via my Dad.<\/p>\n On the family side of the equation, both my sister and her husband had to work on our first two days in town and they also had to devote some time to the process of removing the flooring. Despite that, however, the evenings were ours and we had a gorgeous dinner downtown to celebrate my parents’ anniversary one night and also had time outside on the patio when it was no longer mercilessly hot to just chat. And ultimately, my sister had arranged for a boat outing on Lake Almanor<\/a> for the Sunday afternoon with rooms at a rustic motel for the night.<\/p>\n While Tim and I appreciated the thought and effort put into the boat concept we both had our reservations about spending six or so hours afloat on a small boat. For Tim’s part, he sunburns in about five minutes and hates the pain and inconvenience of that, to say nothing of the skin cancer risk. I was concerned when I discovered that the boat featured no bathroom facilities and I just wasn’t comfortable with hanging it over the side, so to speak, family or not. Besides, life on multiple medications is, shall we say, unpredictable and while the boat could be returned to the dock if necessary, I know from humiliating experience that sometimes an additional minute is just too long. So, while we felt pretty guilty about it, we ultimately chose to forgo the boat run and instead drove up northeast to Lassen Volcanic National Park.<\/p>\nRoofing Digression<\/h2>\n
Sacramento Arrival<\/h2>\n
Chico Personal History<\/h2>\n
New Floors<\/h2>\n
Abbey of New Clairvaux<\/h2>\n
Hughes Hardwoods<\/h2>\n
Family Time<\/h2>\n
A Day on A Boat?<\/h2>\n
Mount Lassen<\/h2>\n