More from the sunny Central Valley

Written: Saturday, March 1st – Hilmar, CA

We’re off to find more cheese, we just left a little dutch shop that specializes in Gouda. Today we’ve been wandering around on old farm back roads. There’s lots of small farms here with little shack homes. It’s so different from the large farm houses you see in the northern States and in Canada.

2:30pm – Atwater, CA

California is mini-Mexico. I love the cultural diversity & hearing all the accents. It’s common to see large crowds of Mexicans standing on street corners here, waiting for work, for the day… whoever may need a day labourer. It really makes you wonder how someone can support themselves let alone a family without steady work?

There are houses for sale everywhere - ‘Foreclosed’. When we talk to people around here they say you can sense the desperation in people. There are lots of people out on the street, staying in state parks, sorting out what the heck to do with their families after losing their homes or jobs. Also, one hundred and fifty state parks will be closed by September next year, because of lack of funding. I guess that’s the price of funding the war on terror combined with life spent living on credit.


3:00pm

Well we just ran out of gas. It was kind of funny because neither of us were all that fazed. When the car went dead in the middle of the highway, Geoff simply turned the key off, and casually looked over and said “oh, we’re out of gas…”, said like you’d say “oh, the neighbors are having a yard sale.”

4:00pm
Speaking of yard sales… once we were fueled up and back on the road, we went to a couple. They were in these tiny Hispanic neighborhoods with little stray dogs and kids (not stray) everywhere. I don’t think these are the kind of yard sales that are very well attended. They’re full of overpriced crappy gadgets that look like they were pulled from a dumpster in 1970, and old really old clothing too. I feel bad for these people so I bought a package of dusty ‘key turners’ for a dollar. Also, Geoff has decided that he wants to steal the street dog, and name it Atwater after the town we stole it from…either that or Arfie.

4:30pm

The Almond trees are in full blossom here, and the highways are lined with brilliant wildflowers! We can see the High Sierra mountains of Yosemite to our left. Oh what a beautiful day.

Written: Sunday, March 2nd – Fresno, CA

Went to the University Presbyterian Church, it was nice, they gave us cookies. Took a Sunday drive to Clovis for lunch, had sausage, cheese and beer (James was right - Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is the greatest) all this was followed by a delightful nap. This is the life. Don't worry Dad, I'll eat vegetables with dinner, and stop being so lazy tomorrow.

Written: Tuesday, March 4th – Fresno, CA

It’s Geoff’s 25th birthday today and we’re at Millerton State Recreation Area north of Fresno. Geoff wanted to get away from the city and spend his b-day in Nature. This place is beautiful, a birding hot spot, we’ve pulled out our birding books but there is just too many I don’t know where to begin. We stopped after we id the White-capped Sparrows that hop around our campsite. For today I feel the need to just BE and enjoy the sunshine, the peaceful nature of this place and my fantastic husband on his 25th birthday. To celebrate, we cracked open ‘Firma’, a red wine from California’s Jewel Collection. I’m enjoying a glass right now… actually so is a little bug, can’t say that I blame him. Actually I think he’s drowning.

Today we slept in, did some laundry. We had baths out of the icy water tap on our site. It was quite the site and actually very difficult to have a shower with your clothes on. There are showers here, but they use quarters and of course we don’t have any. There aren’t many people here anyway and we have the place to ourselves. I love it here. I love the gnarly oak trees and abundant birds, the van with her top popped up and the food, the gin and wine, burgers and homemade salsa. There are cows here too, and coyotes. They howl into the night. They’ve started already even though the sun hasn’t set. The cows go crazy too. Last night we had to listen to a mad cow moo into the night a cross between being in heat/labor/and having your baby calf stolen by coyotes. I hope she’s ok tonight. Last night we also had a visit from the local raccoon as he broke into our garbage. I decided, instead of fighting and hiding it all away, he could have it. I mean, I’m just throwing the crap out to sit in a landfill and he’s just going to climb in my garbage can anyways. So I took our garbage out of the can a spread it on the ground by a big tree. I think he liked his dinner of ribs, I also gave him a piece of bread and cheese. And named him Rocky. It was all gone in the morning and he didn’t bother us at all in the night. Yes, I shouldn’t feed the wildlife, and it is unnatural that raccoons eat out of trash cans, not from the wild, like they’re supposed to… but humans aren’t any better. Rocky and I are actually a lot more alike then I’d like to admit – both strangers to the ways of the wild.


Written: Wednesday, March 5th – Fresno, CA

Today we packed up camp after a delish breakfast of eggs and toast. It was nice to take the time to clean out the van, organize the cupboards and wash the moldy mattress upstairs (don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds) We went for a hike too to the top of buzzards lookout. All the different types of hawks were soaring about on the wind currants below us. Today we id’d an Acorn Woodpecker that is native only to this region! Pretty neat. I’ll have to come back here once I’m really serious about this birding thing because there are different species everywhere. That will have to of course wait until I get a big set of intimidating binoculars, and on of those khaki safari hats. Lunch today was our classic tuna and avocado sandwiches with cilantro. Everything we’ve been eating for the past two days has been with cilantro. All because I wanted some for the fresh salsa I made. It just comes in such large quantities. Tonight for dinner we had casserole with cilantro, tomorrow salad with cilantro.

On the way out of the park we took Della on her first off road trip. This picture doesn't look to impressive...but we were impressed.