Traipsing About California
Monday, July 10th - In the early evening we drove from my brother's place on Alameda Island in the Bay Area to Davis, about an hour inland to the northeast. I noted the mothball fleet at Suisun Bay which had been dozens of old Navy ships all moored up in lines when I was more regularly traveling that route 15 years ago, now was reduced to just three or four vessels.
Our first stop was noted Davis pizza place Woodstocks Pizza. Which... was not where I left it. It had just move down a few lots down the same block, though during Covid that street itself (G Street) had been turned into a pedestrian only street and from the looks of it may remain so.
Since we were getting the pizza to go, I led the way to the Davis Beer Shoppe across the street to get accompanying beverages. As remembered, they had a great selection. There were two delicious beers I wanted to get for $18 and $15 respectively but dad scoffed at the price so I was shamed into getting a cheaper but still delicious one. I was covetous to sneak back there and get them later but never got around to it, rather to my regret. Yes that's a high price when you're thinking beer like "bud light," but compared to a bottle of wine that's not outrageous and a beer of this quality is imo more than comparable to a good wine -- it's rarer, takes more skill to make and I like it a lot better.
The Mad River" one didn't excite me much but the other three! the one on the right is the one I got in the end
Anyway, we then proceeded to my aunt and uncle Ben and Bev's place. Inside the house it smelled vaguely of popcorn, which I didn't put together until the next morning, when Ben was talking about how he had roasted the coffee beans the night before -- he has a coffee roaster in the garage. They had already eaten but sat with us on their nice outdoor patio while we ate the delicious pizza. The Woodstocks pizza was indeed as delicious as I remembered, as was the beer I'd gotten.
Tuesday, July 11th - In the morning I checked off another eatery from my list. Met up with my friend Casey "the wizard" at Crepeville. Case tutors in physics and is rather a recognized character on campus due to his penchant for wearing capes and such, and hence commonly known to one and all as "the wizard." I had the "hawaiian crepe," a crepe stuffed with ham, pineapple, and teriyaki sauce. It is delicious.
While we were eating I noted yet more e-bikes go by. America seems to be in the grip of a plague of them! Casey mentioned that electric scooters have been around for awhile, but somehow that doesn't offend my notions of propriety the same way. A scooter is for hopping on and off and scooting about, it is fitting and inoffensive for it to be electric. But gosh darn bikes are meant to be gosh darn peddled!!
Around mid day my parents and I set out with uncle Ben to go on a short day hike a bit out of town at Lake Berryessa. As we were driving through town Ben told us about a shocking set of knife attacks that had occurred in Davis only two months ago at the end of April / beginning of May. Very sadly, the very first victim was a local Davis character known as "The Compassion Guy." The Compassion Guy, Davis Breaux had graduated from Stanford, but, to quote wikipedia "After a breakup with a girlfriend, Breaux became dejected and began "searching for inspiration", according to the New York Times.[1] He discovered the work of Karen Armstrong, who argued that "compassion was inherent to peace".[1] He gave away his possessions and moved to Davis in 2009.[1] Breaux typically carried a notebook with him, and asked passersby to contribute to it by writing their definition of compassion.[1] Local residents and workers at businesses in the area considered him "a communal therapist of sorts", according to the Times.[1] He was known as "the Compassion Guy"."
The knife murderer was a former UC Davis student who had been expelled just a day or two prior and murdered Breaux on the bench he was known to hang out around, already known as "the Compassion Bench" (I had noticed it and its current covering in flowers earlier on my way back from Crepeville).
While this crime was still unsolved and not yet known to be the beginning of a spree, two days later a promising young computer science student was attacked in a park, also with a large knife. One or more passersby intervened and chased off the attacker but the victim died of his severe wounds.
Two days later he attacked a homeless woman in her tent, she was wounded but she escaped and managed to call 911.
As you can imagine by now the whole little town was in fear. Apparently the suspect was sighted at one point but the police took over an hour to arrive at the location and by then he had walked off. Then he was sighted the next day near the park of the original attack, and once again the police took 40 minutes (this is a small town something of this priority should take mere moments) to arrive. The police have claimed they were inundated with erroneous tips at the time, which I'd imagine is somewhat true but it still seems like they should have been able to respond more quickly. Especially since something like 15 people called him in when sighted at this park before the police arrived. You'd think by the third or fourth call reporting someone matchign the description of the suspect at the same park he'd attacked at earlier the police would send someone pronto. I have a generally dim view of the Davis police due to their declining to do anything about some guys who jumped me in a park there in 2002 and left me unconscious, even though my own investigation came up with their names, where they worked and lived. But police said it was "just a fight." Knocked unconcious begad.
This all makes Davis sound really unsafe but I swear it really is a very peaceful little town it just has someone lose their marbles once every 20 years.
Anyway so we drove about an hour west and went on a hike up by Lake Berryessa (famously a site where the Zodiac Killer did some murders in 1969). It was a bit hot and dry, but it was fun because both mom and uncle Ben are pretty keen on identifying plants and animals.
We got back from that around maybe 14:30, hung out at Ben and Bev's place for a bit, but then were off again, to the swimming hole on the American River in Sacramento, about half an hour east of Davis.
Despite the temperature pushing 100f (38c), the river was very cold. Too cold for me! But dad went swimming, he's never deterred by cold water. I did wade out up to my knees. There were a number of other people wading about in the cold river as well. And we marveled that there were about two dozen lifejackets on the bank that appeared to be just there for people to use and no one had run off with them or recklessly tossed them in the river for the fun of it. Sadly it seems shocking that no member of the public was so badly behaved.
Back and Ben and Bev's that evening one by one more relatives got invited to dinner, until finally it was Ben and Bev, myself and my parents, Bev's mom (88, recently widowed), my cousin Chelsea (Ben & Bev's daughter), her husband and their two boys (10 & 12?); my cousin Sylvan (brother of the recently married Linnea), his girlfriend, and his mom Sherry (mother of the recently married Linnea). So it was about as many as sometimes one gets together for thanksgiving, though the dinner was much more simple. The primary entertainment was recounting the wedding, which we had all been at. Ben having been the "official photographer," with the nice DSLR and well and truly good photography skills, he showed us a slideshow of the photos he got after dinner. It reminded me of days of yore when the family would gather around for a slide show (actual slides!) of someone's vacation abroad.
Wednesday, July 12th - It was time to head back south! Except my brother Tobin had gone up to somewhere further in the foothills on the American River to camp with his son Kestrel, and we decided to go visit them there before heading back south. He was about an hour east of us near the town of Plymouth California. This is up in classic gold country, rolling rugged golden (with dry grass) hills covered in oak forest. Beautiful country. Through location sharing (on facebook?) we had a "last known location" for Tobin but kept coming up against locked gates and eventually gave up. As we'd find out later he was indeed actually behind one of these gates and there was a gate code, but at the time he'd gone out of cell phone range we hadn't yet resolved to go see him there and so this hadn't been communicated.
But it wasn't a waste because we saw some beautiful country we hadn't seen before, and we had stopped in a little mexican restaurant in a small town on the way that was actually really delicious.
Familiar drive down the length of California once we got back on The Five. When we stopped for gas at a place with a particularly large refrigerator of drinks I noticed some interesting ones I'd never seen before. What is "COca Cola Ultimate?" And "Dr Pepper Cream Soda?" I was curious about these but not in the mood for a soda at the time. And I noted Snapple has gone to a more rustic looking label?
Got caught in traffic in LA in which we were at nearly a standstill for an hour. Apparently there was an "officer involved accident" just ahead and the whole freeway was closed off while it was investigated. There was an exit cars could get off the highway on but it was totally insufficient for the volume of cars on the freeway and in the hour we only moved .5 miles. Then it was cleared all at once and we went on our way, arriving home around 10pm.
Thursday, July 13th - Most just relaxed at home. Got doughnuts this morning. Got doughnuts for breakfast (as mentioned earlier they don't really do doughnuts in Australia). In the afternoon went to the beach. Again as usual I found the water too cold and just got my feet wet but dad swam about two kilometers, from one beach where we dropped him off, and mom and I drove to the next beach where dad came in after coming in past the pier, to emerge at the beach seemingly out of nowhere from the local beachgoers perspective. Many people were out enjoying the beach.
From there we proceeded up the coast just a bit to Dana Point, where beloved tallship I used to volunteer on, The Pilgrim, had sadly sunk at her dock in March 2020. I of course haven't been back here since. I didn't know if there'd be anything left of her but we found some of her spars, anchors, and one of the tops (what you'd call a crow's nest but really its just called a top) and other bits. And then a little bit later after we'd walked to the breakwater and back we found some more pieces that had been more intentionally set up as a memorial of the ship. Somehow I feel like the pieces sitting cut up and seemingly discarded fit more with the general impression I'd had of the organization's ownership's general neglect of the ship. When she sank there was a lot of muttering that it was directly through the ownership's neglect that she sank.
After that we had an early dinner at Pedro's Tacos, another classic local establishment, delicious burritos and tacos. While we sat there eating I noted many e-bikes going by, and also rather laughed to myself at the very California lingo of the surf dudes who walked up to the window to order, lots of "dude" and "bro" and words connected with "like."
And now this is caught up! I can't believe my return to Australia is quickly approaching now, next Tuesday the 18th! At which point I'll be going right back into the heart of winter which I'm NOT excited about!
