Monday Meanderings - Aug 16

Is there a more desperate look than that on the face of the airline passenger who comes running - literally - up to the gate 2 minutes after they have closed the flight?

And I'm not saying that these regional jets are small, but when the pilot flips bags of peanuts over his shoulder to the passengers I think we've reached a new level.

And  I never cease to marvel at the 18 year-old "Elders" I encounter in the Salt Lake City airport.

Is there a more desolate stretch of real-estate on this earth than the desert between Salt Lake City and the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, stretching across Utah and Nevada? Arid, vegetation-less, barren, desolate; these are the words that come to mind. Yet, despite this, there was a fine spider web of roads crossing and criss-crossing the region. Some were paved and went ruler-straight as far as the eye could see. Most were just dirt tracks, following the valleys. Rarely, you saw houses or clusters of houses alongside these paths. I wonder who lives there, and for what reason?

Yes, we meandered out to sunny California this past week to be with Julie, Jason and the boys. They are in the count-down to back-to-school, but we stole a few days to sight-see and to enjoy being with them; especially during the cool mornings (and evenings) on the patio. Must get one of those.

We took a couple of days and went to the coast. First Santa Cruz, home of a historic and world famous board walk. However, there are no boards on the board walk - just concrete.

The beach at Santa Cruz  is quite different then Texas beaches. First, the water is too cold to swim in without a wet suit this far north. Needed jackets just to walk on the beach. And the sand is different; loose and deep, difficult to walk on without sinking down.

Then we dropped down the coast to historic Monterey Bay, home of the Fisherman's Wharf, Cannery Row and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Much more about that in blogs to come.

I was fascinated by the cross-section of California that made up our trip. If you look on Google earth Fresno will be in a huge swath of green, bordered by the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east and the Coast Ranges to the west. The green part is the San Joaquin Valley, where an amazing percentage of the nations food crops are grown. The crops one sees in the Fresno area seem to be tree or vine related; grapes, raisins, almonds, pistachios, olives, figs, etc.  Once you reach the Coast Ranges there are no crops of any kind; just dry grasslands and a few scrubby trees. You certainly get an understanding of the fire threat that these arid hills pose.

Then on the western side of the Coast Ranges cultivation resumes, but the crops that you notice over here seem to be mostly field crops - strawberries, garlic, artichokes, peppers, lettuce and tomatoes. We drove through Gilroy, the garlic capitol of the world - and it certainly smelled it. We missed the big Garlic Festival, more than 100,000 visitors sampling tasty delights like garlic ice cream and garlic french fries, but we smelled the cash crop; Gilroy Foods - in the middle of the town - processes more garlic than any other factory in the world!

We saw field after field of farm workers either harvesting or planting vegetables. Acres of strawberries being picked by hand. Back-breaking work. And the shadow of Cesar Chavaz was there; at every site were port-a-potties, chairs and shaded areas.

Closer to the coast the fields were full of artichoke plants, and since artichokes are an integral part of our clan we stopped at a stand to buy some. We knew we were buying local, if you live in Marina, California. Here's a photo from the parking lot:

See that guy right in the middle? That artichoke was on our dinner table the next evening. Well, okay, maybe it was 6 of his close relatives, but you get the point. And there certainly is an advantage of buying local - we bought 2 artichokes Saturday in Central Market for the same cost as the 6 in Marina.