February 2018 – Tales From The Hive

California Traffic Calming

Sounds very strange when you think of it, “Traffic Calming”. It’s as if traffic is a toddler having a tantrum, or a cobra that needs soothing. Today I’m happy to announce that phrase has been officially added to my repertoire (just before my trick of using Google to look up how to spell ‘repertoire’). However, a more accurate phrase would be: “Piss off the driver by slowing them down and making sure they really want to be there because that’s where they live”.

Given the reputation of traffic in California, it seems that there is a need for more traffic calming. But so far, mostly it’s all been the same calming techniques used elsewhere. Zebra crosswalks, traffic lights, stop signs, more signs, more designs painted on the roads, etc. Or so I thought.

On our visit to Sacramento I was delighted to discover that California has a vast portfolio of traffic calming techniques, in the form of pavement modifications, that I was unaware of. These are “bumps”, “lumps”, “undulations”, and “tables”, along with the regular assortment of “raised crossings”, “striped bumps”, and others that are in the neighborhoods we visited. Where have you been all this time?

My absolute favorites are the undulations, as the following picture illustrates.

These make it to the top of the list not only because of their name, but because jellyfish also undulate. This makes it necessary to extend and undulate ones’ arms as you travel over the undulations. Extra points for undulating your head and body (safely of course) while traversing. These were such a hit that Beth had to tell me to stop doing that. After a few more times, I ceased undulating on the undulations and just smiled as we bumped along up and down.

Next come the lumps.

These are interesting since they are almost the same as the bumps, not quite table-like, and looking like someone got bored with dropping asphalt in neat rows. This is because they are three mounds stretched across the road, left to right, with dips for tires between the mounds. I was tempted to straddle the middle hump so that we had a smooth ride, but was worried that I would bottom out the car. Speed lumps, I address you when I say “job well done”!

Next in line are the speed humps.

These are as we know and hate them. They do their job here and everywhere else, for everyone, unless you have a truck with raised suspension and can just cruise over these babies. That’s probably why undulations were created.

Last in line of these new pacifications come tables and raised crossings.

Why is there only one picture you ask? I’m glad you asked. Just as with striped or safety speed bumps and plain-Jane speed bumps, raised crossings are the same as tables with some eyelash liner applied. This has the effect of calming down traffic and placing pedestrians in a raised location where they silhouette against the horizon allowing the slowed drivers to easily see them before taking careful aim and gunning their truck engines to catch some air (not really). Actually, it’s a clever combination of two different tasks in one design. (My apologies to all the Jane’s out there – I didn’t make up that expression.)

While calling these new techniques “vast” is probably overstating it a bit, I’m keeping it. Learning new things is so worth the effort.

Bonus Round: While looking up information for this post, I found out that you can order your own speed bumps and signs! Not only that, but these things are called “vertical displacement measures”!

Life is full of exquisite diversions.

I got a card from an old friend today. This is the front of it.

I am absorbing for the first time the fact that that my husband of almost 25 years has the magnificent skill of pivoting from the big picture plan when necessary, whereas I am really great at staying the course while I painstakingly work out the fine points and details. This is a very good combination for us as we move forward for more stimulating, exhilarating and meaningful lives, but these different approaches can seem at odds to each other along the way. This card summed that up and reminded me of the journey! Thanks friend.

“If you like the outdoors…” This is what everyone we’ve met here says about Redding, almost as an apology. If you like the outdoors, Redding is a great place to live. And many of the people we have met either used to live, or currently live, out of town on a hill or along the river and have land to spare. It is a beautiful place with incredible views.

We are living in the bottom apartment of a beautiful home. Because the home is built into a hill, our apartment has windows and a patio. Right now I am writing with my back to the kitchen window and basking in the sun. From the patio, I can see the mountains including Lassen Peak. From the wall of windows in the yoga studio at the local Y, in any twisting pose, I see the mountains as well.

As far as we can tell, Redding is full of people who like the outdoors. Chris went biking with the Shasta Wheelman on our third day here. One of guys in the group told me about an informal group that hikes every Wednesday morning, and I have joined them 3 Wednesdays in a row. If every muscle in my body did not hurt, we would have joined them at the annual President’s Day pie hike; you hike 4 miles and in the middle, get to eat pie! On our second day here, we hiked in Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is about 1½ hours away. 2 weekends later, we tried to hike at Mount Shasta, where it was snowing (white out conditions), so we opted out and hiked at Castle Crags instead (5.6 miles, 2200 elevation gain, shockingly beautiful).

Mt. Shasta trailhead where we declined to hike in white out conditions.

Along the way to Castle Dome at Castle Crags. The same day, 20 minutes away, sunshine!

So exciting that we crossed the Pacific Crest Trail.

My hiking group is mainly older people who are all super energetic. An 82 year old ex-military man who is probably the fastest hiker, the sharpest thinker, and bikes 3 times a week to boot. There are a number of women who taught school, a land planner who worked for the state and a numbers of counties, a historian, and a man who works for the Redding Parks and Recreation department. Many have lived in others places, mostly Southern California. Two grew up in New York state. Many are ex-mountain bikers. Everyone has aches and pains, but there is little conversation about that. Most volunteer somewhere and seem to travel a bit to keep life stimulating. Wendy does volunteer work at the hospital where after a while she took over the information desk portion of the volunteer organization at the hospital. They know all the trails, much of the history, a lot of neat places to visit, a lot about native plants and trees, and history of some of the structures and mines we encounter on our hikes. They have formed a little lovely community of those who like to be outside. Many are retired, many are widowed, and they have each others’ backs. Finding out about a new place gets way easier when you talk in depth to the people that live there!

From top left clockwise: Indian paintbrush, toyon, hound’s tongue, and Manzanita (with amazing red/purplish bark)

Hiking to Camden House with the hiking group

Hiking past an old mine (in the background) and the stamp mill used for the gold extraction.

The downtown is different than what I normally expect. There are shops and restaurants that are isolated on various streets, rather than all grouped together. It it is difficult to see what is here. At some point, a downtown pedestrian mall was created, but it failed and is deserted with few businesses. Turtle Bay Exploration Park and the Sundial Bridge are close to downtown but difficult to get to by bike or walking. At Turtle Bay, there is a museum there with a lovely outdoor café overlooking the river, an arboretum and botanical gardens, and a number of exhibits. The arboretum and botanical gardens are focusing on reclamation of the natural environment and include a pond with otters and beavers. On any beautiful day, there are always people, but on Saturday, it was extremely busy.

If you know where to go, there are hidden treasures. Woody’s Brewery is downtown, has tons of great burgers, homemade garlic tater tots, and a grapefruit tree with ripe fruits in the parking lot. The first time I was there with the hiking group, there was a young man in the tree picking for a woman on the ground. He picked another bag for one of the women in my group when she asked! We also found another restaurant called Moonstone Bistro with fresh food, interesting cocktails, and great service.

The local Y where I work out most days is small but well-utilized. There are a large number of classes and they are all well attended. I take yoga, pilates and when it is cooler than 60 degrees, spinning.

Our time here ends soon and we leave for a couple of months of desert, spring wild flowers, warmer temperatures and even more time outside.

“I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers!”

On a Friday afternoon, we traveled south to Chico. It is a University of California town in the agricultural Central Valley, and has a great reputation for lower housing costs, biking, the ability to walk many places, a “reasonable” downtown (right next to the university), a great farmer’s market, lots of arts and cultural activities, and is close to the mountains and coast. As an almost-teenage boy and future salesman/real estate agent told us in the farmer’s market, you can surf in the morning and ski in the afternoon!

We went to Friday night services at a local synagogue because this adventure is not only about weather, but also about finding community. My Temple Sinai community in Rochester was an important place for me. Temple Beth Israel in Chico is a small temple (Beth Israel – 80 family units, 75% time rabbi), was founded in 1915, disbanded in the 30’s, then began again sometime in the 1950’s. The service brought about 20-25 people of all ages, and was led by the rabbi, a student cantor, and a teenage boy practicing for his bar mitzvah. We were warmly welcomed by at least 10 individuals who came over to greet us. They all shared their thoughts and facts about temple and Chico, and answered our questions about the community. We met a terrific woman who went out of her way to spend extra time with us as we grilled her about neighborhoods and what it was like to live there. Another small world moment was that she had grown up on the south side of Chicago, while I was on the north side, and had lived there for several years as an adult as well. Her husband was a dedicated bicyclist, so he and Chris had a ton to talk about. We even met Steve who told us he would run into us at the farmer’s market on Saturday morning, and we did. We did not know that he is a local music producer, bringing national and international acts to the Paradise Performing Arts Center, a 750 seat venue close to Chico, and would be handing out flyers all morning for his next production – Dion Warwick..

Saturday morning we went to the fabulous farmer’s market. High points were the tamale stand, beautiful and (often) organic produce and nuts for sale, the fresh bread stands, the tamale stand, the kindness and friendliness of strangers, and did I mention the tamale stand? I love tamales and these were amazingly fresh. You could get chicken, chicken with cheese, pork or pineapple. Any guesses on mine – of course, pineapple mixed with raisins. It was the first time ever I have had a sweet tamale, and for breakfast, it was the best. We were at a stand that sold herbs and nuts, attracted to it by the sign that said “Herbs grown in Paradise” (which makes me grin each time I think of it.) The woman who ran the stand and farmed the nuts found out we were visiting, and handed us a clamshell of special red walnuts as a gift. Then she and her friend told us all about Chico and Paradise and invited us to hear music out at a local venue. (By the way, these are the best walnuts I have ever tasted!)

Saturday morning Farmer’s Market in downtown Chico.

After the market, we headed to Bidwell Park and rode our bikes about 10 miles through this very large city park, and through the California Park neighborhood. We had already driven through the Avenues, Amber Grove, Downtown, West Side, the Barber, and continued our neighborhood car survey in Doe Mill.

Pink stucco Bidwell Mansion. In the city park, home of John Bidwell, teacher, miner, and founder of Chico.

The creek that goes through Bidwell Park gets dammed up into a huge public swimming pool. Kind of like the pool at Stoneybrook State Park near Rochester, but about 5 times larger!

Then it was time for lunch, so we went to the Sierra Nevada taproom and restaurant. Sierra Nevada started in Chico in the garage of Ken Grossman, who still owns the company. They do all different kind of tours (which we did not take), but looked through their gallery and self-guided tour area. And then as we often do, took seats at the bar in order to avoid a 30 minute wait for a table. That always works for us because with just 2, you can still have a conversation. We had a lot of conversations that day but not much with each other! The man on my right worked for Sierra Nevada and was there on his day off with his wife. The guy on Chris’ left was a regular. They both helped me pick out beers for my flight, told us about Chico, and told us great stories about the company. I loved best a Gose style beer (Otra Vez) because it only had a 5% International Bitter Units (IBU), lowest on the menu. My learnings of the day were that Sierra Nevada makes very hoppy beers, and what I like and call “girly” beers are the ones that are low in the IBUs (and to be frank, what an IBU is). And as we paid for our lunch, we found that my neighbor that worked at Sierra Nevada picked up the tab for my flight!

A view of the bar at Sierra Nevada above, and a display of the some of the 800 beers they make!

Our bar neighbors also told us about Hooker Oaks rum distillery. So I started with beer and then went on to taste pineapple rum, apple pie rum (visualize sipping on a cold night in front of the fire), and plain rum. The distillery owners are contractors who now distill rum as well. In addition to the tasting, I had a very good peach fizz cocktail with pineapple rum, peach nectar and a little bit of 7Up. The distillery tour, where we saw the process of making rum, was very interesting and fun as well. (And thanks as always to my partner in crime, and always designated driver Chris!)

After this action packed and fun filled 24 hours in Chico, we visited a bakery café again (The Upper Crust Bakery) where we both had cookies to fortify us for our drive back to Redding.

It’s a small small world

We have been pretty content here in Redding so far. We have lovely hosts who live upstairs in their beautiful house that they renovated four years ago when they married. We are in a pretty, downstairs, one bedroom apartment with nice outside patio where I stretched and did yoga in the sun. The house is built into a hill so although we are in what used to be a basement, there are windows, lots of light, and little touches that make this place great. It is spotless, newly renovated, has comfortable couches, easy access to outside, lots of closet and pantry space, and a view of Lassen mountain. Our hosts have been generous and kind. They invited us for drinks and appetizers last week, and shared their upstairs view of both Mount Shasta and Lassen, and the stories of their lives, their children, their work, and their hopes. It was a delightful evening that I really needed because although I love my husband very much, I also require more social time with others.

I spent the week working for Paychex (the beginning of training my replacement),taking yoga and pilates classes at the local and generally very full Shasta Family Y, and biking and/or hiking outside almost every day. The weather continues to be unusually warm and sunny – so much so that everyone here worries about the possible consequences of not having the usual rain and snow.

I hiked on Wednesday morning with a group of strangers. We found the group by talking to a guy that Chris biked with on Sunday. It is an informal group that hikes every Wednesday at 9 am. There were about 12 people and they welcomed me warmly as I was included in an almost 4 mile hike up to Whiskeytown Falls. There is a federal recreation area 7 miles out of town called Whiskeytown that has a huge lake, and tons of walking and mountain biking trails. This particular trail went up to beautiful falls. I got to know about half the group who hiked the same speed as me. There were several teachers, a retired federal park employee, and other active folks. It took about 40 minutes to hike to the top where the falls are. This particular trail was about 12 years old, just recently built although there had been an informal trail prior to that. Along the way there was a creek, stunning forest views and sometimes views of the huge Whiskeytown Lake.

Later in the day, I had a “small world” moment. One of the women I hiked with had two daughters who both worked in museums. She proudly told me that her daughter who lived in San Diego was currently at a conference in Palm Desert. When I texted my old friend from college, Marjorie, that evening, she shared with me that she was at the same conference!

No one knew why this area is called Whiskeytown though. Maybe that is a story for another day.

Art, flowers and views from my walk today at Turtle Bay in Redding, CA

You know you are in California when…

someone apologized for their road rage

In our visits and travels so far, people have been really nice, friendly and super helpful. But as we were loading the car to leave Grass Valley, we witnessed an incident of road rage on the street corner. One car cut off another and then a young-ish man was leaning out his car window screaming and cursing. As the other car drove away, the young man rode past me, leaned out his window, and said “Sorry.” Only in California!

Before leaving Grass Valley, we took a last look at all the old mining equipment. Grass Valley was a gold mining town, and appears to going through some kind of revival with many building renovations. I now know what hydraulic mining is, and in fact saw a hydraulic 21 inch gate valve that was used at “You Bet-Red Dog Diggin” (had to work that name in here somehow).

We also found Caroline’s Coffee, biked some, tasted wine at Luccelli’s (small boutique winery – outstanding), took at trip to nearby Nevada City, and saw “The Post” at a cool old theater downtown. Our rental is a block from Main Street so the car has only been pulled out twice in four days (I even walked to Safeway for groceries.) As part of my community research, I spoke to the president of the local temple here. She was amazingly friendly and had a bunch of great community information.

Chris started biking outside again because the weather has been in the 60’s in the afternoons. He starts work very early and then knocks off in time to have 1½ hours of daylight. I have started practicing yoga almost every day like I had been planning, and like in Moab, did a class at a local yoga studio.

There is an old hotel right downtown that is now the Bret Harte Retirement Inn. I was considering it for my next home because it has a great stained glass window. When I saw the stained glass window, I had all kinds of fantasies about Salomy Jane being either an famous gunslinger, outlaw, or madame. But Bret Harte was a famous writer who wrote the screen play to a 1914 western called Salomy Jane. Disappointing!

The nice but disappointing Salomy Jane’s window.

Nevada City was similar to Grass Valley although seems a bit more built up and possibly wealthier. It also has its history embedded with mining. One of our nieces spent about a year there about three years ago, and when we texted her that we were there, she sent us a great tip. She suggested we visit the South Yuba River about 8 miles away so went there for a small hike and to see the sunset. Gorgeous!

Downtown Nevada City has a lovely hodge-podge of mainly old buildings, some going back to the mid 1800’s. We even found a couple of art deco buildings, including the court house, which has a new section, but then a white shining, towering old section. There are restaurants and bars, winery tasting rooms, antiques, ice cream and chocolate shops, bakeries, cafes, yoga and pilates studios, and a great number of wellness businesses.

The beginning of the super moon over Nevada City

We made it to Redding, California where we will be until February 28th. As you can see below, we have made our apartment more homey with a couple of pictures and holiday cards. Every day we have been outside as it unusually warm here, and should stay that way for at least 10 more days. On Friday, we biked, then spent Saturday at Lassen National Park (60 degrees with melting snow), and biked again today (me 18 miles and Chris 40 miles). Everyone is concerned about the lack of snow in the mountains, because the snow then melts and provides enough water for the summer. Evidently last year at this time, there was 10 feet of snow in Lassen. There couldn’t have been more than 12 inches so far this year.

And Chris first ride — A view of the Sundial Bridge in Redding.

Views from Lassen Volcanic National Park

The new week will start tomorrow and I will be back to living the real life (working a few hours at least, yoga, getting the car washed, doing laundry, doing research on places to live, etc.)