The Chickens of Yuba City

Last week, I decided I'd been without a car radio for long enough.  It had gone out on the way up here back in November. So I looked up a dealer and found the nearest one in Yuba City.  I spent several hours in the dealer, after the mechanic found a  mouse had chewed out the radio wires (and built a luxury nest behind the glove box).  Guess this was my last gift from Anahuac NWR. After several hours of waiting,  I decided to get a little exercise and walk to a restaurant

As I passed a bush, it crowed at me. My adrenaline shot up and I practically dampened my pants before I recognized the sound. I started looking around and saw several chickens. They were really beautiful and I also loved the juxtaposition with  the Chamber of Commerce and IHOP. But the day was really cloudy so I decided to come back on a sunnier day and take their pictures.

I went back and waited a little longer before I was told the car was finished. But when I checked the radio, I still had only static. So they looked some more and decided I needed the coaxial cable from the antenna replaced.  They would have to order the part and it would take another two days to come in. I couldn't get back until today, another rainy day.  Again I sat a long time but finally got my car.  But on the way home, I found I was once again without a radio. I had to turn around and go back.  This time I had lunch at the IHOP and again saw the chickens. AND the sky was getting sunnier.

I also figured maybe I could find out why feral chickens were running around town so I went into the Chamber of Commerce, which is in a beautiful Victorian house, and asked the gentleman running the reception why the chickens were running loose. He said that, about twenty years ago, a feed store went out of business and released some chickens. They have been living wild and multiplying ever since. Everybody is cool with them.  The town also allows it's citizens to keep chickens but they do regulate the numbers of them.

 I found them at other corners,  but I took all these pictures by the Chamber of Commerce and the neighboring IHOP on my way out of Yuba City. 

Exploring the Feather River Highway

I recently spent a day exploring about eighty miles of the Highway 70 between Oroville and Quincy. I had been up the road just a few miles to the first pair of railroad bridges. There were so many beautiful views of the valley and the Feather River. A railroad runs across the river from the road and both cross the river several times. So the railroad is usually in sight of the road and is another engineering feat. This road runs through the Plumas National Forest.

Dawn at the Blue Goose Inn

Map of Feather River Canyon

Spring's a comin'

I took a few jogs down side roads, either to try to get better views of the river or to find recreational areas.

View off a side road

The bridges on the road are famous as are the tunnels. What was amazing to me was that a biker or hiker can stop and push the appropriate button - they look like pedestrian street-crossing buttons - and then a flashing light comes on to warn that there is a pedestrian or biker inside the tunnel. And since there are different buttons, the warning must flash a pedestrian or bike icon. Should have tested this.

View of the Pulga and Tobin Briges

First Tunnel

Another tunnel

 I stopped many times to just  take in the awesome   scenes of rocks, river, and plants.

Hand?

White water

Rock carved by the river

Rock garden

A railroad runs across the river from the road and both cross the river several times. So the railroad is usually in sight of the road and is another engineering feat. In places it also goes through tunnels.  People are reported to be crazy enough to sit around and wait for a train to come through the tunnel.  I was NOT going to be one of those people.  So, after I took a picture of an empty tunnel and drove a few miles  further, I found an oncoming train and made a quick U-turn over a several hundred foot drop and raced back to get in place for the good picture. And I found another train barely moving up the mountain to a bridge and had to stop in the road and wait for that picture.  I  did put on my flashers, though. So, you can tell that I'll NEVER be one of those crazy train photographers.

Train and tunnel

Holding back the mountain from the railroad track

What I didn't take were pictures of the power houses along the river. Buck's Power House was my favorite but I was pretty turned off by the whole idea of making this river unavailable to paddlers.  But where the river was wild, it was way too low and small for even creek boats. Then when it was tamed with a dam, it was a small placid lake. But I found that, in summer, enough water is released that white water boaters can paddle some parts of this river.



It took me almost five hours to drive this stretch of Highwy 70.  I still have lots more pictures on my Webshots, including some of the town of Quincy.  That is a quirky and historic little town, well worth more time to visit it. But I got there late and hungry and used up the last bit of good light to eat.

A Week With With Friends - Part IV Last Two Days

Thursday, Bob, Natalie and I were ready to go check out Oraville which has lots of fun to offer, from birding and hiking to museums in a historical town to scenic views along the Feather River as it tumbles down the mountains into Lake Oraville. In warmer months, there is lake and white water paddling and excellent fishing. . And we learned, that the city may put in a white water park.

The day was rainy so we decided to visit the Lake Oraville Visitor Center.  I was even more impressed with it as we looked at more details than I had done the first time I visited there. One of the most interesting things to me, this time, was the story of how the Lake Oraville Dam was built. At 770 feet,it is the tallest dam in the United States and powers California's third largest hydroelectric and forms California's second largest reservoir. A lot of the material used to build the earthern dam was tailings left over from gold mining. A set of trains could haul and unload 120 cars of fill each hour. We then better understood the miniature diorama showing the railroad coming to the dam and  two cars being dumped at a time without having to be unhitched from the rest of the train.

Model showing how the cars were unloaded without uncoupling, two at a time

Then we went to the Native American section and Bob and Natalie enjoyed the Ishi exhibit.  This is the story of of the last of the Yahi people.  An anthropologist named him Ishi, which means man, because he had no name of his own - had no one to give him a naming ceremony. He became a teacher, and taught his language, and how he hunted and fished, while learning about the white man's culture. There is even a picture of him at the opera. As happened to most of his tribe, he was killed by a white man's disease, in his case, tuberculosis.

Meanwhile, I was enjoying reading the guide to the exhibit about James Pierson Beckwourth, a famous African-American.  Beckwourth was an  explorer, trapper, and businessman. He also was an adopted Crow and spent a lot of time with them. He discovered a new pass and got the city of Marysville, a town to the south of Oraville,  to pay him 10, 000 to build a trail through the pass and then guided settlers to California through through that pass along the Feather River. Marysville burned down and he never got his money so became a trader on the trail for a while.

Dutch and Tracy finally caught up with us for lunch, then elected to stay on in Oraville and do some birding while we went back to Sacramento NWR to bird along the auto tour. We had been too busy or the weather had been too rainy to do this earlier.

Friday was the day for getting ready for the Chico Goose Festival for me and for field trips for Dutch, Tracy, and Natalie. I had told them to be sure and go on private trips, rather than to trips to any public lands.  Natalie scored the best trip, the one to Paskenta's C & R Ranch which also included lunch provided by the ranch owners.  We barely got her to the meeting place in time to join the trip.  She came back bubbling about several lifers, including the Lewis Woodpecker and I think both mountain and western bluebirds and a feruginous hawk, the wonderful ranch, the marvelous hosts, the amazing soup lunch, and the amazingly crazy people - just like her - that she traveled with.  She was also responsible for breaking up the caravan of cars when she spotted the only burrowing owl of the day and stopped everyone behind her.  Finally the trip leader came back with the rest of the group to enjoy it also. She ended up not getting back until 4:00 P.M. although she was due back at 2:00.

I helped set up the Junior Duck Stamp winners and the Sac table - in the background.

Natalie's picture of some of the birding tour

Tracy didn't get to see many birds on her trip but did get to study hawks an learned how to tell some of them in flight. Dutch went on a field trip on how to record bird songs.

Bob is the only one of us that is not a bird fanatic so he elected to use my car to visit fly fishing shops in the area.  Then, after I finished helping set up the refuge exhibit and the pictures of the winning Junior Duck Stamp competition, he picked me up and we went to Sierra Nevada Brewing Company , We just made the 12:00 tour which only had four of us on it. It was most amazing to me, a mostly non-beer drinker, to find out how beer is made.  And I found out that I do like dark ales. I was also impressed by the greenness of the company and how worker-friendly it is.  It even has an on-site day care for the worker's children. After the tour, we had fantastic lunches. I had a portabella sandwich that was totally delicious.

We lingered over lunch and then went to wait to pick up Natalie.  We found Dutch still waiting for Tracy. Neither of them had had lunch, so they went off to eat lunch while the rest of us went hiking at Upper Bidwell Park along the Yahi Trail.

Checking out the birds along the Yahi trail

 We finished out the day with dinner at the Outback Steak House. The Friends of Anahuac had given me a gift certificate there and I thought it would be fun to share it with the gang.

All too soon, it was Saturday and time to say goodby for a while. But we all kept good memories of a great week.

A Week With Friends, Part III - San Francisco

We dragged ourselves out of bed on our third day, and, after packing everything in our van except our day packs, hiked off to find breakfast in San Francisco.

Almost packed up and ready to tour San Francisco

At Breakfast - Dutch almost always had his i-Pad in his hands for pictures and to look up information

HarborView

It's very interesting, coming from Houston, Texas, as city where everyone drives, to see how many people are walking or using public transportation.  And we thought we would also enjoy using our feet for a good part of the day. After breakfast, we hiked down to Fisherman's Wharf where we watched a cable car being turned around by one person before we boarded it. We stopped off at the Cable Car Museum and then caught another cable car back down to the other end of Fisherman's Wharf where the ferries run. We passed Chinatown but didn't have enough time to take a look at it. I did enjoy all the different building styles and the ornate decorations.

Cable Car being turned around

Tracy taking pictures of two antique cable cars

These three sets of wheels drive all the cable cars in San Francisco.

Architectural delight

A fine mix of styles

 We decided to take the evening ferry over to Sausalito so we could enjoy the sunset over the bay.  After purchasing tickets, we walked down to Pier 39  to spend some time with the seals and eat lunch.

A few of the seals at Pier 39

 Then we spent some time just wandering around window shopping.

An alligator made of bread

Dungeness crabs

We  did a little more walking and looking and finally went back to the motel to retrieve the car. Then we went up to see Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill before taking the tight switchbacks on Lombard Street (billed as the crookedest street in the world) back to the Embarcadero where we put the van in a parking lot.

The Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill

One of Tracy and Dutch's target birds was the red-masked parakeets, of which there are feral populations in San Francisco. We looked for them on Telegraph Hill but didn't find them. Almost as soon as Natalie got out of the van in the parking lot near the ferry, she said she heard parrots. Soon all of us were seeing many small parrots with red heads. A local person walked up and told us that these parrots roosted here and could be found here every day.  This was across the street and a little further south from where the ferries leave.

Then it was time to board the ferry.  The weather didn't cooperate and give us the fantastic sunset we wished for,  but we enjoyed the trip and the coffee and tea we had at Starbucks in Sausalito and the walk through the town. When we got back to San Francisco it was about 8:00 P.M.  We found a restaurant open in the shopping center behind the ferry landing and ate supper before heading back to the the  Blue Goose Inn, (my residence).  Dutch and Tracy drove on up to Willows before they could stop and sleep.

 

Alcatraz from the ferry

It was another great day of playing tourists and enjoying each other. But three hectic days in a row had us all pretty tired.   But we only have two more days together and I want to be sure none of them get bored. 

View of Golden Gate Bridge from the ferry

To be continued.

A Week With Friends, Part II

After spending a second night in Santa Rosa at Leslie, Natalie's cousin's house, we managed to get ourselves up early, eat a quick breakfast, pack up the van and point it towards Point Reyes. We drove through the lovely rounded hills of the Coastal Range under cloudy skies, enjoying glimpses of  raptors and a coyote,  and then found a place to hike to the beach. We all enjoyed the winding trail, wildflowers, huge surf and wandering around on the small beach. As we approached the trail head, we found several groups of Tule elk.

There were several groups of these animals but none with horns

Lichens growing on a fence rail

Going down to the beach

Almost to the beach

Beach landscape

Thistle flowers at the beach

A pile of kelp showing the hollow tubes

The gang- Bob is hiding behind Tracy

Birds, rocks, surf and fog

After we got back to the car, we traveled on to Point Reyes over winding roads with beautiful views. Point Reyes Lighthouse is not open on the early days of the week so we didn't get to climb down the thirty flights worth of stairs to visit the inside of the light house. The day was cloudy and getting foggier and we could not find any whales, although they were supposed to be passing by. We did get find a few puffins and had a peregrine falcon land very close to us on the cliff. The brants, however, continued to elude us.

Camomile flowers near the Point Reyes Lighthouse

The Point Reyes Conglomerate with a whale bone in front

Surf at the beach of Point Reyes Lighthouse - dots are seals or sea lions

The Point Reyes Lighthouse - I've never been here when I could climb down to see it inside

From the Lighthouse, we continued through the fields of dairy cattle towards the Point Reyes Visitor Center. We enjoyed the exhibits and the California quail that greeted us in the parking lot with excited calls of "chi CA go, chi CA  go. And we spent some time enjoying the Acorn woodpeckers that had been high on Dutch's list to see, but who had stayed in hiding on previous hunts.

Then as the sun set, we set off over the mountains on a really winding road.  Dutch drove slowly so Natalie wouldn't throw up on anyone and we had glimpses of the ocean between areas where we drove in a tunnel of trees. 

After arriving at San Francisco a little after dark, we checked into our hotel and then walked uphill a few blocks to Natalie's brother's little condo.  He and his wife went with us to supper. We had a a list of restaurants that we want to eat, but several of them were closed so we ended up walking about three miles before we finally found a good Chinese restaurant.  The best dishes among those we ordered and shared were a duck dish and an eggplant dish.

By the time we reached our motel, a mostly downhill walk,  we were all ready to crash.

To be continued.