Saturday September 14, Clear Lake, California

Doc, a proud but sad guy.

Enjoyed our overnight stay in the trees, it was so quiet, not many in the camp. Meandered off Wet on Highway 20 and soon saw a signpost for the Historical Town of Nevada City, so a quick right turn and what a great call. The town was alive with a farmers market, one of the best we have come across, picked up fresh carrots that looked like I grow in my garden, not the extremely long thin ones that we normally get in the supermarkets here, fresh basil and a really nice melon called a Piel de Sopo. I tried a piece and it is so sweet but doesn’t have much colour, I asked the girl to choose the best one for me so will see when we cut it. With big melons and a small fridge, I cut it up into cubes and store in a plastic container in the fridge and it keeps for ages.

The rest of the town was just charming, we wondered through the main street which was lined with a great mixture of cafes, upmarket stores and galleries. Spent a long time in the Mowen Solinsky Gallery, Ian was most taken by the equisite wood work of Bill Bolstad and I especially loved the photography of Richard Murai - http://www.mowensolinskygallery.com/richardmurai/gallery.html , but all the work was superb, just wished I had a big enough pocket to take a piece home.

We enjoyed the rest of the days drive through some really different county, especially across the Sacremento Valley, a huge area that grows so much of America’s food. Vast fields of rice were just starting to be cropped and it appeared that it was the end of the stone fruit as the trees were bare.

Intrigued with this sign on a tree near a river,

 never heard of them?

Rice fields, ready for harvest.

Then it was back up into the hills again, but these were quite different, dry golden pasture with a sprinkling of trees…not sure what they are, before we arrived at Clear Lake.

After Lake Tahoe yesterday we were fully expecting it to be similar with upmarket houses and villages, but quite the opposite. The houses appeared to be a lot older and there was no air of affluence at all. It was getting onto five when we found a small camp beside the lake that suits us fine and enjoying using the aircon tonight after a day of mid 30’s temps.

Over the road we noticed a little bar called the “Leaky Tiki” so had to investigate, but the locals didn’t seem to know a great deal about the Tiki name, obviously no connection with NZ. Got talking to a chap called Doc who was a veteran of the Iraq war and he told us about his 2 sons who were killed in combat, one in Iraq in 2006 and the other in Afghanistan in 2009. It was quite emotional for him talking about it but he said they were doing it for their country, although he did say they shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Quite sobering.