Sacramento Meditations
January 14, 2016 9:38 AM   Subscribe

 
Related, this long piece on traveling the San Joaquin River was shared here previously.
posted by exogenous at 10:00 AM on January 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Always happy to see the Sacramento River and Delta get some love.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:38 AM on January 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


That's a super-sweet place to poke about: so many interesting little towns all with an appropriate eatery/watering hole. There's the kind of spooky Grand Island Mansion, perfect for your noir wedding; Al The Wop's where everybody knows at least one dollar bill on the ceiling; the town of Locke itself, sometime home of the late Victor Wong; you can catch a free ferry, one of which I think is still cable drawn. Lots of fine driving and descansos shrines to keep your foot kind of light.

There's something about the area that's a little ghost-house; I don't know if its the river or the ancient buildings but everywhere is kind of like Halloween for real as a mostly passer-through. Also an interesting entrepreneurial spirit from the government. Used to be the go-to place for concealed carry permits but I think they got smacked down. Those four lone houses in the photo series are right across from where the city of Isleton was set to permit a licensed cannabis facility until the state DA suggested that doing so would put city officials at risk of a conspiracy charge. Woulda gone so sweet with their other money draw.

Used to have to go to the Bay Area on the regular from Sacramento and it was always a fine if not hurried way to go, the ol "river road". Neat place with a lot of history. I don't know why its not jam-the-eff-packed with folks from the west with money in their pocket, gas in their Lexuses and a need to go someplace.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:04 AM on January 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


Always happy to see the Sacramento River and Delta get some love.

The Lost Fishery
Shad are everywhere in the rivers of the Pacific Coast and nowhere on the menu. Along the Sacramento River, which flows into San Francisco Bay, it’s not uncommon to have a 50-fish day, and 600 miles north on the Columbia River, during the height of the season, that’s the norm. Back East, it’s a decent day’s fishing to land just a brace of shad. This is an odd turn of events. Easterners brought Alosa sapidissima to California in the 1870s specifically to start a commercial fishery, and that fishery thrived for 80 years — sapidissima means “tastiest,” after all. Then demand withered; few Westerners ever eat shad now.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:10 AM on January 14, 2016


On the subject of agriculture, water (lack thereof), and California, check out Matt Black's photo project The Kingdom of Dust.
posted by msbrauer at 12:08 PM on January 14, 2016


I lived outside Sacramento for five years, and it was always a delight to go for long bike rides among the fields and streams. The sheer diversity and number of birds migrating through the area can keep you occupied for hours. If you're lucky you might catch a white-tailed kite or two hovering in mid-air, waiting for a field mouse to catch.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:27 PM on January 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


I love, love, love, love, LOVE the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It's an hour and a half drive from my house to Bethel Island and world class bass fishing, but the fishing is so good throughout the Delta that it doesn't really matter where you put in. So much cool to be had there.

Semi-obscure fact: Location filming for the movie Cool Hand Luke was done in the Stockton area, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta did a pretty good job of pretending to be somewhere in the Southern US. It still does a good job of that ;-)
posted by mosk at 1:07 PM on January 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


The delta also pretended to be Vietnam in More American Graffiti.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:15 PM on January 14, 2016


I used to live in that area. These photos remind me of the good things and not the bad things of living there.
posted by blucevalo at 2:18 PM on January 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Semi-obscure fact: Location filming for the movie Cool Hand Luke was done in the Stockton area, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta did a pretty good job of pretending to be somewhere in the Southern US. It still does a good job of that ;-)

Huh. The Delta, and specifically Highway 160 along the levy, has always reminded me of river roads in Louisiana. I had no clue Cool Hand Luke was filmed around there, but it makes perfect sense.
posted by mudpuppie at 3:07 PM on January 14, 2016


I love the Delta. It is completely mysterious as noted above and there are so many places that one can't get to except by boat, so when I am mapping the area, I always find something new.

In addition to all of the great things listed above, let me add awesome book by Erle Stanley Gardner, another great restaurant, places to see sandhill cranes and another excellent festival. That bullfight is bloodless, by the way.
Also, I think Russ Meyers filmed a movie or two in the Delta, but I think my web nanny would dissapprove of me looking for a good source for that.

I may just have to head to Al the Wop's this weekend and get a peanut butter burger.
posted by Duffington at 3:42 PM on January 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


I forgot to mention that I love white-tailed kites, such a nifty bird!
posted by Duffington at 3:43 PM on January 14, 2016


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