Linda's blog

I was looking forward to seeing my family in the San Francisco Bay Area at the end of October. Only ten days before my brother's wedding, my father unexpectedly passed away. The family gathering took on somber tones which I haven't fully recovered from yet. Thus my expectation to post more on this site was dashed... though I did go on the journey and took lots of photos. I'm getting ready to post them now.

My adventures took place in the San Francisco Bay Area and Santa Cruz areas, for the most part. Anyhow... I've got photos, videos, and memories... soon to be shared here.

October 7, 2011 - I'm getting ready for travel, and will be writing about it here in Journey! California. I could not be more excited as it has been a long time since I've been able to go anywhere. I'll be leaving the Klamath River Valley in far-northern California at the end of this month and will visit Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and all points in between. I don't know how many places will show up on the pages of this website but I'll try to write as much as I can. Since I'll be alone most of the time, this should be easy. I'll need something to do to pass the time!

I'm in the middle of a cleansing fast and will be switching to a vegan diet right before my journey begins. So while I'm traveling you can expect reports on restaurants that serve vegan food, and health food stores ... things like that!

Also I'm doing research for my novel, Perfection. The novel takes place in Santa Cruz and San Francisco in the 1850s. So I'll be writing about my visit to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. I'm totally looking forward to this. I've waited years to be able to research for this novel. I came up with the plot way back in 2004! ...Then I had to put it on the back burner because I couldn't get to the Bay Area to do the research! But that has changed.

One week away from home! This will be wonderful for me. I need a break!

Lots of people go traveling during the summer. Seems like my best travel months are after October and before May. We're putting in a garden. This year we've planted potatoes, butternut squash, zuchinni, tomatoes, and two types of peppers. Not much! But in a couple weeks I'll attack the weeds in the backyard garden and plant snow peas and green beans. That will be plenty to keep us happy this growing season.

Of course all this requires that I be here to water everything in the morning just before the sunrays hit the garden. So I'm grounded, for now. I'll have to post old travel stories here (I've got plenty) plus work on posting public domain books like Alonzo Delano's.

We went to Reno, Nevada to see if it is recovering from the recession.

It isn't, so far as we could tell.

Back in 2008 we considered moving there, but that was just before the recession hit and suddenly we saw news accounts of Reno tent cities, casinos laying off workers, and hundreds of painfully unemployed former workers. We figured it was no place to move to.

Since we're looking for a new home, my partner suggested we check out Reno again. I hadn't been there in many years. He was there about ten years ago.

So... here's my report.

I'm excited to say that I've done my first new article for the reimagined Journey! California site. It is on Klamathon, Iron Gate Dam, and the Fish Hook Restaurant - 2010.

We were there only a few days ago and took lots of photographs. Writing the first draft of the article was the easiest part. I did that on my Alphasmart Neo while at the laundromat day before yesterday.

Yesterday I sat down to the computer at about 10am and started adding the article and all the photos to the Journey! California site. It took most of the day! It was the first time I'd used this site software to add so many photographs, and I had to write all the code, and check things dozens of time to make it work. I had to figure out how to make the embedded Google maps work too. It was all rather complex, and I wasn't finished editing and adjusting until late in the day, after 5pm! I then needed to take a long walk all the way across town to the post office to blow off steam! For me, exercise is an essential part of writing.

Amazing! I finally got this site put together and am happy to be able to put my California stories back online. This time I'm using a content management system that allows others to place their stories online too, with shared advertising revenue.