The Battle of 2013

After a year of building, rebuilding; trial and error; blood, sweat, and tears; $8,000; and separation of family, finally: Love is what makes a Subi a Subi. This is the culmination of the first phase of modifications of an abused, neglected, 1999 Legacy SUS (sport utility sedan).

This is the maiden cross-country voyage of a sedan with all the bells and whistles. The purpose of the build was to transport an 81-year-old wife with a Doctorate in random riding. Current location: Grand Canyon.

Gari Hamilton

Gari Hamilton

Gari Hamilton

Next stop: east coast of Texas.

Half Moon Reef Lighthouse, Port Lavaca, TX                                                                           Photograph by Gari Hamilton

White Ibis in Port Lavaca                                                                                                         Photograph by Gari Hamilton

Gari Hamilton

All systems are working superbly on a Legacy Sedan dubbed “Lemon of the Year” by Subaru Corporation of America, and the #1 surprise car for 2013’s “good job” by Alfa Subaru with good support from corporate. Important special lessons of the project:

·       Stick-to-it-ness

·       A supreme confidence of my abilities to engineer a stem to stern rebuild

·       Having a relationship with a vehicle that has a soul

·       Finding out other people’s ignorance of understanding

·       Find out who is a team player in those close to me

·       The ability to go inside a machine with imagination and diagnosis of malfunctions

·       The self satisfaction of completing a performance project that so far is successful

·       The beginning of transforming dreams into reality

·       Don’t make dreams your master, but go for it

Regards to all project managers and Subi lovers on the battle of 2013.

Wildflowers of North Table Mountain

April 26, 2014. People may think I'm only about birds and wildlife, but there's a plant side to me as well. My passion is for all forms of life, and lately conserving plants has been as important to me as conserving wildlife. So to complement the wildlife tours this year, I decided to sign up for a wildflower tour. It was something I had wanted to do for some time, and being a member of the Sacramento-Shasta Chapter of the Wildlife Society gave me that opportunity. Kudos to a wildlife club that takes its members out to view flowers. Because plants after all are also wildlife, not just habitat.

The trip was to the North Table Mountain Ecological Reserve in Butte County, California. This reserve is a geological and biological phenomenon. Just north of Oroville, the expanse of land lives up to its name, as over 3,000 acres of a basalt mesa jet above the general elevation here in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The mesa supports a unique vernal pool ecosystem that is home to a large variety of native, non-native, and endemic plants, volcanic rock formations, and scenic pastures. It's only one of four other ecosystems of its type. So I dragged along the husband, brother, and sister-in-law, and joined wildlife biologists and botanists on an adventure through a natural wonderland, feeling as amazed as Dorothy in the land of Oz.

After brief introductions, we set across the grassland, stopping to try to identify all the flowers we encountered. With a little help from those more knowledgeable and a decent local guidebook, we identified white-tipped clover, sky lupine, butter 'n' eggs, valley tassel, California goldfield, Douglas' sandwort, Sacramento Valley buttercup, Douglas' meadowfoam, common yellow monkey flower, popcorn flower, wild geranium, Stork's bill filaree, variableleaf jewelflower, red brome, and owl's clover--and that's just what I had written down. I'm sure that's not even the tip of the floral iceberg we were surrounded by that day.

California goldfields

Valley Tassels

Meadowfoam

As we topped the first hill, the fields of grass met up with barren rock, presenting a mosaic of green and black patches in an almost surreal landscape.

This is not a scene from Star Trek or Farscape. This is nature in California.

Tucked away in a valley between the mounds of rock we discovered a creek with its own little ecosystem of flora and fauna.

Common yellow monkey flower

White-tipped clover

Horned lark or sparrow nest

Then we continued on. Even though we wandered around and scattered like a foraging herd, this was actually an organized hike with a destination. We decided to hike the distance to the granite-walled waterfall, but there were still many sights to see and enjoy on the way, as well as a little bit of adventure. Where there is flora, there is also fauna; and of course the birder in me did not walk away dissatisfied. We spotted or heard western meadowlark, turkey vulture, western kingbird, horned lark, sparrows, cliff swallow, violet green swallow, red-tailed hawk, and red-winged blackbird. The real surprise, however, was stumbling upon a nest, which one of our biologists assumed was horned lark, tucked in the tall grass, eggs exposed. The parents must have been out foraging and we had to be careful to 1) not step on it; and 2) not attract predators. Nearby, someone spotted a garter snake and we hoped the garter snake didn't spot the nest.

Some participants did get to enjoy handling the snake, as well as spotting a fence lizard and a Sierran tree frog. The most colorful critter we encountered, however, was this very interesting little caterpillar, with intricate markings of green and white stripes alternated with black and yellow spots. He was a true work of art that would metamorphose into a swallowtail (probably anise swallowtail but could also be an old world swallowtail).

Swallowtail caterpillar

Then it was time for some heavy duty hiking. To avoid cutting through private property and getting chased out by an angry landowner, we followed the border of the ecological reserve, traversed a narrow, muddy trail at the edge of a steep canyon, and continued admiring the plants and flowers at the same time. The landscape changed from rolling meadows and rocky outcrops to large basalt lava-rock formations and deep tree-filled gorges--small canyons holding little forests between the arms of large boulders.

We continued gaining in elevation until we reached the lunch spot. This was the spectacular basalt-cliff waterfall, and what a view for a picnic.

Some of the younger, more adventurous types decided to continue hiking down to the bottom of the waterfall, but not me and my tired legs. I and my family units decided to take our leisure return to the parking lot, but got quite disoriented along the way. After traveling over what seemed like a lot of grazing pasture with muddy depressions and cowpies to look out for, we followed distant landmarks until we spotted the giant oak that had welcomed us into the reserve.

After a long and exhilarating day in the great outdoors, we met the parents in Oroville for an early dinner at Applebee's. I am already making plans to return to this place in a wetter year, when the hills of green grass are painted with blankets of yellow and purple carpets of wildflowers. That will be truly "amay-zing".

Greater Sandhill Cranes of Woodbridge Ecological Reserve

January 19, 2014. While on a roll with bird tours, I also signed us up for a greater sandhill crane tour at the Woodbridge Ecological Reserve, also known as the Isenberg Crane Reserve. The reserve is in San Joaquin County, just west of the Central Valley town of Lodi, on the eastern edge of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Now this one is a little closer to home (pun not intended), since I spend a good amount of time on my day job working with sandhill crane specialists to conserve this species in the Bay-Delta region.

The greater sandhill crane is a subspecies of the sandhill crane that is listed as Threatened in the State of California. Like swans, its natural wetland habitat disappeared throughout California, and as a result the crane relies on agricultural crops for its life history needs. The Central Valley population of the sandhill crane breeds mostly in northern California and Oregon and migrates to the Central Valley and southern California for the winter. Their most important wintering grounds are in the rice fields of Butte County and in croplands such as corn fields in the Bay-Delta region. They start to arrive as early as late August and start the migration to their northern breeding grounds in late February. A good majority of the sandhill crane Central Valley population can be found wintering in the central Delta, so a few reserves have been set aside specifically to benefit the species with preserved wetlands and compatible crops and agricultural practices. The cranes can be seen at the Cosumnes River Preserve, Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, Staten Island, and the Isenberg Crane Reserve.

Meeting spot

This reserve, owned by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, hosts one of the largest concentrations of sandhill cranes in the region. The tour meets at one of the reserve's birding spots for the docents to talk about the life history and conservation needs of the crane.

It starts in the late afternoon because the best time to see the sandhill cranes is in the evening. At dusk, the cranes congregate in shallow-water fields or wetlands to roost for the evening. Spending the night in the middle of these flooded fields keeps them relatively safe from predators such as coyotes, which are apparently deterred by the amount of water between themselves and the cranes. During the day, the cranes forage in the fields and wetlands close to their roost sites, and as if responding to a curfew, they all start flying in at once at the end of their busy day to rest for the night. It's this time of day the volunteers at the reserve bring their guests to the roost site to watch the cranes fly in.

Sandhill Crane roost site

It was beautiful. The cranes flew in as the sun was setting. We observed them from the deck of the reserve's headquarters building, hot chocolate was served, and we also looked for owls roosting in the trees to the west. In this setting we enjoyed casual conversation with our tour guides as the cranes and other waterbirds populated the wetland. It was an unforgettable experience.

At the end of the day, we took advantage of being close to Lodi by eating great Mexican food at Habanero Hots. I caught the end of the football season playoffs for the San Francisco 49ers, who lost to the Seattle Seahawks, and drank a strong margarita to top off the evening. No one can say Lodi, California, is not a destination. I hope to return next year and go to the Sandhill Crane Festival--an event that celebrates this magnificent bird.

Swans of Marysville

Every winter the California Department of Fish and Wildlife North Central Region puts on swan tours in the rice fields of Marysville. I'm not sure why I waited until 2014 to go on one of these tours, but finally, from the urging of my swan-loving mother, my adventure-seeking brother, and my own constant drive to be outside watching birds, I signed us up for a tour on January 4th. January is the best time to go, as it is the heart of the winter migration through the Sacramento Valley. While traveling back roads from the Sacramento area to Butte County via Marysville, I had seen agricultural fields blanketed white with hundreds of tundra swans, with no time to stop, so I was glad to dedicate a whole day to it.

Wintering  and migrating waterfowl such as swans were once sustained by a vast, connected complex of wetlands throughout the Central Valley of California. However, with about a 90% or more loss of wetland habitat in this state, these birds adapted to making their living at this important migration stop-over in flooded agricultural fields. The crop type most suitable for migrating swans is rice, because rice farmers routinely flood their fields to control bacteria, and many of the  farmers participate in wildlife-friendly agricultural practices through conservation easements or their own sense of stewardship. Marysville is a hotspot for such waterfowl friendly agriculture, and District 10, a 23,000-acre expanse of privately-owned rice fields and restored wetland habitat, draws one of the highest concentrations of swans and other waterfowl in all of the Central Valley. So we were definitely privileged to have access to these private properties by joining this tour.

We met the other participants and the guide at the big rice dryers on Matthew Lane, just north of Marysville off Woodruff Road. After a short walk to where groups of swans and other birds were gathered near the meeting spot, the group followed the guide in a caravan along the narrow checks and levees between the flooded fields, heads and binoculars hanging out of our windows. Besides the graceful white tundra swans, we saw white-faced ibis, great blue heron, American crow, pintails, red-tail hawks, snow geese, Brewer's blackbird, red-winged blackbird, great white egret, northern shoveler, American coots, killdeer, American widgeon, turkey vulture, and heard a marsh wren. We had the advantage of a naturalist/professional wildlife photographer join us on the tour, and he saw and pointed out what we didn't see, and gave us a lot of good stories and information. Even the landowner (rice farmer) came out to say hi while we birded one of his levees. Not bad for a day of birding.

When the tour ended, our birding didn't end. We said adieu to the crew and went on our own back-road birding drive to the city of Marysville. On Kimball Lane, we saw the most gorgeous spread of swans in the wetlands with the Sutter Buttes in the background (so awesome I made the photo my Facebook banner), and on Hallwood Blvd. we caught a few more birds such as western meadowlark and American kestrel. In Marysville we had lunch at the 100th best Asian buffet in America. Well, it was OK, maybe why it's the 100th best. Then headed home as the sun started setting. It's nice to live so close to such birding hotspots.

Sacramento River Cruise and Old Town

Most of us don't do the tourist thing in the area where we live and work. Who has time? We're too busy living and working, and then we do our sightseeing far away from home. That is until we have out-of-town guests, holidays, or birthdays, and the question comes up: What's a fun thing to do in this town? The city I work in and live near is Sacramento, California. I spent several of my adult years here, and only recently discovered Old Sacramento and what it has to offer. On Father's Day two years ago we were trying to figure out something we could do that Dad would enjoy. He wanted to see ships in the Port of Sacramento, but something better caught my eye. An hour-long history cruise on the Sacramento River on the Hornblower. Then we'd go try to see cargo ships.

Delta King

The Hornblower departed from its dock in Sacramento's historic Old Town, next to the permanently moored Delta King, a paddlewheel steamboat with a rich history as a passenger boat in the 1920s, on military duty during World War II, an excursion boat on the Hudson River, a home to laborers in British Columbia, and a mysterious sinking in Richmond, California. Now it serves as a hotel/restaurant and nightclub. The Hornblower provided a narrated history lesson as we cruised north up the river in the hot sun. First we learned about the building of our Tower Bridge in 1934, and the historic I-Street drawbridge. Known as a metal truss swing bridge, it swings open horizontally instead of rising vertically.

Tower Bridge

I Street Bridge

Then we passed a ship-like dock--the historic air force docks. The "bow" (front side) of the dock measures the depth of the river. The oddly wing-shaped building sits on the "deck", walled with glass windows decorated with colored circles. I have no idea what this building houses or what it's for. A weather vane sits between the two wings. Further upriver, an historic power house. Further up, a shipwreck, and a whole story about how that happened and why the remains of the ship are still there--apparently providing good fish habitat. We passed riparian woodland, and the restaurants, docks, and marinas along the Garden Highway. We turned around at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers, where people partied on the beach, in the park, and on the water.

Historic Air Force dock

Sunken ship

We cruised back to Old Town and disembarked. Unfortunately, that day we never made it to the Port of Sacramento, because I ran the Prius over a curb, broke it somehow, and we had to be towed to Folsom. Now we spend a lot of fun evenings in Old Town. Elegant dining, flavorful martinis, and live Irish music on a Thursday, or Americana-pop-classics on a Friday, at the Delta Bar & Grill has become a night on the town for us. And on an evening of extreme indulgence, we feast like sea lions on a bucket filled with a whole garlic-buttered crab at Joe's crab shack--sitting on the deck over the river, drinking a fancy cocktail, and watching the tie-died clad wait staff suddenly break into some silly dance. And then when that's done, the blues bar across the street or down the stairs is still open, in case we want to dance to a tune and have a beer.

So when my sister asked us if we wanted to do the Sacramento river cruise and Joe's Crab Shack for her birthday in October the following year, it was "hell yea!" I'd do it a third time if the occasion again arises. And I have yet to explore the other fun vacation-like options Old Town has to offer, such as underground tours, visiting the railroad museum, or showing up on Gold Rush Days, when Old Town closes itself to modern-day traffic and historian actors re-enact the early days of wagons, saloons, and gold prospecting. Now that's a whole lot of fun for a home town, where just blocks away I spend most of my time in a cube.

The Saga of Sunburn Revisited

The last time we heard from Sunburn, we were going over his heritage: born in Mexico of German parents at an assembly plant in Mexico City. It took 10 hours to cast all his engine parts, debus them, and assemble his 2.0-litre incline 4 engine made of German steel.

Sunburn was born in April of 1995 on a Wednesday. He is a Wednesday’s car. He is 18 years old, with 255,000 miles on his odometer. Needless to say, he has been to college and gone around the world 6 times. 18 years old for a commuter car is quite old, and he would be considered a Senior in a human lifetime.

This past week Sunburn wasn’t feeling so well. He called me on his telepathic new Alpine receiver, and I listened to what he had to say. He said, “Master, I’m not as fast as I once was, but I’m fast. My exhaust system has cancer, and I have a hole in my heart. My instrument cluster is only half working. My reply was “OK. Would you like to go to the old muffler shop in Fairfield? He blinked his headlights, “Yes.” So I got on the Internet, and low-and-behold, Dick’s Muffler and Hitches shop was still in business on North Texas Street. I called Rich, who has been working there 33 years, and made an appointment.

I told Rich I was in my second childhood, and that Sunburn wanted an exhaust with an attitude. This German kid was getting tired of being smoked by the rice burners. So Rich went to work and tore out both the old mufflers, installed a blue streak straight through the glass pack, and fixed the hole in his large intestine.

On the way home, Sunburn was a new man, looking for a rice rocket to devour. We were on North Texas Street, and pulled up beside a twin-turbo VTEC Honda with racing stripes all over it. Quite a formidable machine. His driver called us an “ugly piece of shit crout car.” Sunburn blinked at me through his half-lit instrument cluster, and I nodded my head, “Yes.” We told the Jap Honda that the Germans won the war, and we challenged him to a drag race to the freeway.

As the light turned green, we both put the pedal to the metal. Sunburn pulled ahead in third gear at 5200 RPM on the Tach. We (Sunburn and I) hit the freeway in the fast lane. I have his head at 85 MPH with the radar detector set at 360 degrees. The black knight Honda VTEC was never seen again.

Moral to the story: Never insult a sleeping Golf III; he might wax you with a “hole in one”.

20 mi(i5)-75 mi = 525 Ans: Hwy 25

It is the year of the snake, and the hibernating Gators have had the worst losing streak since 1979. Trivia: Did you know that a Gator can wag his tail like a dog?

Of the 4 million sports car enthusiasts that use their rides to get away from it all and change their focus from everyday problems to “the challenge of a mountain road”, California Highway 25 is a well-kept secret only shared by a few. When I was on it a few weeks ago, I only met one car on my 2-hour excursion near Hollister, CA.

Now, the saggers in high school all wear sweatshirts with HOLLISTER on the sleeve. When asked what “HOLLISTER” means, they say it’s just a brand. HOLLISTER is a real place, and you will find the start of Hwy. 25 downtown.

The Hollister hills are a study of geological phenomena. On one side of the highway are rolling hills, and the other is mountainous sheers. In the hills you will occasionally see a farmhouse in a crease.

Highway 25 is a work of art, built right on the San Andreas Fault line, so if you are afraid of earthquakes, “don’t even think about it.” There are spots on the road you can go 100 MPH (not legally), and scare the crap out of yourself. In the beginning, about 15 miles out of Hollister is the coolest mom & pop restaurant that serves fantastic soup and crab crepes.

Halfway through this “stairway to heaven”, there is a turn-off called Peachtree Road. This is a desolate, two-lane road that narrows down to one lane and makes you believe that you are at the ends of the earth. If you are afraid of blind curves, “don’t even think about it.” This is truly a “stoner” road, with absolutely no danger of cops. If you want to get further adventurous, take the Indian Valley Road. Don’t break down because the imminent Indian attack is still prevalent.

Since all roads lead to I-5, keep on going and you will find your way home, wagging your Gator tail behind you. So good luck, be careful, and enjoy.

The spirit of the road,

Bamba