Lake Oroville: Visual Gold

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Lake Oroville is a giant reservoir in the foothills northeast of Sacramento

There is a visitor center for the recreation area with exhibits, native american artifacts recovered before the lake formed and viewing platforms

 Native Americans used these boulders to grind their food, especially acorns, which were then leached of their tannins with water

 Generations and generations of people used these stones

Dioramas 

An early 1800's map of Alta California 

They had this nice theater with over 30 videos to choose from. I went with rice 

I had no idea it was so prominent in the Sacramento valley. The video was so 80's, but maybe produced in 1992

A bubbling fountain

The dam is the straight line on the left, a raptor above 

It was a beautiful late-summer day, but back when the fires clouded the views, can you see the raptor again?

 One of the main bridges north/east into feather falls

 Looked like dinosaur bones

 Sunset

Note the lake level back then, vs in October

 

 Crazy pretty with the concentric rings of past water levels

 About 200 feet seemed exposed in some areas, I wonder why this red dirt collected here

 The plant life was interesting, and starting to turn fall colors

 A lot of resilient waterside trees dotted the former shorelines

 These boulders looked like a sliced potato to me

 This lake is popular with boaters

 The undulating shoreline reflects the foothill geography

The views from the valley showed the recent snows in the high mountains (at left) 

This pod looked like it was from the little shop of horrors

 But had lovely flowers

 This was an old, creeping lichen

 Tiny flowers

 Interesting fungus, reminded me of halloween

 Along with these

 Tiny cup fungus

 The sunset was breathtaking, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves

Fall Farm Day

I went on another farm tour in early September in the Capay valley. There are a lot of organic farms in this valley, as well as a large casino (so, so out of place).

On the way, I saw the remnants of a field of corn stalks

 And a giant research/food processing facility in woodland

 Can you see the chickens in this view?

There it is 

I ran across this sign in the fields and was a little tempted to knock out internet and phone service between the east and west coasts, but decided against it

A field of gourds. Mostly winter squashes

Such as this beautiful goose-neck squash 

Purple peppers, white peppers, so many free peppers for the picking

They were so good, everyone joined in 

This canal runs water through the valley for all the farms

a crossing to get to more fields 

Broccoli starting out for the fall 

An empty field of former cucumber. Look closely and you might find some old, yellow cucs 

 

 Asparagus bushes. Apparently the second year you get the spears

Brussel sprouts

Ripe pistachios, that is why some countries dye the shells red 

A little citrus 

 These candy-stripe figs were out of this world; so sweet and juicy, you could eat a dozen in one sitting. I made an amazing pork roast with them

Butterflies and bees on lavender

 They even had a petting zoo and hay rides

I came across this brand new field of endive or lettuce 

So cute