October 5, 2013
It's always fun to see new places and fill in gaps in the geo-landscape. Prior to Friday I had never been to Sacramento, and I had never been north on the 5 to Mount Shasta and the farming region beyond.
First, though, we flew from Phoenix right over the Yarnell Fire area where 19 Hotshots died:
The Yarnell Fire footprint: the Hotshots died in upper left-hand corner.
And, then, north of there we come to the Mucho Canyones (Many Canyons) region of Arizona where U.S. Forces surprised an Apache Rancheria on the top of a flat mesa, near Turret Peak, I believe the name of the closest topographical outcropping:
Mucho Canyones
After a four hour plus drive we landed in a lush, historical farming area where the barns and houses date from the 1860s. This is in Etna, a small farming community of about 700 souls. We are here for the wedding of Maki Sato, one of Deena's best friends. Her husband to be, Christian, went to high school here and worked on the farms in the summer. Of course Grandma Goose and G-Paw Goose have spent much of the time babysitting Weston, and here is Marmita (as her daughter calls her) carrying The Man of The West out of our B&B (the Alderbrook Inn) in downtown Etna:
Kathy and Weston in front of the Alderbrook Inn
A middle-aged man is waiting in a grocery store checkout line while he watches the cashier talking on the phone in a foreign language. When she hangs up, the man says, "You're in America now, you need to speak English." The incredulous woman says, "Excuse me?" And the man says slowly, "You are no longer in Mexico. You-need-to-speak-English." Ringing up his items, she says, "I was speaking Navajo and if you want to speak English go back to England."
—Old Vaquero Joke
