On Wednesday, May 11th, we set out for Lodi, planning to camp at the Flag City RV Park. We checked into S39, which is at the southwest area of the park, and observed that much had changed since our last visit three years ago in 2019. Solar panels adorn building rooftops, and are ground-placed all around the large dog play area. Trees have grown to provide good shade to the RV spaces. Many large, lovely RVs appear to be long-tern renters (about $900/month) as they have planters with flowers and tomato plants, etc. Our little Apex Nano is the smalles RV here--or was until a small Rpod came in Thursday. The cell service is only 2 bars and the wifi is very slow so I purchased an additional wifi plan to allow my meetings to happen, as I had one each afternoon for the next three days.
On Thursday, we visited Bill Jones who generously let us pick some lemons, grapefruit and cherries after we visited with him and gazillions of his humingbirds. We later had a lovely lunch of crackers and cheese at Micke Grove Park, picnicking under the oaks near the Zoo. Afterwards, we explored the lovely and tranquil Japanese Garden there (see above and below).
We explored the UOP campus, as it had been about fifty years since Liz and I last walked those pathways. Burns Tower now hosts a visitors center, and the students working there were very helpful and gave us a map showing the campus buildings that exist today--far more and in different places than existed in the 1960s.
The campus was clearly setting up for graduation ceremonies with white and black folding chairs, ribbons, flowers, banners, etc. An air of excitement seemed to permeate the grounds. We walked to toward what had been the library--it is gone, but we explored the interior of the NEW library. A sweet student library staffer showed us around the marvelous new library, explaining to us about the tech center with the 3-D printer and more, the media room showcasing student collaborative videos and movies, event areas, and study rooms, etc. I didn't see any books, so finally I asked if there were any books, and she got really excited and said the old books were her favorite area--so down into the basement we descended where movable stacks could be ratcheted apart with the twirl of a hatch handle for floating, moveable aisleways. Actual reference books were still housed on shelving unit after shelving unit.
Later we decided to dine out, and had a great Mexican dinner in Lodi at El Maguey, which we recommend. It is small but has a diverse menu, and the food was excellent.
Today, Friday the 13th, we planned to explore the foothills, so drove east on highway 12 to connect up with Highway 49. The drive through the small foothill towns is always nice, and also showed us the extent of the drought impact as we passed over the New Melones reservoir.
I have never seen the reservoir this low.
We drove on and decided to make a stop at Columbia, where we could have our picnic lunch of chicken sandwiches and take a little time to explore the historical mining town.
We drove home, diverting around a full Tullock Reservoir to the new Copperopolis Town Center, and stopped for ice cream--it's warm today, with a high of 84 expected. Tomorrow is supposed to be around 94. Laura is joining us tomorrow, and we plan to re-explore the delta islands.
