Outside the Bubble
I’m out east.. like east of Sac halfway between Sac and Tahoe -ish. Today I had to run south to get a specialty item for the kids (rabbit.. it’s rabbit. These kids eat like kings. That rabbit is so tender, if it didn’t say not for human consumption, they’d be fighting me for it) I plotted my route and left before the heat of the day. It’s about to be a scorching 107 so I want to meander but not lollygag.
The road down 49 is not unlike a road I took back in 2016 through Colusa county.. what I like to call, the kindling of california. Yellow grasses as far as the eye can see with some green trees that look deceptively lush but are really just as dry as the yellow grass at their base. How we haven’t set this whole state on fire is a testament to paying attention.
I wanted to check out a thrift store in Jackson first cuz… that’s what I do. Before Thrift Town left SF, I tried on all varieties of personalities on a regular basis, always settling on my hoodie t-shirt combo but it was fun to experiment.
I pulled into a … town? called Drytown. It wasn’t even really a full street long with 2 ‘antique’ shops, a post office, two cafes and one club called Drytown Club that I suspect was anything but dry. Oh and the cemetary cuz.. if you come from here and you stayed here, you clearly don’t want to leave here. It was less than a blink of an eye and almost quaint. More like qua.
As I moved closer to Jackson, the american flags came out. I’ll admit, american flags terrify me. I see a flag I know there’s a gun tote’in, white american who has strong opinions on queers, people of color and biden. I wanted to cry as I pulled into Jackson, the most uninspiring pathetic conglomeration of big ass trucks, white people as far as the eye could see, fast food, dollar stores, rinky dink cafes and other forgetful places. There was even a flag store that proudly displayed the largest of their flags on the lawn which lay alongside the single lane highway. Impeach Biden, trump 2024 and other absurd declarations broke my heart. They do a booming business as evidenced by the amount of vehicles sporting flags. The absolute mediocrity. And I say this knowing full well, I know nothing about this town and I could be wrong in every direction. I’d own that in a second if I was proven wrong. I just don’t care enough to find out so I’ll talk smack from over here.
The second hand store, which I did scope out on google last night, was not conveyed well in pictures. I walked into an extremely neat but cluttered fire hazard that smelled like someone threw up grandma all over the place. The odor of over-clean made each breath a struggle to find unperfumed air. The clothes, besides being the kind of stuff your grandma/pa would wear, were organized meticulously. Damn it, that did speak to me. I couldn’t do it tho.. less than 5 minutes and I had to book it outta there. “Get it off me, get it off me, get it off me” I uttered silently as I left the building.
I headed over to Sutter Creek to the K9 Kafe for some fresh frozen rabbit. $10 for a flat ipad sized brick of rabbit. How many rabbit kids went into this brick? Maybe I don’t think about that. I came into Sutter Creek from the back end and when I left I headed through Main street. Holy hell … this is where the word Quaint comes from. But not just quaint, historically accurate with it’s wooden balconies, decorative facades, a bridge over an actual creek with actual water, just an insanely adorable downtown. My eyes couldn’t take it all in.. too much.. to look.. at.. distracted.. driving… gotta go slower… omg.. amazing building after amazing building.. it’s coming to an end.. must turn around and do that again. If I didn’t have the frozen rabbit, I would have stopped to lollygag through this lil amazing town.
The ride back was actually meandering. Through the back side Amador/El Dorado county. Winding roads, dotted with old dilapidated wooden holding pens for cattle or horses. More yellow grasses but surprisingly, water still moved down the Cosumnes river. I wonder how many more years that river has in it.
This is all a great reminder that we live in a bubble in SF. As unsafe as it can feel sometimes, it still feels safer than the ignorance of someone proudly displaying a dumbass trump flag. How the hell is he still walking free?
