Writing from Santa Cruz
This is just a little ping to say that I’m doing well. I’ve visited Berkely and Oakland with S.H. Very good vibe. She asked me why I was going to Grass Valley. “Because 3 friends have told me that it’s a place to check out if I want that “hippier” feel.” She wasn’t sure but doubted that ascertion so we walked into a bookstore and I had to pick up 4 CA travel guides before I found even a mention of Grass Valley. And that was more of a blurb than a listing. Aparently, Grass Valley’s claim to fame is some woman who (if I remember correctly from Fodor’s guide) entertained the gold miners in 1850 with her Spider Dance. She wasn’t a particularly good dancer, but she was very well known. Fodors listed 2 places to eat and one place to visit. At that, S.H. and I simultaneously, in harmony, said, “What the hell were they thinking?”
I’m in Santa Cruz right now and I keep reading in the papers how the whole area gets wiped off the map every couple decades… and they’re pretty much due for another disaster soon.
MetroSantaCruz, Feb 23rd, 2005
Naturally, because the odds are against us. The sexy strip of land we call downtown is part of the natural floodplain of the San Lorenzo River–witness that this is the 50th anniversary of the 1955 flood that devastated downtown. The soil here is subject to liquefaction in an earthquake, and if there ever was a major tsunami on the West Coast (soothing experts say it’s is extremely unlikely), well, the downtown is right in the tsunami run-up area. If we were golfers, we’d call the spot where downtown Santa Cruz landed a bad lie.
“I keep looking over my shoulder for the locusts,” says John Lisher, owner of Artisan’s Gallery. Lisher was one of the many merchants who owned businesses on Pacific Avenue when the Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed the downtown on Oct. 17, 1989.
Good Times weekly (speaking about Santa Cruz…)
…That’s the typical California cycle – flood, drought, wildfire, and flood with landslides…
It’s very pretty here, but doesn’t have the peppy vibe I’m looking for.
I’m liking Berkeley and Oakland.
More later.