2009-07-29: Across the street from the Tea Garden is the Botanical Garden, which is also a pleasant place to be. Some of the plants were from exotic climates and were unlike any I was familiar with. Wild birds, including quail and hummingbirds, could be found throughout. One small patch of wildflowers concealed dozens of small, brightly coloured birds, all of which took flight as I approached.
It was nice to take a casual pace through the gardens, rather than fighting extreme terrain and conditions, at least for a couple of hours.
I then drove west, into the Central Valley, to the town of Manteca, where my parents had lived, and got a "trophy photo" of myself in front of their old residence. Here the weather was hot and dry. Looking for a place to camp, I thought that McConnell State Recreation Area sounded good. It is on the banks of the Merced River, with showers, which I desperately needed. I took a quick drive through Stockton (I was born there) and got back on the south-bound highway.
Once I had gotten off the interstate, the rural road was lined by orchards and poor farmer's shanties. Gang graffiti tags were found everywhere along the concrete irrigation canals. The park's office was practically boarded up and that the entry gate was broken off. The pay box was gone. The dumpsters were overflowing with trash. The small park was filled with what seemed to be poor Hispanic families. And none of these things were a problem for me.
But I looked around and saw that this was a rough crowd. It would only take one person to cause trouble for the "outsider" that I was. I thought I'd take a shower and then decide what to do. The shower had a lot of dirt on the floor...not mud, but bits of dirt and sand. I put in a dollar into the machine and it didn't work. But the handicapped spigot, about 3 feet off the floor, did work. And that's how I took my shower. I left the park at dusk. The endless rows of small trees and their shadows looked very strange in the dwindling light. I found a highway rest stop where CalTrans provided wireless internet access, and used it to catch up on some things. In the news, I read something about budget cuts for hundreds of California parks.
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