We arrived in Chico, CA on Sunday afternoon and set up at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds for a two-week stay (only a week for me, sadly). We met the other three Care-a-Vanners already there, Pepe & Alma from Colorado & their sweet Aussie Shepherd named Guapo, and Bruce from Washington State.
We had the option of full hookups but no shade in the middle of the lot, or electric & water only on the shaded southern edge. There's a dump station in the middle of the lot, but it would require moving the entire rig to use. Since there was a heat wave approaching, we opted for the shade. Unfortunately, so did the flies that lived in the animal stables just through the trees! But overall, it was a more pleasant location than expected, and Dad and I enjoyed many a round of Whack-a-Fly on the side of the camper. Also, it was available for the bargain price of totally free (sometimes Habitat Care-a-Vanners have to pay for their sites.
North of us across the lot was an RC car raceway and a Costco, and to the east was a dirtbike raceway. There was regular activity at all, but no nighttime noise luckily.
Our first night, we visited the public pool in Lower Bidwell Park, which is fed by Big Chico Creek as it runs down from the nearby mountains and out through the city. Another really lovely municipal use of a natural waterway, possibly one of my favorites. We didn't get in that night, but I promised myself I'd correct that eventually.
And I said smell-ya-later to Walmart on the last run of my trip. Thanks for all the bathroom breaks, $5 wine, and tissue-thin shopping bags. Can't speak for Mom & Dad, although I think WinCo is currently beating out Walmart soundly in the CA grocery department.
Monday...I don't have any photos from that day so maybe it never happened? I think Dad took the truck for an oil change, then we all convened at a nearby brewery for a Habitat meeting (I typed up blog entries at another table so as not to see the secret handshakes and stuff.) Then Mom & I hunted through the Salvation Army shop down the street. Was there ice cream? Perhaps. It is lost to the sands of time.
Tuesday morning the Habitat build started, so I was left to my own devices. Bruce very kindly lent me his wife's bike since she was on a girls' trip elsewhere, so I biked to the pool after a few hours of work. But I forgot my phone, and worried there'd be some emergency and Mom & Dad wouldn't be able to get into the camper since I had the keys, I only stayed for a 5 minute swim and hurried back. That night I can say with certainty that there was ice cream because I have a photo!
La Flor de Michoacan has three locations in Chico, but we only visited two. How embarrassing!
Wednesday morning I did some more work and then headed out on the bike better prepared. Rode down some cute residential streets and had a coffee on the roof deck of the swanky downtown three-story cafe Stoble.
Downtown Chico's "art thing" is funky seating.
The National Yo-Yo Museum is a free exhibit in the back of a gift shop...
I got a sandwich to-go and biked to the park, where I completed the Lower Park bike loop, ate by the creek, and had a quick swim in the pool on the way back. I LOVED this park.
On my return route, I passed the Bidwell mansion...
And went through some of the lovely University of California Chico campus.
Thursday all of us worked straight through the day, then drove to Upper Bidwell Park, which is mostly wilderness, with dozens of trails, a canyon, and several swimming holes.
There are some crumbling concrete pathways around Bear Hole, which aren't especially old but something about the surrounding landscape makes it feel like ancient ruins.
Access to the swimming holes is not for the faint of heart or the weak of joints, so we didn't actually get in the water, but it was worth the trip just to see the canyon.
With the sun quickly setting, we made it to the Thursday Night Market downtown in time to get some yummy food (a combo meal from a Fillipino truck & amazing roasted corn with "the works") before trying the other popular ice cream place, Schubert's.
My last full day in Chico, Friday, Mom & Dad worked a half day at the ReStore instead of the site, and I did my laundry and visited a cat who lives in a sporting goods store next to the laundromat.
I swung by the ReStore to make sure Mom & Dad were following safety protocol (A+).
After the day's work, we drove up to Paradise, to see where they'd been building earlier in the week. Paradise was almost entirely destroyed by the Camp Fire in 2018, but has rebuilt a great deal since then. If you hadn't seen it before, and didn't look carefully enough to see the blackened lower trunks of the remaining trees, you'd think that maybe a small tornado had blown through a while back. Almost all debris has been removed and there's tons of new construction going up besides this Habitat build.
On the Skyway back to Chico, we stopped at the overlook for a beautiful view of Butte Creek Canyon, then met the other Care-a-Vanners for a BBQ dinner downtown - and more ice cream.
Saturday afternoon I finished my packing and we headed to Sacramento. We had a lovely lunch with friends traveling in the area on the way to distract us, but we made the final approach to the airport with heavy hearts, and there were many tears shed that afternoon, like so many chemical particles dropped by this cool cropduster as it flew by.
I've been putting off writing this post because I still don't feel like my trip is over. I love being home with Josh and the cats, and being back in NY, but I miss traveling with Mom & Dad already. They are the best RV-roomies you could ask for. I feel so lucky that we were able to make this happen in the first place, and on top of that, that nobody got murdered in that camper. Heck, we even still LIKE each other!
I've been slowly readjusting to city life and the Eastern time zone this week, and Mom & Dad are finishing up their Paradise build this afternoon. They'll head further north to Oregon & Washington soon before turning east and slowly making their way back home by Fall. I was initially hoping to hand the blog over to them to update themselves, but I unwittingly chose the clunkiest, most user-unfriendly platform on the internet to make this thing, and I wouldn't wish the mobile platform on my worst enemy. It's much easier to use on a desktop, though, so I'll try to keep this updated occasionally with photos they send me. I already have a few from the build this past week.
Thanks to everyone who read this! Fingers crossed that it'll be back in full force on a yearly basis!
