December 8, 2008.
Not very Christmasy, I know. My sister was born on December 15, and we always waited until after her birthday to start decorating, just to make sure she didn't feel cheated, and we've kept it up over the years. It won't keep me from enjoying yours, though. 8)

I drove down through the Yuba Goldfields Saturday. The Goldfields are a 15-mile stretch of the Yuba River above Marysville (California) -- thousands of acres of rock and gravel washed down from the mountains from hydraulic mining between 1852 and 1865, when it was outlawed. During that period of time the bed of the Yuba River at Marysville rose more than 65 feet.

In that part of the river bottoms, there are a lot of retaining walls put up over the last 150 years -- and then abandoned -- in futile attempts to control the flooding and the movement of all that gravel. I'm afraid the scars will be there for a long, long time.

Those parts of the river, while not remote, are only visited by a few people. The gravel is a hundred feet deep, and there's no topsoil, so not much grows there. Those walls are a favorite spot for taggers to practice. When I go down there, I always throw a bunch of their empty spray cans in the back of my pickup and haul them out, but there's no way I can keep up.

I drive down along that part of the river every once in a while; it has a kind of ruined beauty -- like a moonscape with water. While I enjoy it for what it is, it always leaves me feeling a little melancholy.

December 8, 2008.
Not very Christmasy, I know. My sister was born on December 15, and we always waited until after her birthday to start decorating, just to make sure she didn't feel cheated, and we've kept it up over the years. It won't keep me from enjoying yours, though. 8)

I drove down through the Yuba Goldfields Saturday. The Goldfields are a 15-mile stretch of the Yuba River above Marysville (California) -- thousands of acres of rock and gravel washed down from the mountains from hydraulic mining between 1852 and 1865, when it was outlawed. During that period of time the bed of the Yuba River at Marysville rose more than 65 feet.

In that part of the river bottoms, there are a lot of retaining walls put up over the last 150 years -- and then abandoned -- in futile attempts to control the flooding and the movement of all that gravel. I'm afraid the scars will be there for a long, long time.

Those parts of the river, while not remote, are only visited by a few people. The gravel is a hundred feet deep, and there's no topsoil, so not much grows there. Those walls are a favorite spot for taggers to practice. When I go down there, I always throw a bunch of their empty spray cans in the back of my pickup and haul them out, but there's no way I can keep up.

I drive down along that part of the river every once in a while; it has a kind of ruined beauty -- like a moonscape with water. While I enjoy it for what it is, it always leaves me feeling a little melancholy.