November 28, 2009

I was in Downieville last weekend.  Seems like the place is shutting down, at least the restaurants are. In Sierra City the Red Moose closed during the summer and we were there for the last meal at the Buckhorn. Seems like the Buckhorn is closing for the winter.  In Downieville, the Wooden Trout went bankrupt and is closed.  So if you want a meal at night you are out of luck. All that’s open is a pizza place called the Gallows and a little restaurant in the local  grocery store. By the way, the restaurant makes great sandwiches.  Oh, there is only one grocery store, so you don’t have to worry about which one has the place to eat.

Not much happened this week, first the grocery stores were so busy you had a long line at the cash register with everyone buying food for Thanksgiving and then with black Friday there were long lines at the department stores. Wal-Mart stayed open 24 hours, JC Penny’s opened at 4 or 5 in the morning and I slept until nine.  The heck with going to the store at 5 am, I can spend my money at a decent hour.

Scotts Flat Lake continues to drop, waiting for the upper lakes that feed it to fill up. With the way the winter is going so far, it doesn’t look too good. You can argue if we have global warming or not, but you can’t argue with the fact that we’ve had some mighty dry years lately. The last thing we need is another dry winter. Interesting that people don’t want any more dams to store water and create hydro-electric power, but they want drinking water and clean energy, doesn’t compute, does it?

Oh, here’s a picture of the newly painted bridge in Downieville. I understand it took six weeks to paint the bridge. They had to completely enclosed the bridge so when they sandblasted the old paint none of the debris would fall into the river. The natives are happy that the bridge is open again. The detour was a real pain going through the narrow winding streets of Downieville.   By the way, did you know that Downieville missed being the state capitol of California by 10 votes? Hopefully this adds your trivia facts in case you ever get into a trivia contest.

Have a great holiday season.

John O’Dell