Chico!

Our next stop in California was Chico, a smallish city in norther California. We had a pretty good setup, staying with sky's Dad Dale at Valley Oaks Village (VOV), a co-housing community he (dale) helped start about 12 years ago. The community has about 20 individual units in a long oval, surrounding a central landscaped area. A little creek and paths run through, and there's a small pond at one end. The other end has a big bike shed, community garden space, giant community building and a pool. VOV definitely has the feel of middle class commune; one of dale's house-mates even referred to it as “bougified yuppieville”. Even so, its a pretty sweet scene; lots of families and kids live there, most of whom were founding members. Community meals happen a few times a week, and everyone pitches in on the general upkeep, landscaping and community celebrations.

VOV is just down the road from bidwell park, the second largest city park per square mile in any US city (first is central park in NYC). Bidwell is huge and beautiful, with bike and walking paths running throughout. The park runs the length of the downtown area, providing a lush and beautiful commute to almost anywhere in town. Most days, we biked to town for groceries (there's a phenomenal food co-cop), busking, or computerized coffee-shopping.

We also spent lots of time with Dale, an X-oaker with a strong penchant for community building and personal growth work. We got out of town a bit too; sky's dad and brother Shandon just bought a 40 acre chunk of land about a half hour away, with hopes of homesteading and community-building. Its very striking, a little flat section that quickly drops off to a deep gorge of lava rock with a bubbling creek pooling and waterfalling down through the center. Dale and Shandon have been pouring themselves into the grueling physical work required to get the land ready for building. Shandon and his partner are hoping to start homesteading up there, and Dale has hopes for a artist/activist retreat community. We spent a morning up there getting smoky and sweaty, pulling together dead trees and brush into giant burn piles while Dale chainsawed the bigger trees and Shandon hosed down one of the (slightly out of control) burn piles. We came back up a few days later to enjoy the land; Dale showed us the various potential building spots, then we hiked down the gorge for a chilly swim and picnic on the rocks.

We also spent some time connecting with the GRUB folks http://grubchico.org/ folks (Growing Resourcefully, Uniting Bellies). GRUB started about a year and half ago, with the mission of growing as much food as possible within the Chico city limits. They started out using little yard plots that people donated to the cause to supply a 10 member CSA. They are constantly growing and expanding, and now have a couple larger plots of a couple acres each, a large volunteer base (mostly from Chico State University), the beginnings of a restaurant-composting operation, an education component at the girls and boys clubs, a fruit tree gleaning operation, and regular, festive fund-raisers with local food and local music. We spent a morning at the GRUB house, which belongs to one of the founder's mothers and gets rented out to folks who are willing to help out with the GRUB mission. The backyard is teeming with GRUB projects—a little greenhouse for starts and seedlings, several garden plots and beds, a few chickens, large compost piles, and various gardening tools and raw materials. And we got to get our hands dirty the next morning at one of the weekly GRUB volunteer days, transplanting tomatoes in the hut (mid-april) sun!

Chico's night-life leaves something to be desired; the city has a large, rich, white college population. But our last night in town we finally found a scene that felt comfortable. Shandon had won tickets to an electronica expo at an artist collective called the crux. It had been a very fully day: busking at the farmer's market, transplanting with GRUB, and hiking in Bidwell's upper park with lots of bike-riding mixed in , so we were both pretty pooped, but the scene was very chill and laid back. There was lots of funky art on the walls and a sod (grass!) floor. The music was good, and the vibe very unpretentious. Lots of funky dance moves.

onward and upward, oregon ho!