Pre-Pelagery

I got to Tyson's house in Chico, CA at about 6pm on Thursday. One of his first questions for me was, "do you like beer?" Needless to say, a lot of beer was drank between then and going to bed last night. Tyson brews his own beer, and had 5 home-crafted types in his kegerator.


After trying one of his "special" beers, we checked out the Sierra Nevada brewery, as this is their hometown. I got a sampler that had 16, 1.5 ounce beers. There were some very nice ones. I think the coolest thing about the place is how sustainable their business is trying to be.


Friday morning I woe up and headed to the Llano Seco unit of the Sacramento River National Wildlife Sanctuary. It was nice, but the water levels were down, so not much in the way of shorebirds or ducks. There were at least 30 SANDHILL CRANES out in the wet prairie.


In the afternoon, I checked out the Chico city park called Bidwell Park. This is a nice riparian stretch that has campsites all along it, but for day use. I day used one for a nap. At the end of the lower park, there is a place that they opened up and cemented to make a swimming pool type area.

Last night, Tyson, his friend Derrick, and I headed out to a few bars in town. The bars in the downtown remind me of some of the bars in Tallahassee that I did not chose to frequent very much. The only difference is that these bars all have great microbrews on tap.


This morning I drove the 3+ hours to get back over to the coast. I set up my camp at MacKerricher State Park this afternoon, and this place is beautiful. Just on my short coastal hike, I noticed BLACK OYSTERCATCHER, many SURFBIRD, and female WHITE-WINGED SCOTER. There are also tons of white seals hanging out on the rocks here.


I checked out the port that I need to meet at for my trip out to sea tomorrow. Here's my ride: