Hip little farm town

Saturday morning in Winters, CA

Written last night:

Early this morning Rosa and I took to the streets without concern. I felt more confident than yesterday — the parking garage arm went up without a hitch! — and traffic was light, Yesterday I was terrified to take to the freeway, but this morning it was do-able. Soon we were on I-80,  heading to Davis, and a little beyond, Winters, California. It was just like I-10 in north Florida. I was hyper-vigilant for traffic, but couldn’t help notice the countryside. To tell the truth, I’d been afraid I wouldn’t like it. But I do: the road was undulating, gently curving, and fields to each side were either sparse brown or irrigated green. Beyond, you could see smudges of hills and mountains. I am so relieved to say it felt good, very good. It felt generous. 

I picked Winters because in a couple of weeks I’m going to meet my two best high school friends there. One lives in San Jose and the other is with her husband, a woodworker taking a workshop in Napa. Winters will be a a good meeting point for the three of us. Forty minutes from Sacramento, it turned out to be a small town with nice homes, both single and multi-family. The downtown has free angle parking. In an empty space along the sidewalk,  there’s even a piano, and every time I passed someone was plunking out a tune on it. An old iron trestle bridge now sidelined for pedestrians begged me to cross it (I did.) And benches line the main street — an open hint at  the town’s socio-economic profile. The coffee shop was full of bikers, with their tap-tapping tilted shoes and their tight, bright outfits. There were also comfy families and single people like me. You could buy coffee and a raspberry-almond square (me) or a green smoothie (the woman after me), or a fruit cup (the little girl ahead). Everybody felt lively and happy and easygoing. 

"Wow! This is easier than I thought.” I said to myself, as I headed back along I-80. We were smoothly zooming toward Sacramento, when  suddenly the traffic slowed, I don’t know why. We sped up and slowed for the rest of the way into Sacramento, and all along I couldn’t find any indication of why. I guess this is the famed California traffic: you drive, you slow down, you stop, you speed up, you drive…We were in the middle of countryside, the only witnesses of the traffic were fields of blackened,  dried sunflowers.

Closer to Sacramento, I passed a truck loaded with orange globes: too small to be oranges… maybe apricots, a whole truckload of apricots! And I passed fields of trees that might be walnut.

“Winters is a farm town,” the woman in the quilt shop said. I looked at her askance. “I know,” she said, “It’s getting hip." 

View from the pedestrian bridge, Winters, CA