I considered just posting these photos to my thread, The Flames. I almost did; but the trash-collecting we did on this tour is what I now normally do when I'm out riding around in the Red Roadent. I blame this attitude of mine on the Yosemite Facelift experience I had last fall.

JStan and Chicken Skinner, this one's for you two bhodisattva-like figures. Let me say that I wish this attitude reflected a herd mentality among we climbers, who have such a terrible impact on the environment. But it's far from that among the mundanes, the beer-drinking fishermen, the drivers who finish their Fish Tacos and toss not just the wrappers but the whole bag, and the careless cigaret butt-tossers. Not to mention poopers-in-the-trail.

Last Sunday’s nickel tour of Merced’s Northside gave me the hots to go shoot more watery foul shots.
I was a water polo team member in my college frosh year—I sucked at shooting. I’m not close to being the photographer I would like to be—I still suck at shooting in comparison to the big guns around the Taco. And elsewhere, where the real pros hang out... Lots of love, luck, and low-branch shots, boys ‘n’ girls. :)

The idea was to go out to McConnell or Hatfield State Recreation Areas, both on El Rio de la Nuestra Senora de la Merced. I enlisted a neighbor, George, who brought his brainiac stepchild, Anitia. And we had a terrific time, according to her limited vocabulary. She is all of seven and is now enrolled in a program which lets her school at home on the computer and do a day’s homework for each day she spends online. Too cool for school never meant more to me when I heard that. Her pun meter was pegged yesterday. You never herd so many cow puns. All it took for me was to say “Smell my dairy air and the fun began.

George was the guide. He has the local knowledge, growing up north of Winton, a few miles south of the river. He’s a bit of a redneck and is brash, but he’s a good dad and he helped me out getting started with a digital camera. He and Tonya and I engage in Risk. He is interested in climbing, but I’m letting him get serious, if he will, on his own. He could be solid, but he needs mellowing, far as that goes. Two able crew and an experienced captain on another Three Hour Tour. 1:30 p.m. To 4:30 p.m., Friday. The Red Roadent/Far Niente and ten bucks worth of gas. A charged camera battery and lots of drinking water.
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=24194

we left the Rec Area and went past Magneson Dairy, where Robin M lived in the long ago. she was heavily-courted by Bullfrog, the guitar-playing, dog-owning member of The Flames who travelled to the Bugaboos with the Rev and myself. I remember hanging there the night we left, talking to her dad, Charlie, and watching the bombs fall on Hanoi on the nightly news. In the eighties I wnt to their place for a meeting of the local Sierra Club after a field trip to watch salmon on the Tuolumne near Le Grand.
Charlie Magneson has been a Dairy Farmer in Ballico/Cressey for 54 years. A graduate of UC-Davis and a World War II Veteran, he spent 10 years as an elected official on the Ballico Cressey School Board. He has been President of the Boards of Modesto Milling and Cal-Dari, and currently serves on the Board of the Merced Farmland Open Space Trust. In 2006 he established a Conservation Easement on his farm. (Web page for the Valley Land Alliance http://www.valleylandalliance.org/about.html )

Santa Fe Avenue is on the left in this shot, and the Mag Dairy lies on the other side of that. We cruised on by there and ditched down towards the river to see could we get a shot of the Cressey Trestle Bridge. That was not possible.

So I kept on going down Campodonica Road, which was, according to Geo, the way they used to go down to the river, but the way is blocked now. This road forms a U (see map) and takes one back towards the road we'd right-turned off. In a few minutes we came upon a flock of egrets in among the Holsteins on this smaller dairy. Talk about amazed! Mo' beddah shots if I'd bothered to chek on the ISO setting. It was very bright and the white of the egrets often turns pinkish in that light, I found out.

Even I err, eventually, egregiously. Regrets. (Thank you, Mr. Updike.)

I fond my way over to Amsterdam Store and then pulled over at an MID canal, filled with Merced River water. This spot might be good fishing, I've always thought, though I haven't seen a soul out there trying. The land must be private, I'm almost certain. What I never expected to see ANYWHERE in the valley, though, was a Canadian swimming in the canal. Apparently they have a community out there. The Canadian Colony, like the Italian-Swiss Colony down Madera way, or Buhach Colony, like on Hwy 99 over by Atwater. Early settlers came and brought a herd mentality, raising the same crops as their neighbors, making it a communal effort raising the crops and shipping them to market.That's it, folks.

Here are a few that I took out at McConnell in the oak woods.I'll see some of you and your families at Yosemite Facelift.

Only you can prevent roadsides from looking like this.