FUN IN THE DELTA

It is good to be back on the water again. We have wonderful neighbors here by our houseboat. For one thing, they are quiet---no wild parties. Hallelujah! Also, they share things with us like fish, garden produce and even wine and berries. One neighbor who fishes every evening brought us three fish including a 20-inch striped bass. He usually does catch-and-release but he knows we like a fish every once in a while.

Barn swallows have built nest on the crossbeams under our houseboat. When we sit on the back deck, we see them swoop under the boat. By some unknown signal (the sun isn’t even up yet), they awake at 4:30 in the morning and start chirping. We don’t mind though, it is kind of pleasant.

We took a ride up to the top of Mt. Diablo, the only mountain we can see well from the boat. 35 counties and 600 miles of the Sierra Nevada Range are visible from the mountain on clear days. You can even see to San Francisco. It is 3,849 feet high and is accessible by a very curvy narrow road.

The mountain is sacred to Native Americans who lived and worshipped there for 5000 years. It became a critical reference point to Spanish explorers in the 18th century and to American trappers and early California settlers in the 19th. It is still used by boaters today. In 1851, Leander Ransome established the crossing of the base and meridian lines there from which California and Nevada are surveyed.

There is a small museum there with interesting geological information and pertinent artifacts. On the way down the mountain, a coyote stopped to check us out.