Blog: tracker's place

Blog City Prompt January 25, 2024

Thursday
January 25, 2024
Very early in the morning


Prompt: Write about fog and mist in your Blog entry today.

In northern California, in the East Bay, which is the stretch of land east of San Francisco, there runs two rivers, the Sacramento and San Joaquin. The San Joaquin runs along Antioch. I lived in Antioch for five years.

The area is called the Delta. Once miles of marshes, there is water that branches off into sloughs. I lived on a slough in the town near Antioch called Bethel Island, a small island of about 3000 acres. The island was mostly populated by retired people. It was originally a place people went to fish and hunt. Most of the homes were built as cottages on the levees. The soil there is rich and ripe for farming. They grew grains for cattle feed.

If you wanted to go to Stockton, California and on to Sacramento, you could get there by what the locals called the river road. The road ran perpendicular to a wide slough. It was a winding road, barely wide enough for the two lane traffic. There would be tule fog so thick you could not see the end of the hood of your car. However, for those of us who ran up the river road frequently, that did not matter. We would use the wide center line that reflected bright yellow as a guide.

I preferred to drive the road when there was a mist which was so thick you needed to use your window wiper. It was easier to see. Better yet was to wait and leave later in the morning when the fog and/or mist would lift.