These were from some months ago, driving out through the delta and across the central valley. The Driftwood spring retreat was out in the foothills, in a spot that was pretty ideal for a dozen or so people to descend and party it up. But first we had to get there.
Someone once told me the framing in the title, that California’s central valley wasn’t a collection of farms but a factory for turning the water from the sierrra snowpack into food. As we drove through it this time it was hard not to see it that way, as a vast organism of production. Incredible amounts of labor shape and reshape the landscape. Even the delta we started the trip in is a collection of man made dikes and islands.
Anyway. I should mention here that if you like this sort of thing, Matt does a travellogue, I’m going to be taking a trip later this year, in September, and sending out a pop-up newsletter to go with it. https://bigempty.photos/ if you’d like to sign up for that; the first issue in the archive has a little more background.
