peacefulAnyway, after eating dinner here at the hotel and watching the Giants hold on to a reasonably impressive win over the Brewers, I decided to take a walk to downtown Yreka. Yes, it was 10:30 PM in a town in which I'm not too familiar, but I think I know Northern California, and this was not a big deal. And so I got about 3 km done, which what I normally get after lunch at my office. (The office walk is more exercise due to the hills.) I'm so pleased that 3 km seems like a pretty trivial walk. A few years ago, I wouldn't have wanted to walk from one side of a shopping center parking lot to the other.
One of the things I continuously realize since I started my walking regimen is how much you miss driving through an area. I've been through Yreka a number of times going up and down I-5, and sometimes I've even driven down Main Street, which is old US-99. But walking let me look at all of the shops and see how things relate to each other. Now, I'm not going to say Yreka is all that exciting -- it's not -- but now I think I know the city just a little bit better.
Here's an example of small-town life. Around 11 PM, as I was coming back down the far side of Main Street, I needed to cross the street to get back to my hotel. I stopped at the crosswalk, and saw that there was one car coming down the far side. I was wearing dark clothes, and not in a hurry anyway, so I figured I'd let him go by. Much to my surprise, he slowed down and blinked his lights at me to wave me across. Polite, they are here.
