First Days in California's Bible Belt

For some reason I had a hard time leaving the Wal-mart parking lot in the morning. I kept on walking in and out of the store, getting ice, using the bathroom, looking through the clothes and personal hygiene products, then rearranging the van. I didn't have a Wal-mart nearby growing up and got sort of fascinated with the whole atmosphere--the people encamped outside selling puppies and collecting donations for troops. Despite all the scandals surrounding the place, I was weirdly charmed by its folksiness--by the fact that it was allowing itself to be taken over as a new downtown (of course to its own benefit) now that the old downtown was slowly closing up shop.






But by noontime, the temperature would climb to over 100 degrees so I had to take refuge at the Merced River, which I found snaking through a grove of majestic cottonwood and oak trees after driving through dizzying miles of orchards. There I met [insert names here from notebook] floating in a couple of yellow blow-up rafts in the golden evening light drinking Buds. They grew up in the area and gave me a detailed trajectory of the Merced river from its headwaters at Yosemite to where it flows into the San Joaquin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merced_River

They offered me a beer and we talked for quite a while about the river and how Schwarzenegger is threatening to close the state parks like this one. Then I had to run up and catch a shower before sunset.






Conspicuous Mountain looking holy in the dappled light...


The first supper. Took me 45 minutes to prepare and five minutes to eat.

Portrait taken in the Wal-mart photo booth. The photographer was really sweet and took this for free with my digital camera, so not sure why I look so pissed!