Mono Monday : : Shady

I reminded myself that there would be no shade without the sun as I drew my sweater more closely around me and crossed from the shady side of the street to catch a few rays. The chilly wind, blowing straight out of Alaska reminded me that it is after all, the end of November and I probably should have worn a coat.

I was at the Barlow today doing some shopping and decided to concentrate on the interesting architecture there...trendy shops and restaurants have been created from the long empty apple packing sheds, relics of the days when Sebastopol was the Gravenstein apple capitol of the world. There are still apples grown there but many of the orchards have been replaced by the ubiquitous grape. Somewhat like the sheds themselves, the remaining orchards  have been repurposed and grow different types of apples which fill the 'farm to table' niche market.

As with Petaluma, which I wrote about last week Sebastopol had a single successful crop and was connected to a rail grid which allowed them to get their products to market  more quickly. Sebastopol was the last of the towns to remove the rails from their Main Street in 1980. Now the SMART train is being built, new tracks are being laid and old ones renovated to carry people to the ferry terminal and  San Francisco.

Too bad they took out all those old tracks....