Grain Elevator

We got ourselves together and went to Petaluma to meet friends from Marin County for lunch. I love this town because it is one of the oldest towns in the county, founded in 1858 (old by California standards). What I like about it is the fact that they have preserved or repurposed  many of the  the old homes and buildings in the downtown area. The place we originally chose was a bakery we loved that also served breakfast and lunch but it is only open on weekends now. After several false starts, I finally chose the Wild Goat Bistro, housed in the old silk mill just because I liked the look of it...a huge brick building that now contains all kinds of shops and restaurants. The weather has improved, and we decided to eat under an outdoor canopy. It turned out to be a good choice and after perusing the extensive menu, all four of us ordered the 'Adult Grilled Cheese Sandwich'. It was delicious.

During a time when I feel that for one reason or another we are losing touch with a lot of old friends, it was nice to reconnect with Tom and Sandy. John worked (and traveled a lot) with Tom, and we have kept up sporadically over the years. Unlike John, who says he traveled so much for his job that he never wants to travel again, Tom and Sandy continue to enjoy traveling. Although I know that we are all very much on the same page, we managed to avoid talking about politics and health issues.

I have always liked this old grain elevator made mostly of corrugated metal so it the subject of my picture for today. I double exposed it with a not very good  picture of the 'red (from smoke)blue supermoon.  I am unable to find out much about the building though, despite its randomness and decrepitude, it appears that it is still in business doing something. It makes an interesting contrast with the extra.

Petaluma was always known as the 'Chicken Capital' and still has an annual 'Butter and Egg' festival,  though the old chicken houses slowly fell down on the hills around town and have now largely disappeared.

As I write this I have gotten several notifications from Watch Duty, an excellent fire tracking app. The first reported a brush fire just outside Sonoma. The second said fire crews were on the way. The third said Air Attack had arrived, and the fourth said that forward progress of the fire had been stopped. Rather that freaking us out, these reports remind us how how quickly fire fighters respond now. There's always a feeling of unease at this time of year, but a lot of progress has been made in the 6 years since the Tubbs/Nun's roared out of nowhere in the middle of the night and burned over 5,000 houses to the ground in just a few hours.