Sacramento to Chowchilla
January 9-10, 2020
Discovering a hidden jewel in the central valley
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| Teeing off in the sun! #GirlsGolf |
When Roger was a boy growing up in Visalia, Calif., he never would have believed that one day he would be vacationing in Chowchilla, Calif. It wasn’t that kind of place. Since then, Chowchilla has developed a retirement/golfing community. We discovered Chowchilla and The Lakes RV & Golf Resort last year when planning a Central California golf trip. Located two hours south of Sacramento, Chowchilla and the RV resort is a convenient place to stop for golf, drinks, food, and hot tub.
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| January golfing among the palm trees. No Taku winds here! |
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| Our spot at The Lakes RV & Golf Resort. We can walk to the golf course from here. |
Some of you who are old enough might remember a 1976 news story about three men who kidnapped a school bus full of children and the bus driver. The kidnappers hid them in a box truck buried underground. Fortunately, the driver and the children escaped. Since then, Chowchilla had been known as the place where the school bus full of children was kidnapped. I’m sure the good people of Chowchilla would like to move on from that terrible experience.
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| We had a 1 p.m. tee time, and the sun was just beginning to set teeing off at hole 18. |
Chowchilla is a Central California community located off CA-99 between Sacramento and Fresno. Yosemite National Park is a short distance to the east. The downtown area is neatly organized in city blocks full of locally owned businesses, such as Do It Best Hardware and Conchita’s Mexican Food, where we ate dinner on Thursday night. (Roger ordered a chile relleno and enchilada combo plate. I got chicken fajitas and a ceviche tostada appetizer. All the food was freshly prepared, delicious, and inexpensive.) Last year we got an oil change at TF Tire & Service. They had a clean shop and provided friendly customer service.
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| Beautiful houses of all sizes line the fairways at Pheasant Run. |
Outside of town, on the other side of the highway, across from a large, open field, is The Lakes RV & Golf Resort, adjacent to Pheasant Run Golf Club and a gated community with houses built along the golf course. This community reminds me of The Villages in Florida. We saw big, fancy, McMansions as well as smaller, more modest-sized homes. We also saw empty house lots, already developed, just waiting for a buyer and a builder. If you’ve always wanted a home on a golf course, now is your chance.
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| Pheasant Run has a nice bar and restaurant with a friendly and lively clientele. |
The large open field on the other side of the development looks as if it could be the site of future development. I hope Chowchilla will resist the urge to develop another ugly shopping center full of big box stores, chain restaurants, and parking lots. The United States is losing its cultural roots to these monstrosities that line the highways of almost every community. Don’t get me wrong, we shop there too, but when is enough, enough? I hate to see the beauty of the land give way to this corporate, concrete, consumer world.
"The big towns are getting bigger and the villages smaller. The hamlet store, whether grocery, general, hardware, clothing cannot compete with the supermarket and the chain organization. Our treasured and nostalgic picture of the village general store, the cracker-barrel store where an informed yeomanry gather to express opinions and formulate the national character, is very rapidly disappearing. People who once held family fortresses against wind and weather, against scourges of frost and drought and insect enemies, now cluster against the busy breast of the big town." -- Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck
#chowchilla #vanlife #me2ak #ontheroad
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