Day 41-July 5, 2016-Corning Olive Oil Co., Chico, CA-Sierra Nevada Brewery and The Chico Heat
Up to 93 but very comfortable.
When we were here three years ago we met Ray and Kathy Rogers, owners of Corning Olive Oil Co. and their manager, Jodie. Ray and Kathy were thinking of buying an RV and retiring so we went to see them to see what they were up to. They have bought an RV but Ray is not ready to retire, although he’s close to 70. Kathy would retire tomorrow but they don’t know what to do with the business. They are originally from the California coast and they gave us all sorts of ideas of what to do in the next few days, looked stuff up on the internet for us, gave us directions and said to call them if we needed more advice. They gave us so many ideas our heads were spinning when we left.
We found out that Chico, about 40 minutes away has a collegiate baseball team, The Heat. I got tickets yesterday so we drove to Chico to spend the day there. First stop, Bidwell Mansion California State Park on the campus of California State University where we had the lunch we packed. The university is spread out all over town and is a big part of Chico. The mansion was built in 1868 by John Bidwell who came to California in 1848 and found gold. He was a state representative in 1865 and 66, died in 1900 and left the property to the church, later bought by a school and used as a dormitory and finally sold to the state in 1964. Beautiful rare trees on the property, a monkey puzzle tree, huge magnolia, Ginkgo biloba and a tulip tree which was in full bloom. We then moved on to Sierra Nevada Brewery and did a walk through tour of their facility, then went next door to their taproom for a wonderful burger with something called torpedo cheese, a nice cheese made with cream cheese and beer and some beer. We were early for the game so we drove through Chico, lots of construction going on at the university, some streets closed for maintenance. A typical college town with all the chain stores you can think of but also a little of the old town flavor mixed in. Beautiful crepe myrtles, mostly a brilliant red, in bloom everywhere. The Chico Heat is a collegiate baseball summer league that plays at Nettleton Stadium on the campus grounds. Their mascot is Heater, a weird looking dragon. They played the Medford Rogues and it was kind of a slow game with The Heat in the lead 7-0 until the 7th inning when Medford scored 7 runs to tie it. The Heat came back in the 8th with another run and finally won 8-7.