Chico, CA

We're in Chico, CA this week.  It's home of the Bidwell family - a well connected family that settled the area in the later part of the Civil War.  Not sure why they picked here.  Not sure why it's still here.  But it's a nice area and a college town.  Pictures are from our walk around the lower Bidwell Park along Big Chico Creek.  However, the reported Verizon Wireless 4G service that's suppose to be here continues to allude us, but we can at least make phone calls.

Chico is home - among many things - of Transferflow aftermarket fuel tanks.  They're the maker of our auxiliary 50 gal tank, and we're having issues with its auto-transfer function transferring fuel.  Surprisingly, the problem is it's transferring fuel when it doesn't need to and trying to transfer fuel when the tank is empty.  We got in Monday morning, and they did a complete tuneup of the system plus correcting some errors made in the original installation.  It's much better now, but part of the issue resides with the Ford fuel sending unit that we'll get taken care of later.  An oil, oil filter, & fuel filter change by the local Ford dealer for the truck went without a hitch.  Only thing they commented on was keeping a close eye on the rear tires.  Most people that participate on the Ford forums are getting about 100,000 miles on the rear tires.  Looks like we're in the same ballpark.  May have to replace them before we get back to the east coast.

We've still got some things to do here.  Tomorrow, we're visiting with a volunteer we met at Voyageurs NP last year.  She's working at the Sacramento NWR, and we're looking forward to seeing her.  The Bidwell's also left their mansion here.  We hope to get a tour of it this weekend.  Oh, there'a an air museum here at the airport.  Can't miss that!

We still plan to move to Shingletown, CA Monday and visit Lassen Volcanic NP next week.  We've been lucky by missing freezing weather, but we may have crossed the line by going a little too far north.  Looks like Shingletown goes below freezing overnight for a couple of days next week.  First time for us since the Rose Parade.  After that it's a run back to the Monterey Bay area for a couple of weeks while Terry & Forest come out for a visit.  After that, it's a slow trip north along US 101.

Anyway, that's the plan...until it changes.  Later, David