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Alice Dishes

Adventures and Real Food

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October 5, 2013

A 'Real Food' Desert Among Orchards

This week we drove 950 miles in four days and many of those miles were spent on the Interstate 5 – a ‘real food’ desert. It wasn’t exactly the most relaxing way to spend my time off work, particularly with Monkey and a bouncy Labrador in tow, but we were on a mission.

You’ll recall that we lost our dear friend Hector earlier this summer. Knowing that he can never be replaced, but wanting to help out a Lab in need, I have been following a bunch of Lab Rescue fan pages on Facebook. It’s a bit like online dating, only better. About seven weeks ago I spotted a big black English Lab, curiously named Tank, in poor health. He had double pneumonia, burns on the back of his neck and a variety of other issues, not least that he seemingly had had no training.

I’m a sucker for a sob story and wanting to alleviate the pain of our loss, I made a donation to his medical fund. The dude was in the veterinary hospital for weeks and had run up a bill equivalent to a year’s tuition at a private elementary school. And that was that. With my good Samaritan deed done, I went on my merry way.

Except I didn’t. I bored my friends to death with updates on Tank, filled out the adoption questionnaire on the web site, pestered the long-suffering foster for regular updates and pretty quickly had negotiated myself into poll position to be his adopter once he had a clean bill of health. Oh, did I mention he was in Southern California? Why make things easy?  So five weeks later here we were driving six hours down I5 one day, only to repeat the journey in reverse the next.

Labs on a Road trip

Living in Sonoma County and being neighbors with Marin, I am spoiled rotten. We are surrounded by pastoral rolling hills. Cows happily grazing as they whisk away the flies with their tails. Small organic orchards abound. Rows of lovingly tended lettuces and kale adorn front yards. This is ground zero for organic farming. [Soundtrack: Birds tweeting, trees rustling in the breeze.]

And then… sound of record being scratched on a turntable… there’s the Central Valley of California. Industrial farming in all its ignominy. Massive orchards, many of which seem to feature trees with their tops sheared off instead of being allowed to grow naturally. (One has to assume this is to make it easier for the picking machinery to do its work.) Feed lots, basically dusty giant pens, filled with so many cows and steers you can’t even imagine it. The poor animals barely have enough room to stand, but they have access to huge quantities of grain. I doubt they’ve ever eaten a fresh blade of grass. (Read here to see why that’s bad for them and us). And the ungodly stench reaches to the heavens above and beyond.

feedlot on i5

The landscape is flat and seemingly never-ending. The only relief for the eye is the irrigation channels and large patches of green punctuated by dusty dry fields, many with entirely dead eerie-looking orchards. All along the freeway are signs proclaiming “Congress Created Dust Bowl” or detailing how access to water has been severely reduced year after year. Apparently water rights is a huge issue in these parts. [Soundtrack: Appalling radio featuring Bible readings and Fox News-sponsored talk shows reminding us why the Government shutdown is Obama’s fault.]

And as if to exemplify where the products of  industrial farming lead us, the only places to eat for 300 miles are fast food joints. They are all here: Taco Bell, MacDonalds, Jack in the Box, you name it, you can have it. Except I didn’t want it, not a single bit of it. And decided I’d rather skip dinner one night than eat any of that crap. There are two exceptions: Harris Ranch Restaurant (which seems to be built around the remnants of what really was a working ranch decades ago) and Pea Soup Andersons. We walked through the former, and there was nothing appealing about it to me, I’m pretty sure the meat came from those feed lots.

PeaSoup Andersons collage

The latter, Pea Soup Andersons, we stopped at on our way home. As it’s famous for its pea soup I had a cup. It was below mediocre. Monkey had a diner breakfast which was exactly what you’d expect. The place seems to be in institution and it is one step up from a fast food joint, but that’s all I can say for it.

Back to the purpose of our trip. After hours of driving we arrived at the Holiday Inn Express in Lebec, CA. (There is nothing to recommend this place or the Holiday Inn. Avoid it at all costs.) We met Tank for the first time in the parking lot and all I could notice was how outlandishly large he was. Like pony-large. Like he should be called something like Tank Just an hour later someone asked me if he was a Newfoundland.

Regardless, we stuck to our plan of taking him home, and three days later we all seem to be getting used to each other. Plus, I would have to drive him all the way back to San Diego if it didn’t work out and I’m in no hurry to revisit the food wasteland that is I5 anytime soon.

Tank and Alice

Filed Under: Life, Travel Tagged With: grass-fed meat, Harris Ranch, I5, Labrador, Peasoup Andersens

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. lisa cook says

    October 14, 2013 at 1:37 am

    you are an angel… tank is beautiful, best of luck!

    Reply

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  1. Life With An Adopted Dog | Alice DishesAlice Dishes says:
    November 28, 2013 at 9:37 am

    […] may also recall our crazy trip down Interstate 5 to pick up Tank, a humongous black dog who I felt insanely compelled to rescue […]

    Reply

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alicedishes

Lover of life, Labs & horses. Visit AliceDishes.com blog for travel, recipes, design & life. Area VI #morganhorse #blacklab #eventing #interiors

Alice Dishes. Eat, Bark, Ride
Roger was a very good boy yesterday to get a 75.6 Roger was a very good boy yesterday to get a 75.6 at our local schooling show 😍 #dressage
This boy is teaching me so much. And I love the fa This boy is teaching me so much. And I love the fact he always has his ears forward and is enjoying his job again. Excited to head to @horseparkatwoodside to show him next weekend for the first time in a year. He’s ready!! #eventinghorse #areavi
Staying alive and getting it done on xc - so much Staying alive and getting it done on xc - so much fun 🤩 #areavi #eventinghorse #morganmare
A little bit of our dressage and SJ action from th A little bit of our dressage and SJ action from the weekend @twinrivershorsepark - Q and I were either great or mediocre during dressage to give us a 36.4 which made it hard to be competitive, but the goal was to finish on our dressage score and feel confident all weekend ✅. We moved up 4 places over the weekend and jumped double clear in both SJ and XC for a top 10 finish. Our rhythm and timing in SJ was probably our best yet. #eventing #areavi #comeback
The sunset was spectacular last night in Paso Robl The sunset was spectacular last night in Paso Robles! #sunset #pasorobles
So fun to watch @tommygreengard on these two speci So fun to watch @tommygreengard on these two special boys: Barry and Josh. 😍
The boy is back in town! Rogee had a blast doing X The boy is back in town! Rogee had a blast doing XC schooling for the first time since February. He was relaxed (shocker!), said yes to everything and although he wanted to shred up the track he listened and was a very good boy 😍😍😍 - so happy with him and I think he had the best day ever 🙌  Looking forward to showing him at @woodsidehorsepark in Oct! #xc #eventing #eventinghorse
My little pocket 🚀 was on 🔥today! I couldn’t have been happier. We jumped all the Training things and tackled some challenging questions. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs since losing some confidence. At one point in June I froze jumping a x-rail 🤷‍♀️. But we have fought our way back, filling in gaps and ultimately our partnership has become even stronger. I’m so proud of her. I have lots of work to do to be fully deserving of this brave girl, but after a day like today it feels like we could conquer anything! (Except dressage 😂 - but we are working on that too!) #eventing #eventinghorse #xc #morganmare #comeback
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1) no stirrups 2) trot verticals 3) adjust canter 4) work a related distance ✅. Felt great. She was keen and took me to the fences 😍 #eventinghorse #morganmare
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I would choose them both every time. It’s defin I would choose them both every time.  It’s definitely not easy having two horses and one rider. But I am going to make it work as long as I possibly can because they are part of me. 😍 Can you have two ❤️ horses for different reasons? Because I might have just got that lucky.
It makes me so happy to see Rogee fit, strong and It makes me so happy to see Rogee fit, strong and enjoying his rehabbed body. He’s really learning what he’s can do with himself these days physically and it’s also really rewarding to see his personality shift down a few gears to a generally more relaxed state… #goodboy
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