trip to Oroville

Last weekend Bob and I took a trip to Oroville, CA to see his cousin and check out the community.
http://oroville-city.com/

Bob will be retiring after the new year and he wants to retire to Oroville.

Oroville is a community of approximately 12-13ooo people near the foothills of the Sierra Mtns. its about an hour north of Sacramento.

Its big enough to have a Wal-Mart but not large enough for a Target! Actually, it has about anything you could really need and most of what you'd want.

The town gets its name from the early settlers who came for the gold rush.The saying "in them thar hills " would be appropriate.

Lake Oroville is right on the outskirts of town. The dam was created about 35 yrs ago.

There is a lot of historic preservation in town; they still have the Chinese temple used by all the Chinese immigrants who worked there during the gold rush.Those people eventually left and took jobs with the railroads when the gold mining ceased.

The climate is Meditterean and therefore there is a large olive grove near the area.
Another industry is a cannery that is supported by the salmon and other fishes found in the Lake.

It can get as hot as 110 degrees in the summer and has snowed a few times during the 25 years bob's cousin has lived there.
There is more of a season change because its further north than the Bay area.

There are a couple casinos in town; one of which we visited Friday night.That was my first visit to a casino.
We enjoyed a fabulous seafood buffet before we took in a little entertainment and playing the slot machines.I was more of an observer;Bob won enough back from the Wheel Of Fortune slot to recoup our expenses for the evening.

Saturday we toured the city to get a feel for the community starting with one of the restaurants that boast a $1.99 breakfast. We ended up choosing a $3.99 breakfast which was terrific.
It was a nice restaurant with good food and great service and very friendly.
I joked that we could still eat there after retirement even though we both were on fixed incomes!

Oroville is in a valley surrounded by the mtns.Very scenic.
we found a couple over 55 senior mobile home parks to further investigate.One won an award in 2003 for being the best park that year.it was amazingly clean, well organized, and landscaped.
The other, and the one we may choose, was older but equally as nice but more wooded and rustic; just a short distance from the Lake.

Neither of us wants the upkeep of a yard or other related expenses or chores so that is why we are thinking of going in that direction.
It would be hard to find a small lot; most have acreage involved.

His cousin lives on 2 acres and although it was nice to visit there we both know it would be more than we would want to be responsible for at this stage in our lives.

We met a few people while there; one couple lives on the adjoining acreage next to marty and operate a fruit stand on the conjoined driveways.
They leave apples in cartons at the fruit stand and everyone is on the honor system to leave their $2.00 in a box provided. thye have never had a problem with someone not paying or stealing the money.

Another relative, husband of Martys late husbands ex-wife came by to use the telephone to report his phone was out. He was recently out of the hospital with a heart condition and needed his service working so the phone company agreed to get someone to fix it that day. Try that in a big city!

I saw my first wood pellet stove. It seems to be an efficient source of heat and apparantly everyone has them there.

The trip went too fast and I look forward to the possibility of living there soon.