Holdup. Wait. Stop. Lemme back up. For years, my friend Joseph has been talking about this great place he knew, out where his friend, Jack, had a piece of mostly undeveloped land in the delta, which is what locals call the area east of where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers come together. The first time I heard about this was probably two years ago? Everybody liked the idea of throwing a party out there, maybe a small festival, camping, cooking out. Starlight, loud music, good friends, swim in the river during the day, that sort of thing. I think the plan at the time was to make it happen the next summer.
We all know what happened instead, the next summer.
This summer, though, the year of our lord 2021, the stars aligned; everyone was able to get vaccinated, Jack’s place was still standing, and he’d even put in some improvements. Solar, a shower, tomato plants that weren’t quite ripe (but growing like crazy in that heat). The place is about two hours from our house, not including waiting on the car ferry to the island. Jack had also mowed down the field around his little shack/deck arrangement where most of the action was focused, so there were nice spots for all of us to pitch our tents.
We camped, we swam in the delta, we partied. The pictures cover that probably better than I could with a long essay about it, so I’m going to let them.
Edit to add: this was, without doubt, the healing moment I needed after 18 months of pandemic lockdown. Thanks Jack, Joseph, Austin, Benny, Hannah, Carla, Mike, Chris, and of course, Sophie, for coming together and making it happen.
