This short viaduct crosses the old Highway 101 route now called Walker Road, as the former Northwestern Pacific rails double back to climb the grade to Ridgewood Summit. From there, they descend Laughlin Ridge south to Redwood Valley and Ukiah, then on to Sonoma and Marin counties.
The local paper reported the release of the Draft Environmental Impact Report for starting freight service from near Santa Rosa up to Willits on these tracks, which is very good news indeed! It would be such a shame to lose this valuable infrastructure after all the work that was done to build it in the first place, more than a hundred years ago, and the North Coast Railroad Authority is working hard to move it forward.
* * *
This post concludes one full year of Willits Daily Photo. When I started this blog on March 13, 2008, I had no idea where it would take me within Little Lake Valley, or if I could come up with 365 subjects to post. I feel amazingly blessed to have a new circle of international friends with city daily photo blogs of their own, offering insights and discoveries that enrich my perceptions of the world. Their kindness here in the comments has been immense, and I will treasure them always. I encourage everyone to see more City Daily Photo blogs at their portal website.
This a good point for me to retire Willits Daily Photo. There are more photos in my archives that I'd like to share, and more new pictures I'm sure I'll feel compelled to snap, but the time commitment of "every day" is more demanding than some might imagine. I'm not one to call this a "Daily" photo blog, and then not post daily. I want to keep learning and growing and building skills, and time is what I need for that. But, I have an alternative! Built into this blog is a link to my Willits Photo Overflow blog, and that's where I'll be posting additional images from time to time. They could be out-of-season, or different views of things already posted here, or entirely new images of Willits and Little Lake Valley, and possibly further afield. They will be posted sproadically and without warning, but if you would like to "follow" that blog to catch what comes up, you are more than welcome. It's my way of not having to go "cold turkey" on photo blogging altogether.
If you are new to this blog, and want to see what has been posted throughout the previous 365 days, you have several options. You can scroll to the bottom of this page and click on the words "Older Posts" on the lower right, and keep doing that as far back as you want to go. Or you can go to the sidebar (right column of this page) and find the Archives link, arranged by year and month (they can each be expanded by clicking on the little triangular arrows). Or you can go to the sidebar and look for the list of "Labels" to click on those for loosely categorized groups of posts for each idea. I expect to be expanding and refining that label list sometime soon.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your visits and comments.
Click here for Willits Photo Overflow.
50 comments:
Elaine, thanks for a year of wonderful photos and commentary, and for your visits and encouraging words to my blog. I will continue to drop in from time to time. It has been very nice to get to know you a little.
Happy Anniversary, Elaine. I know the feeling---mine is tomorrow, March 14th, so please drop in.
I see you may stop blogging for a while, but I'll come by again to see if you are around.
Best wishes to you.
Oh, Elaine, I am going to miss your daily posts but I can understand why you want to stop. Thank you for a wonderful year of photos and wise and funny commentary. You were one of the first to comment on my blog and for that, I will be forever grateful. I'm not going to say goodbye since you said you'll still post in your other blog sometimes. So, good luck, fare well, bless you, and see you around! Again, thank you.
Elaine, your viaduct - bridge is apt for your transition into less rigorous activity. It's been fun. I'll check in from time to time, and who knows ... I may roll through Willits riding Grande Rosa next summer -:)
Stay in touch!
My dear Elaine, I will not miss you. I will be your Overflow Friend. I thank you for that, and for your daily insights into Willits and the world.
Well, beans!
But I guess you are going to save me some time because your blog was the first one I checked on every day!
I know it isn't easy to post every day so cutting yourself some slack is a good thing. But not too much slack, I'm still watching! :-)
Stay happy!
Your neighbor just over the hill.
Ron
Thank you for a year of interesting, wonderful photos. It was the first "favorite" I visited each morn. & I will miss that, but will drop in from time to time.
Take care (& get some rest!)
Glo
Take a break Elaine. I'll keep an eye on overflow. It's been lots of fun.
Elaine, as a newcomer to your blog, I feel sad to have missed most of it live. Your photos and text broaden my experience of our home town. Thanks for all your efforts!
Well, it's been a great year and I'm sorry it's over but everything ends sooner or later. I'll be checking in from time to time. Best wishes, BM
Hi Elaine,
I will miss your blog so much. It is the first thing I check every morning, to help me stay connected to Willits. I have enjoyed the fotos, the facts, the humor and the humanity of your comments. I hope some day we will meet in person!
Gail in Berkeley
And a great photo to go out with. You've grown a lot in one year.
I'll be watching your overflow blog. Maybe when you see some cracked concrete, or some rusty bolts, or some orange lichen, or another Godiva riding a horse through town...
It looks really nice! Great photo!
Well, beans! as Ron says. I will be an Overflow Friend as well. I'm not ready to say goodbye to you or Willits!!! What a gift you have and you need to keep at it. Hope you'll stop by my place from time to time and say howdy!
V
Your escape will be our loss. Isn't it strange, the things we do on a lark become most nagging commitments. We become our own harshest taskmasters.
I have enjoyed your blog and it will be like saying so-long to an old friend and be filled with the wonder of what future meetings will happen. Farewell, ‘til then!
I'm going to miss my daily dose of Willets, but I'm so happy to know your Overflow blog shall live on. Sending big hugs from down south. (And planning to stalk you on Facebook!)
Goodbye Willits Daily Photo...I'll miss you!
Okay, I came here specifically to wish you a happy blogoversary, but on reading you are planning to retire to a life of leisure in beautiful Willits, the first word out of my mouth could not be published in a family-friendly comments box. You are such a bright spot in my universe, a real flesh and blood person whom I've yet to really meet but just think the world of.
I sure understand your decision and your reasons for it. You give so much of yourself to all of us, too, besides publishing WDP. I will most certainly be an Overflow Friend or, as many of us, your loyal readers and fans, are coming to call ourselves, your OFFs. Thanks for your intelligent, humorous, beautiful, thoughtful, thought-provoking posts. You are a dear person. . . .Hey, could we coax you to consider just taking a wee break and reconsidering (Wayne recently decided to just go slower). Well, Seattle is a wonderful vacation destination to recharge your batteries. We could get Chuck, Benjamin, Wayne, and other of your Pacific Northwest friends together, and Bibi is coming this summer. . .perhaps we could convince the SoCal and NorCal contingents and others in the global community to come, too. Think about it. Or, perhaps you'd just like to run away to Paris with me! Oh, I forgot, we have jobs and lives and would just have to come back. :-) Wishing you all the best and a sane pace to life as you know it.
-Kim
Seattle Daily Photo
Oh, I almost forgot in the shock of it all. I had looked up your first few posts, and this is a comment you made to Benjamin:
"I hope that in in year's time, I'll have a fair view of what this valley looks like - in all its variety."
I'd say that's come true, cuz I sure feel like I've seen a great deal of that valley's beauty and life.
-Kim
Happy Anniversary, Elaine! Our City Daily Photo blog is just two months old. We're having all the same questions you did this time last year!!!
Elaine I will miss Willits Daily, too. I fully understand how hard it is to take and post a photo in a daily basis. I've already given up posting in a daily basis on Portland Daily.
Anyway, dear Elaine, thank you for all the photos and stories you've posted here for a year.
Hope to see you soon Elaine. I'm planning to travel to California soon in future to visit some professors at Uni of CA, Berkeley. I will probably move to Berkeley in Summer 2010 to start my PhD there. I'm now looking at google map to see how far Willits is from Berkeley. It's much closer than Portland. This is a good chance to meet you once a while. I'll email you whenever my travel plan is finalized. It would be sometimes in Spring or Summer. Love you, Meead
Yours has been one of the best. I am really going to miss you! Best of luck to you, E.
Jill - Thank you. I know you are facing some trying times up there, and I admire your ability to find the rainbows in the rain.
Bibi - Happy anniversary to you too! There seems to be a bunch of us that started in March 2008. You've kept blogging through some challenging changes too. I hope the dog lady of Belgrade you highlighted will get all the assistance she needs.
Hilda - You have such heart and energy and intelligence, and that all comes through in your Manila blog, as well as in your wide-ranging visits to so many others. Thank you.
Chuck - Leave it to a pro to catch my attempt at symbolism. You have honored me with so many comments on these Willits photos. Thank you. We need to have a Vespa Party convention down here - sensible transportation and divine desserts, I think it was. 8^) I hope Fifi can keep up!
Petrea - You have been a delight to get to know through your blog, and that has led to meeting a fun cast of characters all over the San Gabriel Valley. I know we will remain in touch. Thank you.
Ron - It still amazes me that we haven't set up our joint photo safari yet. I love your beautiful shots of Fr. Bragg (and Washington) and expect we'll be able to arrange something soon. Thank you for your kindness as well.
Glo - Keep an eye on Willits Photo Overflow. As long as the camera and computer keep working, I'll have some things to post most weeks. Now that I got my car re-registered, we should hit Ardella's again. Thanks for your friendship through many years.
laGallina - Thank you. I hope you got to see your shop sign among the Main Street labeled ones in any case. I'll see you here and there too, and the Overflow photos will trickle in as well.
Wayne - Say, aren't the Olympics rolling into Vancouver this coming winter? You will have to kick it up again for that. Thanks for understanding, and your appreciation for tractors. I should find more of those. 6^)
Benjamin - You've been here from the beginning, and for all the spectacular, Technicolor cinema-Scope images you create of the fair city of Victoria, I think I'll remember those early Arbutus trees most vividly. They were my path to discovering your blog. Well, and the murals. And the lichens and moss. And... well, thank you.
Gail - Thank you. I hope I've done justice to your old town. Check the Overflow once in a while for some more as they come.
Joe - Another Bay Area visitor, or should I say Redwood Empire dweller? Thank you for your words of encouragement, and for assuring me that I'm not alone in my lichen/wood/rust fixations. We Californians of the north coast counties really have it made, come what may.
m_m - Thank you for visiting. I rode a train over the High Tatras from Miskolc to Krakow about thirteen years ago. The countryside and cities are beautiful in that part of Poland.
Virginia - I've said it before, you will not be able to get rid of me. Did I ever tell you that my father was from Birmingham? You've been so much fun, and your photography is beautiful. Thank you.
Ernie - Thank you. You've been great fun to "virtually" know as well. Check the Overflow blog if you ever get curious. Let me know if you ever come down for any Roots events.
Laurie - You have been such a joy, and you've made me blush on many occasions with your kindness. Thank you. You know where to find me, and I know where to find you.
Saretta - Thank you. I'll be peeking in at your fabulous Molfetta now and then.
Kim - OFFs! What a perfect acronym! LOL! Thank you. You also have always been so, so kind. Everything you have said of me, I have to turn around and say "that's YOU!". I know you were one of the early-adopters of the Paris Daily Photo model, and have been a huge inspiration to me and so many others along the way. You are one of those CDP rock stars that seems to leave a blessing of stardust wherever you go. We really do need to figure out some sort of Pacific Coast CDP Grand Tour. I wonder if we could get enough of a gravity field together to pull the Uber-Rock Star, Eric, into our midst. I know we'll come up with something this year in any case.
GDP - Have a great year! I know you will surprise yourself with what you discover. Thanks for visiting.
Meead - You have such a heavy load of work at the university, I don't blame you at all for pulling back on the daily photos. It has been simply beautiful to see Mashhad, and now Portland, through your hopeful and generous eyes. Thank you. Your recent posts about Purim are amazing! I'm so excited that you will apply to Berkeley, and I look forward to seeing you this year too. You have a gift for friendship, Meead, and I'm so honored to be one of your proud "aunts", following you through your journeys with our love.
Kelly - You have been great to visit this blog and share your stories and images of Geneva, IL. Thank you. I just realized that I still need to send you a picture of my blue Swedish rooster, perched in my kitchen. Enough with all the orange horses!
Thank you everyone! It has been a fantastic year of blogging and learning and growing, and you all have been a part of it. See you on the Overflow...
If things go well with DH, count me in on that Pacific Coast gravity field. Lynette (PDX) and I have tried to woe Eric with a fantastic dinner at her chef son's restaurant.
I'll be checking in on the overflow site too, Elaine! You have been, indeed, diligent about posting daily and like everyone else, I've very much enjoyed the fruits of your labor of love here on WDP.
Hope to see an occassional update on Ardella's. May make it there someday.
All the best to you, Elaine!
Elaine, thanks for all your comments and encouragement over this year. I've really enjoyed your photos. As you know we're in the same position so I understand a bit why you decided to stop. All the best from Bursa!
Aww... I went away for a week and come back to find that one of my favorite blogs is shutting down. :(
I have enjoyed your photos and comments and I'll surely be back to check out your overflow from time to time.
you will be sooooo missed by the blogging community! I loved coming across comments that said "that's an Elaine-like photo". I even took some myself thinking this is how Elaine would photograph a stack of crates on the side of a liquor store or a plain field with a fence - and make a wonderful post out of it. Thank you for sharing your views and for enriching my world.
I'll be stopping by to see what's new on the overflow.
Isn't that true, Tash? I do often think of how Elaine would frame a shot, or I see something and think "Elaine would love that, I'm going to shoot it."
Sounds like I'm going to kill it. Not what I mean.
Has it been an entire year? This retirement post came as a bit of a surprise. When you say "I want to keep learning and growing and building skills, and time is what I need for that" is that about photography or something else you have up your sleeve?
Pop up for a visit once in awhile. I've enjoyed meeting you and wish you well in your travels. Hooray for Willits! Will miss the puzzles (never did figure out how to work that)
elaine -- sorry it's taken me a week & more to say "Yay—a whole year!" as well as "Boo—no wonderful photo from Willits every day." Trust I'll see you at PDP & elsewhere, and I'll be checking your "overflow" for sure. I'm sure Petrea and I are not the only ones to have taken inspiration from your photos.
I was kind of hoping that you'd change your mind. I know the feeling about having a break, but I'm stupidly stubborn in that regard.
Looks like I'll just have to rely on Facebook to annoy you from here on...
Oh Elaine I shall miss checking in on your site. It has been an experienced joy. Thank you and come back if you miss us. T
Oh Elaine I shall miss checking in on your site. It has been an experienced joy. Thank you and come back if you miss us. T
Well, happy happy, Elaine. I have enjoyed the posts and wish I could have caught each and every one but that is impossible as you already know. Have fun and a good life. I will still check here now and then.
Oh Elaine, sorry for my delay. Happy anniversary and thank you for your visits and encouraging words to my blog.
I want you feel how much I like you and how much I like to visit you. I wish that day...
Elaine, well done!
Always interesting and informative. I understand how difficult it must be finding a photo for each day and admire your achievement - it never felt like you'd submitted one in desperation!
Difficult enough to find time to read every day.( I've only just caught up!)
Will watch your overflow.
Elaine, congratulations on the one-year of photos. Sorry I haven't been visiting Willits Daily Photo more regularly.
I guess I will see you on the OTHER online space. :-)
Nice Photo. Congratulations
Well done for keeping this going and I'm so pleased you are organising the archive by re-doing the tags.
I don't mind folk calling it a day but I really hate it when people simply delete all their archives.
I'll be checking your overflow from time to time.
all the best
We have a reader from Greensboro NC who is very interested in "all things transportation," especially trains. She will love this photo! I'll have to send her a link. Very interesting website. I love the way you photograph the simple, often forgotten things in life, like miner's lettuce. I think our KY, PA, WV coal miners ate it too!
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