Davis, CA

If you enter Davis from Hwy 113 on Russell Blvd., one of the first things you encounter is the symbol of Davis, the pennyfarthing bicycle.

(The statue was built in a Davis High School shop class)

With its wide bike lanes, green belts, and flat terrain, it's no wonder Davis is called the "city of bicycles."  All you need to do is stand on the corner of Russell Blvd. and Sycamore Dr. to get a feel for it.

There are a lot of nice things about this town.  Every time I look at the high school, for instance, I am reminded about how the community came together in one day and planted hundreds of donated little twigs in the bare ground around the school...which have now grown into this lovely forest.

I love the diversity of the houses of worship around here.

We also have lots of quirky pieces of public art.

The top left is called "New Again" and was made by local artists  along with children in the FamiliesFirst program.  The top right is something called "Solar Intersections" at the train station.  The statue is covered in holographic material that shimmers with rainbows when you look at it, particularly under the bright summer sun.  I always thought it was dumb, but I'm no art critic.  The pigs are by sculptor Donna Billick who does delightfully whimsical stuff.

 And then, of course, there is the famous "Joggers" statue.

The statue was always controversial because people were convinced that if someone happened to trip and run into the upraised finger of one of the statue, they could put an eye out.  Seriously!  After a lengthy and heated debate (because this town has lengthy, heated debates about everything), they moved the statue back a couple of feet and the discussion finally ended.

Davis is a town that purports to be friendly, and we are always encouraged to "buy locally," but they sure make it difficult!

You can't have lunch with a friend, go to a movie, and do a bit of shopping together because of having to move the damn car.  Which is too bad because there are nice places to do business in this town.

(The Food Coop has that great tomato statue out in front of it, another piece of public art.)  The Davis Enterprise, which publishes the paper I write for (but never from the office) used to be the post office.

In fact, if you've lived here long enough, this becomes the town of "...that used to be..."

That used to be City Hall, for example, but it's now a restaurant.

That used the be the Teen Center, otherwise known as "3rd and B" (guess where it's located!).  Lawsuit played in the basement in its very early, early days.

That mattress store with the big "$399" in the window used to be Carousel Stationery, where I bought lots of gifts, cards, paper products, puzzles, scrapbook supplies.  I was sad when it closed.

This is 2nd St., smack in the middle of "downtown."   (Logos Books, where I volunteer one day a week, is over on the left behind those two big palm trees and ust ahead of that white car).  When we first came to look at Davis, knowing we would be moving here, I remember getting to about here and looking around and wondering where "downtown" was, since I came from San Francisco and Oakland and expected tall buildings.

We have cutesy things like Toad Town, a real town, made by the postmaster's father, next to the post office.  It's even solar powered.  Of course nobody has ever seen a toad near the place.

The university has those wonderful Robert Arneson Eggheads.

and the Dome houses, which are part of a complex called Baggins End.

 

We've been here 30 years and I resisted coming here at first, but it was a great place to raise kids and  now that we've been here so long, I couldn't imagine living anywhere else.