Sunday, April 17, 2011

Vignette april16

In the men's room at McGrath State Beach, the stall doors hang wrong on their hinges, so you have to lift the door with your foot to slide home the bolt, which Galen does handily. We have been told twice by different people that this campground will be closed at the end of this summer because of the state's budget crisis: no money to fix the ailing bathrooms. It seems ironic that bathrooms should dictate the demise of the facility, but that's how the decline of government services looks up close.

At Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve, the volunteers told me that budget crises are a way of life for California: that when she was young her father was emploed by the state and he would periodically say, "Yep, there's no money this week." And then the state rebounds. It's unclear if this will be the case again. But if so then McGrath campground will be revived in a couple years I would predict. As travelers here we are catching the wave of the moment, enjoying the facilities still open as the state slides into poverty.

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