It’s common for me to think I should be doing more. The more recently has to with the November election.
It seems like every election in recent memory is the one that is going to make all the difference. They are call consequential—no matter if it’s a local or national race.
Sending postcards to help get the vote out. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
This is the first year I’ve given money for races that I can’t cast a vote for. It’s one way to be impactful beyond my front door, so to speak. On Sunday I did another thing I had never done before. I wrote postcards to voters. Thanks to my friend Jessica who posted on social media about this.
I signed up through Post Cards to Voters. It’s an easy process. You have to upload a sample of a written postcard; they give you the prompt to write. I was approved in less than an hour, then given my assignment.
You choose how many postcards you want to write. I said 25 based on what I had on hand. They want you to send them within three days of agreeing to do so. That’s why I didn’t wait; wanted it done before the workweek began.
Oh, my goodness, I don’t write by hand much anymore. I had to take breaks. I doesn’t help that my finger/hand is still not completely back to normal.
Even with this task being a literal pain in the hand, it was so worth it. It felt like I was contributing in some small way, that ideally gives people a nudge to vote and encouragement for who to vote for. The races involved in my voting push were for the U.S. Senate contest in North Carolina and the Supreme Court in that state.
I wasn’t given voters’ names, just addresses. I didn’t sign my name, just my initial.
The organization only supplies addresses. I had to supply the postcards, stamps, ink and time.
Some of the litter, including plastics, unearthed by the robot at Zephyr Cove Resort in Tahoe. (Image: ECO-CLEAN Solutions)
While it might not be obvious, chances are you are swimming with microplastics when you are in Lake Tahoe. Swallow a gulp of lake water? Yep, you may have just ingested particles of plastic. Plastics are in the sand you are walking and sitting on as well.
Tahoe Environmental Research Center hosted a talk by Monica Arienzo, associate research professor in hydrologic sciences at Desert Research Institute in Reno, titled “Plastic pollution in the Tahoe basin.”
Some plastics sink to the bottom of the lake, others float, and still others move within the water column. Some are easy to see; some require a microscope.
Macroplastics are what you can see. They include plastic bags, wrappers and any piece bigger than a pencil eraser. Microplastics are the small pieces measuring 5mm or smaller. Macroplastics can become microplastics as they breakdown.
The BEBOT unearths foreign matter at Zephyr Cove Resort with the direction of JB Harris, co-founder and CEO of ECO-CLEAN Solutions. (Image: ECO-CLEAN Solutions)
For many reasons alarm bells are going off because of these plastics, with a biggie being they are made from oil and natural gas. Harmful chemicals are released when plastics breakdown.
“My research group is interested in understanding what happens when that plastic leaks into the environment. Where does it go? What happens to it? How does it move in the environment? And what are some of those sources that we can start to tackle?” Arienzo said.
Arienzo pointed out even though many products are now BPA-free, meaning they don’t have Bisphenol A, there is still plenty to worry about.
PFAS, or what’s known as forever chemicals, is a “growing area of concern because it’s often added to plastics.”
She praised the federal government investing $144 million to better understand the health effects of plastics.
Humans are also wearing plastic because most synthetic materials contain plastics. “If your clothes stretch, they have plastic in it,” Arienzo said. Washing synthetic clothes less often keeps wastewater from being loaded with plastics. Air drying these clothes prevents plastic collected in lint from blowing into the environment.
Tires contain plastics. Carpooling and taking public transit can help with less tire debris entering the world.
Plastics are in paint and personal care products.
All plastics eventually breakdown, enter the environment and then have consequences downstream, literally and figuratively.
It’s not just humans who contend with the ill effects of plastics. Animals can eat plastics and get entangled in them; both with potentially lethal outcomes.
“What we know about microplastics in general and how they apply with the Tahoe basin is that we know plastics can be found in our rain and our snow,” Arienzo said.
Her group has been working with TERC to unearth how much plastic is in the moisture here, and what happens as it is transported into rivers, streams and the lake. Sediment also becomes a receptor for microplastics.
These particles also leave Lake Tahoe via the Truckee River in Tahoe City, winding up in Reno’s water supply. These researchers found plastics throughout the Truckee River and in Pyramid Lake. A student of Arienzo’s has found them in Incline Creek as well.
“I can tell you everywhere we have looked we have found plastics,” Arienzo said.
Much of her talk focused on the macro pieces of plastic that are found on the beaches of Lake Tahoe. For the last two summers college interns scoured Tahoe beaches for litter. This summer they are not out working, but hope to be again next summer if funding allows.
Students were at Mourelatos Resort in Tahoe Vista, Kings Beach, Camp Richardson and Tahoe Beach Club in Stateline. They chose these sites to study the differences and similarities between the North Shore and South Shore, and private vs. public beaches.
Items were collected by a BEBOT, a remote controlled device that collected the debris while sifting out the sand. The BEBOT, short for beach robot, is being used at beaches throughout Tahoe rid the sand of trash.
Litter for this study was defined as any item not native to the environment like plastic, Styrofoam, metal, paper, glass, personal hygiene and animal waste. These were broken into subcategories that were counted and weighed. Native items such as sticks and pine cones were left on the beach.
Results included:
Mourelatos—56 percent was other, 31 percent plastic, 6 percent paper.
Other included: Asian clams, other shells, fireworks/celebration items, nonnative nuts/shells, food items/bones, hair ties/rubber bands, non-plastic fabric and clothing, tobacco items that weren’t cigarette butts like wrappers, lighters and Zyn pouches, toys, construction and charcoal.
“We created a new category for nicotine pouches because this was a new kind of item that we were finding more and more prevalent in our litter. (And) a lot of nuts and shells were found,” Arienzo said. “Again, this is stuff that people are bringing to the beaches and not cleaning up.”
Across all four sites plastic made up 58 percent of the litter, food wrappers 13 percent, while cigarette butts and plastic clothing were 8 percent each.
The BEBOT, short for beach robot, leaves behind clean sand at Camp Richardson. (Image: ECO-CLEAN Solutions)
Kings Beach had the highest litter and plastic counts per meter squared, followed by Camp Rich, TBC and Mourelatos.
Arienzo was surprised to find the plastic content so high at Tahoe Beach Club. It was closer to Camp Rich than Mourelatos. Speculation is this might have to do with the bar serving drinks in plastic containers with plastic straws.
The trend is more litter accumulates on public beaches. This could be because more people are on the public beaches. It could also be that private beaches are better maintained.
“If we really wanted to do some messaging around plastic litter, we could really start to educate around these items in particular, and around cigarette butts,” Arienzo said. She noted how more and more beaches have cigarette butt disposal sites; so people need to be made aware of them and the importance of using them.
Other things people can do: don’t buy single use tea bags made with plastic, wear cotton, rinse and reuse plastic bags, bring to-go containers to restaurants, get reusable mesh bags for produce.
“My feeling is we are not recycling our way out of this problem. My feeling is if we want to stop plastic pollution, stop microplastics, we have to say we turn off the tap on plastics,” Arienzo said. “The only way we are going to stem the tide of all of this plastic in the environment, in our bodies, biota, the environment is we just have to stop using them.”
Anthony Ray Hinton wasn’t a name I knew before reading his story that he wrote with Lara Love Hardin: The Sun Does Rise: How I Found Life , Freedom and Justice (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2018).
He was arrested in 1985, sent to death row for murder, then released in 2015 when the court system finally realized they had the wrong man.
Look at those dates. This is modern America. This is life today.
Broken doesn’t even begin to describe the justice system. Racist, discriminatory, rigged against poor people, against Black people. The true crime is how corrupt the system is.
You know what happened to Hinton is still happening. That this injustice is systemic.
Why aren’t people who are abusing the system paying for their crimes?
Hinton lays it out for all of us to learn about the process that landed him behind bars for decades for crimes he did not commit. He doesn’t hold back on his feelings, his descriptions of life, despair, belief, hope, pain and a whole gamut of emotions.
While the subject matter is gritty, the book is also full of hope. It has to be for a man to keep wanting to prove his innocence, to have the truth be told.
Sometimes I think we should read (or listen as I did with this book) to stories that make us think about topics that aren’t necessarily top of mind or in our wheel-house, so to speak. For me, this was one of those books.
It underlined how and why I’m against the death penalty.
Social and criminal justice should matter to all of this, and that’s what this book is all about.
Bear Hole in Upper Bidwell Park in Chico. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
The crown jewel of Chico is easily Bidwell Park.
It was established in 1905. Since then the park has grown to 3,670 acres; and is about 11 miles long. The three sections—lower, middle, upper—are unique in their own right, with the former more urban, upper more rugged and the middle linking the other two.
The 45-mile-long Big Chico Creek runs through the park, adding to its beauty and recreational opportunities. This body of water starts at Colby Mountain near Butte Meadows and ends at the Sacramento River.
Chico History Museum on Sept. 12 hosted a free talk by historian Dave Nopel and author/educator Paul Belz.
Nopel stressed that what made the creation of this park unique is that it was established as a nature preserve.
It was Annie Bidwell, the widow of Chico’s founder John Bidwell, who donated the land in 1905.
“It was really a park before the Bidwells’ left it to the city of Chico,” Nopel said.
Annie Bidwell didn’t want any development in the park—or alcohol.
Nopel expounded on how “development” has been a point of contention ever since the city took possession because people have different definitions of what development means.
Two years after Annie Bidwell’s death in 1918 the golf course was built. To this day alcohol is still sold there.
Whether Annie is turning in her grave we will never know.
Other controversial issues have included cementing Sycamore Pool at 1 Mile in lower park, creating Caper Acres playground, Highway 99 being routed through the park, transmission lines, roads in the park, the observatory, shooting range, disc golf course and more.
Nopel touched on how the California Park housing development with its man-made lakes was a huge bone of contention because original plans were for it to abut Bidwell Park and have large estate homes on the south side of the creek. (California Park is the subject of a talk at the museum on Sept. 19.)
He said the project is what led him to attend his first city council meeting.
The outrage of local citizens convinced the city to buy the land in what is now part of Upper Park from the developer, but not before it went to court. The city didn’t want to pay the price the developer wanted, but the judge, according Nopel, said it had to because it was developable land.
Nopel said the price tag was about $3.5 million for the 1,600 acres that were added to Upper Bidwell Park.
Ben Shelton understands representation has mattered in his family’s tennis trajectory. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
Representation matters. Seeing people who look like you matters.
It’s hard to grow up dreaming you want do something when you don’t see other people like you doing it. Whatever it is.
That’ why this year’s U.S. Open tennis tournament that ended last Sunday was historic. Kinda sad, though, that it’s 2026 and we are making this kind of history. But progress is still progress.
Historically, tennis has been a sport for white people with a certain income level. I grew up playing on public courts; mostly at the local high school. While my parents were middle class—not upper—I had the privilege to take private lessons. I didn’t know it was a privilege at the time.
As a kid, I saw women playing tennis on TV at the highest echelons. I thought it was normal that women competed at this level and were on TV. As a white girl, I was represented.
I also remember seeing Arthur Ashe, a Black man, play. I remember Yannik Noah and Zina Garrison, and later Chanda Rubin and Michael Chang.
I know I gave it zero thought about how few people of color were playing at this level or my level.
Taylor Townsend last weekend became only the third Black woman in the whole world to complete a career grand slam in women’s doubles. The other two are Venus and Serena Williams. This means they have each won the four grand slam tournaments.
When Ben Shelton walked onto Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sept. 13 he was the first Black American man to play in the singles finals since Ashe did so in 1972. In fact, Shelton is the only male Black American to make it to any grand final since 1996 when MaliVai Washington was in the Wimbledon finals.
Shelton after his semifinals win credited Ashe for paving the way for his dad, Bryan, to play, and therefore for himself to be where he was that day.
That semifinal against Francis Tiafoe was also historic. It was the first time two Black American men played in a U.S. Open semifinal.
Ashe won the U.S. Open in 1968. The stadium was named after him in 1997. It is the largest tennis-only venue in the world. Ashe died in 1993 before he could see his name on the tennis facility. He died from AIDS-related pneumonia in 1993 after contracting the disease from a blood transfusion.
No other Black man—not just an American Black man—besides Ashe has won the men’s singles titles at the U.S. Open or Australian Open or Wimbledon.
If you don’t think representation still matters, then maybe you should consider yourself privileged—and ignorant.
Boiling water makes Lassen Volcanic National Park special. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
Hot water is one thing Lassen Volcanic National Park is well known for. Not water to soak in, but water to appreciate from a bit of distance. It’s scalding hot.
The visitors center has a wealth of information about all the bubbling, boiling and gurgling going on.
“As rainwater and snow seeps through porous volcanic soil it trickles down to rocks heated by a chamber of molten or partially molten magma. Once water becomes super-heated, under intense pressure it works its way back up to the earth’s surface as steam, a boiling pool of water or bubbling pots of mud,” a sign reads.
These hot spots are scattered throughout the park. The smell of sulfur is a tall-tell sign hot water is nearby.
I few years ago I had the opportunity to hike to Boiling Springs Lake. I would put this on your to-do list. I had never seen a boiling lake before. The water is a consistent 125 degrees.
Last month I toured the visitors center again with some friends. It’s chock full of interesting things about the park. It seems appropriate to have been there in August, which marked this park’s 100th birthday. President Woodrow Wilson designated Lassen as the country’s 15th national park.
Rocks are stained from the sulfuric water at Lassen Park. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
Not far from the center is an opportunity to walk close to these boiling pools of water. Sulphur Works is “named for sulfur-mining operations at the site in 1865, at one time Sulphur Works also offered hot mineral baths. In 1951 the National Park Service acquired Sulphur Works to protect one of the park’s most dynamic and accessible hydrothermal features.”
Steam vents, called fumaroles, are here as well as mudpots and boiling springs.
NASA even has in interest in all of this.
“Researchers from NASA and academia are working together in Lassen to study microorganisms that thrive in water too hot for humans to touch. They can tell us about the first organisms on Earth, as well as the potential for life to have existed on Mars or other bodies in our solar system. The science that explores for life elsewhere in the universe is called astrobiology,” a sign reads.
It’s relatively easy to get to remote Blue Lake on the outskirts of Lassen Volcanic National Park. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
I can tell you about hiking to Blue Lake, but I can’t tell you exactly how to get there.
The latter is partly because I wasn’t driving, I’d never been there and road signs seemed to be non-existent.
Good thing Sally was driving and had been there several times.
Sally, Eve, Sophie and Kae at Blue Lake in August. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
Sophie, Eve and I joined her for a girls weekend last month at her cabin in Mill Creek on the outskirts of Lassen National Volcanic Park, with one activity being a hike.
I know we drove by Wilson Lake and were on a road with the same name, made a left at a four-way without obvious signs to me, drove several miles on a dirt road before parking on the right in a cut out wide enough for about four vehicles. The trailhead started across the street where what looks like a homemade sign says Blue Lake.
With ferns being some of the first plant life, I knew water was nearby. It seemed like within seconds we came across a little waterfall. We stopped at it on the way back to admire its beauty.
The trail makes a steady climb up, but nothing strenuous. In fact, this hike is pretty darn easy. It was the perfect amount on this particular day.
At times we walked through tall, blonde grasses that could have been wild rye that seemed to reach my shoulders. Other times it was looming conifers that towered about us.
While fire can be devastating, it can leave behind what looks like art. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
We skirted by Duck Lake on the right, but it wasn’t inviting enough to have us take a detour.
While this wasn’t the time of year for much in the way of wildflowers, plenty of plant life abounded. Tiny white flowers could be seen on the Russethair saxifrage. Wild buckwheat, drooping brome and penstemon were some of the flora.
Fire has ravaged these woods in the last several years. So much of Lassen Park was torched by the Dixie Fire in 2021, while Sally’s cabin and all of Mill Creek narrowly escaped the flames of the 2024 Park Fire.
Little water spills from the falls at the start of the Blue Lake trail in late August. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
The lake was the perfect spot for lunch. Sally was the only one brave enough to go swimming. I’m wussy when it comes to cold water, though surprisingly this was warmer than Lake Tahoe and the Sierra lakes I am more accustomed to hiking to.
We did an out and back, having gone about halfway around the lake. It was about 3 miles round trip, with an elevation gain of 344 feet. The low point was 6,009 feet, with max elevation 6,355 feet.
Searching online it seems like it’s possible to do this as a round trip that would involve a trek to Spencer Meadows; that would have mileage closer to 7.5 miles. Parts of that trail are said to be sketchy in terms of some cross country/winging-it necessary.
A generation is living in a world where they don’t know anything but life after Sept. 11, 2001.
I don’t know if the world was really better then or if it’s through rose-colored glasses that I see my younger self in a world that didn’t seem so rife with division. I feel like we have been at war with ourselves and some other country ever since then. Or maybe it has always been like this and I wasn’t paying attention.
It’s hard to believe this week marks the 25th anniversary of terrorists taking down the Twin Towers in New York City and ploughing a plane into the Pentagon, as well as another plane being thwarted by Flight 93 passengers who were able to steer it into a Pennsylvania field, thus saving who knows how many lives.
While the immediate aftermath of that horrific day brought people together, I feel like the divide between us today is almost unbridgeable.
I know the events of 9-11 helped lead to the state of politics today. But at the same time, we have choices. We can learn from the past, make different choices in our own lives, in how we treat others, and definitely in who we elect to office—be at the local or national level.
Five years ago, I wrote: “On this Sept. 11, let’s reflect on what we have lost. Because personally, I’m at loss as to what we gained from Sept. 11. I’d like to think we could gain perspective, compassion and understanding about why people could hate us so much to do what they did. If we don’t understand the ‘whys’ of any action, then we will forever be ignorant and on the defensive, and thus susceptible to future turmoil.”
For the 10th anniversary I was in Lake Tahoe, owner of Lake Tahoe News. We published a multi-day package of stories that still has relevance.
I wonder if people younger than me even think about Sept. 11. Maybe it’s like me with Vietnam; I was alive through most of it, but it had zero impact on me in any way that I’m conscious of today. Maybe it’s like me with World War II; something that has always seemed like ancient history even though it ended just 20 years before I was born.
It would be interesting to sit in a high school history class to hear how Sept. 11 is taught in the U.S. and abroad. What are they learning?
Maybe more important is what have we who lived through Sept. 11 learned?
Look at those dates. This is modern America. This is life today.
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