Revenge of the Gamer

Most of the parks I’ve visited have gorgeous vistas, towering redwoods and all the splendor that nature can muster. Jack London park had all of those, but it also had something all the other parks lacked.  It holds the legacy of one of the greatest writers of all time.

When you first arrive a short and rather unimpressive path winds up a hill into a grove of Eucalyptus trees.  That surprised me as Eucalyptus are native to Austrailia and I don’t see a lot of them in California.   The mystery was explained by the plaque pictured below:

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Apparently Jack was an entrepenuer and tried all sorts of money making schemes on his Northern California farm.  He planted nearly 100,000 Eucalyptus trees as a cash crop, but in the end they were only useful as firewood.

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Not all of his experiments failed though.  Jack created two buildings that changed the way farming was done back in the early 1900s.  The first was this pair of grain silos:

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One held corn stalks which was used to feed cows.  The other contained the corn itself which fed his pigs.  The pigs were housed in this structure, which Jack claimed would save nearly half the labor involved in tending them:

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All of that was interesting but what really drew me to Jack London SP was the London house itself.  Being a writer it fascinates me to see how people practiced the craft over a century ago.  In the age of the internet, word processing, spell checking and digital storage its difficult to understand just how much work writing a novel was a century ago.

This is Jack’s office:

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As you can see he had a simple typewriter and a few reference books.  There was no dictionary.com or internet to look things up with.  A single typo would ruin an entire page.  Yet day after day Jack came to this office and belted out thousands of words for whatever project he was involved in.  It’s a little humbling because it really underscores how much easier it is to be a writer today.

There was a lot more to the park than just Jack’s cottage and farm.  There are over ten miles of trails leading into the forest, and some of the sights there are breathtaking.  Stands of redwood trees like these dot the trail leading to lake:

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The lake itself was covered by algea and you can’t even tell there’s water from the pictures I look like this one:

Reecobirds are fat. Seriously.

I spent about three hours exploring the park and had a blast doing it.  Jack London has always fascinated me, and getting a glimpse at his life was a real treat.  If you live in Northern California and haven’t seen the place I definitely recommend driving up and taking a look.  You’ll be glad you did.