PODCAST EPISODE: Father and daughter Jim Mayfield and Hannah de Bie of Sub Sea Systems discuss marine tourism, VR integration, Saudi Arabia’s entertainment megaproject Qiddiya, the importance of ocean exploration and working with family. 

It’s harvest time at the Reimagination Farm in Lake County, California. As autumn turns the air crisp and the leaves begin to change, former UC Davis Asian American Studies professor Robyn Rodriguez surveys the land in front of her and reflects on the rhythms of nature. “Even the earth follows cycles of rest,” she muses. “That’s how we regenerate.”

Wayne Bishop of Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm in Wheatland claims the farm is the largest pick-your-own pumpkin patch in the world. It remains a true family-run business, with Wayne, his wife Ann, his sons Lee and Austin, and his daughter-in-law Courtney leading the farm his parents started more than 50 years ago.

Over the course of summer and the first weeks of fall, over 60 varieties of peaches and nectarines pass through The Fruit Bowl, a 76-year-old produce stand on the rural outskirts of Stockton. 

The Mayfield siblings grew up in the charmed nautical world of their father’s imagination. At the Sub Sea Systems workshop in Diamond Springs, power tools whir as two generations work side by side to build custom submersibles that resemble something out of a Jules Verne novel. 

Dan Dillon had been retired about two weeks from the Elk Grove Unified School District when he realized he needed something to do. “Everybody’s different,” says Dillon, 70. “Like my brother, he’s retired. And he goes kayaking, fly fishing and windsurfing. And he’s always going to Hawaii, Tahoe, Baja California. He keeps so busy. I was never that person.”

Feeling good lately? Does the country, the world, seem good? With a divided electorate, a multiply indicted candidate, the dregs of a pandemic swirling through our psyches, and the hottest summer on record, sometimes it’s hard to find the good.

While reporters and commentators struggled to understand why 73,000 would choose to isolate — and unintentionally strand — themselves in the desert, Burners lived out the experiment Black Rock City was built for. 

The well-preserved, semi-ghost Placer County town of Dutch Flat, an hour drive east of Sacramento in the Sierra Nevada foothills, has earned the description of being “a step back in time,” as local hotelier Leif Lowery described it.