Fresno’s Christmas Tree Lane Brings Back Walk Nights!

Christmas-Tree-Lane-Walk-Nights Fresno's Christmas Tree Lane Brings Back Walk Nights!
Walk Night pic from Christmas Tree Lane


I am not going to question it, I will just accept it.

The rumors are true. Organizers of Fresno’s Christmas Tree Lane have brought back ‘walk nights’. For you Fresno newbs, this is when they do not let cars go down Old Van Ness and they let people do something totally strange in Fresno… walk

Last year they implied Walk Nights would never come back, but here we are.

As per the tradition, there are two walk nights:

  • Saturday, December 2nd.
  • Tuesday, December 12th.

Christmas Tree Lane starts Saturday (Dec 2nd) and is open every night thru December 25th.

The Lane opens every night at 6 PM. Closes (lights off) at 10 Sunday-Thursday and 11 PM Friday and Saturday.

More info can be found here.

4707-1873714 Fresno's Christmas Tree Lane Brings Back Walk Nights!4707 Fresno's Christmas Tree Lane Brings Back Walk Nights!

Where To Park On Christmas Tree Lane Walk Nights

You just park in the neighborhood. I assume people who live in Old Fig hate Walk Nights. But they get to throw parties on Walk Nights, so it’s kinda worth it.

Some people park in Fig Garden Village and take some sort of tram, or get a ride and are dropped off, or walk all the way down to Shields and then walk back.

Heads up: if you do park at Fig Garden Village, it is insane with cars and people. I went to pick up food one night not remembering it was a Walk Night, and got stuck in the Village for a while and didn’t even score food.

I just find a dumb house to park in front of somewhere near Dakota but not South of the railroad tracks.

Hopefully, the return of Walk Nights will relieve some of the pressure of regular car nights when the line to drive Christmas Tree Lane goes down Blackstone all the way to Shaw.

That is right. You basically get in line for Christmas Tree Lane at Shaw.

But hey, screw that, Walk Nights are back. I might hit up both nights, just because.

A nice video that Localish put together a few years ago:

See ya out there.

Fresno As A ‘Basecamp’ For Stuff, Put To The Test

b6845aa5-9c3a-4bc7-a921-c1727bdeb113 Fresno As A ‘Basecamp’ For Stuff, Put To The Test
Downtown Fresno shots by Nick Pisano at the Road Goes On Forever

I have always said that Fresno is a great basecamp for visiting the Sierras, most notably our three nearby National Parks: Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia. But I had never really known of someone that actually did it – someone not from here anyway.

A dude named Nick Pisano is spending a year traveling (sounds like a sweet gig if you can get it) with his partner and recently spent a couple weeks using Fresno as a basecamp.

This long blog post by Nick documents his use of Fresno as a base for visiting our nearby parks and … Bakersfield ?‍♀️ -that is actually a cool part to me, but anyway.

It is a overall good blog post illustrating how a tourist can use Fresno as a basecamp, I want to make that clear. 

Buuuuut.

He gave us several shots throughout the post. He tried to be nice about it, but definitely didn’t pass up on chance to deal in digs:

“Not a lot going on here”

“I’ve gone out in search of Fresno, as it were, multiple times here and come up relatively empty each time.”

“relatively sleepy”

“The key to enjoying this city is lowering your expectations”

“a kinda bad city next to some very good things”

“I say this with the utmost respect, but there’s just not a terrible lot going on here. In some ways, it’s the least-happening place we’ve been.”

Woah. Pretty rough.

I will give him credit for going to a Fresno Grizzlies game, the Tower District, and bonus points for visiting the Underground Gardens. He seemed to enjoy those, as he should.

He certainly didn’t do all the things though.

In fact, one major mistake: He did not seem to have much (if any) Mexican food – most notably no mention of tacos:

Yep, you KNOW Mike Oz is taking that dude on the taco tour of his life next time.

Speaking of food, going out to eat is a feature for Fresnans. Part of our culture is eating out. When someone visits us, we plan on eating places. It is a “thing to do”. 

You can make fun of that if you like but I think it’s cool. It’s a Fresno feature that is underrated. 

Also, this guy seemed to not be familiar with the concept of a small city. A working class city. A city for living a life.

Not every town is built to give a shit about tourists. Fresno is one of them.

We don’t have a beach. We don’t have Disneyland. There are no longer any cable cars. A Hollywood sign doesn’t loom over the town. We don’t have a Vegas Strip. We have no plan for someone hanging out for two weeks.

What our “sleepy town” has is people working their ass off and living a life.

Earthquake Near Fresno Is No Fault Of Our Own

D8A4F9D5-0FFD-40F9-A769-099041866CDB Earthquake Near Fresno Is No Fault Of Our Own
Fault lines in Central California

Above is a map of all the fault lines in the Central Valley. With the exception of the extreme South Valley, there are no faults on the valley floor.

Yeah? Then how did THIS happen, bro!?

D9F094AB-240D-4697-B585-1E2885969F5A Earthquake Near Fresno Is No Fault Of Our Own
Earthquake outside Lemoore Tuesday night

Sure that is a tiny earthquake. Maybeeee somebody around Lemoore or Hanford felt it, if they were really paying attention, but that’s about it.

How does this happen with no fault lines?

Fracking? Is anyone out there fracking around on the Valley Floor? I don’t know. Maybe.

Even science is not all that sure how this can happen, but there is one explanation:

Earthquakes occurring away from tectonic plate boundaries can be triggered by the rise and fall of hot material through the Earth’s mantle

Woah. “Hot material” eh? We talkin’ magma? Magma? Fun to say it isn’t it? MAG-ma. Come on say it with me, “MAGma”.

Yeah so maybe there is some ancient volcano under the valley floor and stuff. Not to alarm anyone or anything.

Since this quake happened almost directly below Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in Lemoore, I prefer to think it was somebody’s sick drop-in.

Oh since we’re talking about the Surf Ranch, the world famous You Tuber, Casey Neistat, visited the place recently and gave a nice account of what it’s like to get a chance to surf there:

?

Best Mexican Food Breakfasts In Fresno

Country-Fare-Cafe-Fresno Best Mexican Food Breakfasts In Fresno

Fresno breakfast places can get pretty damn busy, time to expand the options. So I asked Fresno Twitter to fill in a gap in my knowledge. Hopefully, this helps you too.

I trust my Fresno Twitter folks on this. Much more than Yelp and Google anyway.

Let’s begin with the multiple vote winners. Some have a quick item reco from voters, some don’t. This is nothing definitive, just a helpful guide from Fresnans that know the best Mexican food breakfast in Fresno:

Top Four Recommends:

  • TOLEDITO’S (1704 Van Ness Ave). The breakfast burritos and Spanish omelet especially.
  • ZAMORA (850 N. Fresno St). Homemade tortillas and great chilaquiles.
  • CASTILLO’S (3659 E.Ventura). I dunno, everything?
  • LAS MANANITAS (1329 S. Hazelwood Blvd). Amazing owners. Good chilaquiles.

Next Tier Of Recos:

Other Fresno spots folks felt needed mentioning. Might be just as good as any of the above spots, just happened to be not mentioned as much:

Mi Amigo. That’s a lot of places to check out. Well done, Fresno Twitter.

A dumb guy thought: What is Chilaquiles?

Zamoras-Chilaquiles-by-Amy-G Best Mexican Food Breakfasts In Fresno
Zamora’s chilaquiles – photo by Amy on Yelp.

I did not know this. Sorry, I suck. People kept bringing it up and my dumb ass is like “Should I know what the heck this is? I should, right? Do I eat this and not know what it’s even called?”

Chilaquiles is this:

Chilaquiles (pronounced “chee-lah-KEE-lays”) is a traditional dish found throughout Mexico. At its most basic, chilaquiles consists of fried tortilla strips simmered in red or green salsa or mole to soften the strips. This dish is great for using up leftovers because stale (or store-bought) tortillas can be used. It’s often served with a side of refried beans.

TripSavvy.com

Ok cool. Now my dumbass knows. Good for hangovers? I like that.

21234-1809388 Best Mexican Food Breakfasts In Fresno21234 Best Mexican Food Breakfasts In Fresno

Yelp Reviews To Be Taken With Many Grains Of Salt

Just something I noticed, I don’t know if this is true, but it seems that if you go by what Yelp says, Castillo’s is the place that people from out-of-town think is the best “locals” Mexican breakfast spot to check out. Not sure if some food show came through town once and told them or if this is actually the case.

Anyway, glad to have this list now that you and I can come back to reference when looking for a good Mexican food breakfast in Fresno.

We have a lot of eating to do. Time to get out there and start trying some dishes of chilaquiles!

Surviving A Fresno Summer With A Swamp Cooler

Swmap-Cooler-Swampy-1024x908 Surviving A Fresno Summer With A Swamp Cooler

My AC unit went out this Summer. The first string of hot days revealed that the compressor in my 25-year-old beast died. It was not going to be worth it to replace it.

I need a new air conditioner. But it’s not always that simple.

Paying for things like a ‘crane fee’ and taking on a loan, was not something we are into this Summer. Beer Slushies at Tioga? Sure. $15,000 central air units? No.

So, we are going to have to get through a Fresno Summer without traditional air. With only a swamp cooler. Ol Swampy (pictured above). Pray for us.

Never thought I would be glad to have a swamp cooler as a backup

We are lucky to have Swampy. The previous owners had both units hooked into the vents. Use the Swamp when things are in the 80s, switch to the Central AC when things start getting ripe.

Those with evaporative cooler experience know, when the triple digits hit, swamp sucks.

Luckily, Fresno does have a good base condition that swamp coolers like: dry heat.

Joke about it all ya damn want but dry heat is hella better than humid heat, for many reasons. One of them is you can tweak your cooler for max coolness:

The best tip from that video? Starting the cooler early!

Blowing swamp when it was already warm was my biggest mistake. It is too much of a struggle for Ole Swampy to cool things down once the house is warm. Starting the cooler at 8 am as opposed to 2 pm makes a big difference.

Yeah, you have the cooler running all day and that can be an expense. But it’s still much cheaper than running an old AC unit.

The frozen bottles and soaking the pads make a small difference but not really worth it for me since my unit is up on the roof.

But what about at night?

Right? Sleeping in a hot room is the worst. I want it cold enough to need a blanket. Being warm during the day is one thing. Trying to sleep when it’s super hot feels like trying to sleep on top of Blackstone asphalt.

That’s why I broke down and bought one of these bad boys for the room:

Portable-Air-Conditioner-1024x1024 Surviving A Fresno Summer With A Swamp Cooler

If you love ‘hotel style’ AC, this is something to look into. It won’t work for the house, but it will keep one bedroom cool and it’s damn nice.

Go turn your swamper on now!

Keeping the cooler in good order and turning it on in the morning, that’s all ya really need to know. Ad the room unit and everything is chill.

Of course… I have not been through August yet. Check back later. In the meantime, I’m feeling like heading Downtown for a Beer Slush:

The 7 Worst Traffic Problems In Fresno

img_7439 The 7 Worst Traffic Problems In Fresno

Like you and most Fresnans, I do a lot of driving. I even do it for work so I get around Fresno a lot. I see things. Things I can’t unsee. But that is not what this is about.

This is about Fresno traffic. We are not even close to the kind of stuff the Bay, Southern California or Sacramento sees, but we most certainly have problem areas.

These are the ones that stand out to me while puttering around town.

BULLARD & 41. This is especially true heading West on Bullard but it sucks overall. If you have no interest getting onto 41, it’s best to use Barstow or Sierra instead.

SHAW & 99. Mostly it’s the traffic heading East as it gets backed up to Polk. It’s a one-lane bridge, for freak sake even though it’s a major entry point into Fresno. And don’t get me started on how Caltrans has never landscaped this portion of 99 and the highway has been around 60 years or something. Although they did just do some half-assed planting of trees around the Southbound offramp, so that’s something I guess.

THE MCKINLEY CURVE. Maybe Fresno’s most famous traffic area. Heading North, 41 dangerously curves just as 180 dumps cars onto it. It’s never not sketchy.

BLACKSTONE & NEES. Ya got River Park. People getting onto 41. People getting off 41. Occasional protesting. Begging. In & Out. It has all the things!

FRIANT, FRESNO STREET & 41, FRIANT EXIT OFF 41. This is going to get worse. And worse. And worse. More retail building. More building around Copper River. One day there will be, like, a seven-story office building right there. Not fun.

180 WEST AT 99 NORTH EXCHANGE. From about 3 PM to 6PM, if you are on 180 and you want to get to 99 North, ya need to be gettin’ over to the right lane once 41 South has completed dumping its traffic onto 180 and yes now I am thinking of The Californians sketch from Saturday Night Live.

giphy The 7 Worst Traffic Problems In Fresno

HERNDON & GOLDEN STATE. This actually flows pretty well when there is no train. But when there is, look out man, it backs up super fast.

HONORABLE MENTION
  • Shaw, Barstow, Chestnut and 168 anytime there is something happening at Save Mart Center.
  • Exiting 41 North onto Shaw.
  • Shaw & Golden State Blvd when there is a train.

Please feel free to leave your picks for worst traffic areas in Fresno, in the comments.

Alright, that is settled, time to watch some Californians.