Two Days In Rio

At first glance, it is just like any other small town in America and for the most part, it is. But, Rio Vista, California has fallen on hard times and like many cities and towns across the country, they are on the brink of filing for bankruptcy.
I’ve been in Rio Vista for the last two days. What a cool little town. Situated on the Sacramento River in the California Delta with a population just under 8,000 (up almost 60 percent since 2000) the town is as Americana as it gets. There is a little downtown main street with cool old signs, coffee shops and of course, American flags. The people are really nice, very proud hard working people. I even met the police chief over at Raul’s Striper coffee shop – a very bass fishing oriented establishment. I went up to the chief, cameras dangling off my shoulders and introduced myself as a photographer. He immediately asked “are you sure?” Wise ass.
I spent most of the first day checking things out, trying to figure out how to illustrate a story about a town that is going bankrupt. A few of the contributing factors to the town’s demise was an enormous increase in foreclosures and a proposed 750 home housing development that was to be built by homebuilder Shea, but they pulled the plug on it due to lack of interest.
The Shea housing development was very surreal. It is a very big piece of property that has streets, sidewalks, street lamps and stop signs – but only 10 vacant houses. I would guess that the property had to be at least a half mile square. Empty. It was a little creepy. It was hard to really get the full perspective of it from the ground, so I hired a guy named Ira with a little Cesna to take me up for a better look.
Ira is a retired Army pilot who now teaches people how to fly at the Rio Vista airport. He took me up in his tiny little two-seater plane that he says he bought on eBay for $18000. It was a quick half hour flight that set me back a whopping $50. Fifty bucks! Totally unheard of. I gave him ten extra because I have never hired an aircraft that cost less than at least $275.
On the second day out I found one of the coolest bars that I have ever been to. I had passed by Foster’s Bighorn several times the day before, but from the outside it just looked like any old bar. I probably would have never gone in if I hadn’t run into Contra Costa Times photographer Dan Rosenstrauch who was outside talking to the manager. Dan was in town doing the same thing I was doing, trying to figure out how to make a picture for this story. After chit chatting outside, the manager invited us inside. Wow. I had no idea. This place was way cool. A total retro bar that had over 300 taxidermy animals and animal heads. It was unreal. They had every kind of animal imaginable. There was even an Elephant and a Giraffe. I’m not a hunter nor do I think about killing animals, but this place was pretty damn amazing. You had a weird feeling with all those animals looking down on you. I need to go back and have a bison burger and a brew. Even if you are a vegetarian and don’t like hunting, check this place out. It’s like a museum with beer.