Daily Archives: September 1, 2006

The price of flour depends on the grocery aisle.

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Wow, that may be the first time I’ve spell “Aisle” since learning to … spell.

OK, so I’m noticing that processed flour products really vary in price in ways that simply can’t be explained by supply of flour, demand for flour, or anything remotely related to flour.   At pennies a pound, flour is cheap.   So is bread at perhaps a buck a pound, maybe two if you get really good stuff. But crackers, which are also almost all flour, cost a LOT, especially premium crackers which can run you over $5 per pound.    And then there are cookies, which seem to vary in ways that are downright amazing.   Little specialty cookies from Pepperidge farms can approach $10 per pound where the coconut oil saturated oatmeal specials take us back to the dollar a pound that seems most consistent with the price of flour.    Obviously labor production costs vary, but I don’t think it’s that either.  Marketing?   Maybe, but many of the cheapies seem to have more marketing than expensive stuff (Wonder bread (cheap) vs our local artisan bread (expensive).    The latter spends a fraction of the former.

What does all this have to do with Global Warming?  Nothing.  I just thought I’d put in that spurious tag for fun.

The mystery continues…..

Trinity Alps here we come

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Tomorrow we’ll head down to the Trinity Alps in Northern California for a 2 night backpack. I really love this wilderness area, which is spectacular, sublime, and always uncrowded. This will be our third trip to the Canyon Creek Lakes part of the Trinity Alps and we’ll camp about 4 miles in, hopefully at the spot above the little waterfall.

Another 4 miles in the next day without heavy packs will take us up into the heart of the region, three lakes in a valley surrounded by granite peaks of up to 9000 feet. The last trip here was 3 years ago and we’d just spent a week in Yosemite but I kept thinking how great the Trinities are as a place to really immerse yourself in the splendor of California mountains and woods.

Although the Trinity Alps are not as spectacular as Yosemite (I’m not sure any place on earth can compete with the many unique vistas in Yosemite Valley), they offer a lot more solitude, similar beautiful scenery, and the kind of insight into the workings of the world you just can’t get unless you surround yourself in a cathedral of granite, mountains, and forest that has remained largely unchanged for thousands and thousands of years.