Fishy Intakes OR Drove My Chevy, But It Wasn't Dry

One of the awesome hazards of being, well, me is that I truly am easily fascinated by things. This can be annoying because I will interrupt otherwise peaceful occasions with excited bounciness and taking random photos. But it can also be awesome, because I'll find out about things which I really wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

For example, a walk along the Sacramento Levee. All along the levee is a bike/walking path, a place for Sacramentians to stroll, jog, cycle, or take their dogs to poop. (Don't lie: We all know that's a major function of jogging paths.)

While recently out on said levee path with my father (and, yes, the dog was also there), we set off towards the inlet station that's down the path.

Inlet to what, you may ask?

This.

This UFO proudly made in the USA.

"Really?" I can hear Cynical Reader demanding futilely of his screen, "We're going to talk about a water inlet? Joy..."

Well, CR, we are going to talk about a water inlet, because when Sacramento needed to update/build a water inlet here, somebody had the bright idea of making it really neat and artistic.

I'm thinking these guys.

How artistic? Artistic enough to have an informative plaque to explain! Multiple informative plaques!

BAM! Informative!
Note how it spells "River" both ways.

DOUBLE BAM! Our intake looks like a fish sucking in water!
ARTISTIC!

The inlet sits directly astride the levee, and therefore astride the levee path. Which is why they put the artistic and informative plaques in a plaza.

On one side of the plaza? The silvery, artistic side of the "fish" (which evidently is a salmon).

Remember the reviRRiver? That's here.

Some clever artist took the blank cement (concrete? I'm never sure which is which...) and added wave effects to make the mirrored river. Then they put in a whole bunch of water quotes.

Fortunately there's a lot of poetry about water.
This would not work as well at, say, a sewage treatment plant.

On the edges of the concrete (cement) fish side, somebody went crazy with the Thesaurus and a Water Cycle chart.

Seriously, pick up a textbook.
I'm willing to bet you'll find all of the "key words" in the water cycle section here.

Memorize these and be ready to define them.
Tomorrow there will be a quiz.

But what's really neat about it is the simple architectural artistry of taking something functional and potentially very ugly, then turning it into something neat.

Don't get me wrong, the "ugly" functionality is still there.

Functional!

AND well protected!

However, they found a way to make the ugly even more useful.

"But it's still ugly!" I can hear CR proclaiming. I sincerely hope he's doing this in the middle of a crowded coffeeshop, yelling at his computer and frightening children.

Allow me to respond with an explanation. I love informative plaques. And this is one of the many reasons why: They can take ugly and make it interesting.

Observe:

Ohh.....Here's a artful plaque explaining the ugly...

Lessee... The water comes in here, goes here, does these things...

...and comes from all of these places!
How interesting!!

So yet again my easily fascinatedness has helped find something I didn't expect to find. And I got a great view out of it.

A sunset over an informative plaque.
That's the kinda view for this blog.

And all because I took the Chevy to the Levee and found a whole bunch of water.

(Full disclosure: It was a Kia.)