College Kids, Ostriches, and Fairy Shrimp, Oh My!
Located on Lake Road, Lake Yosemite is a majestic comma-shaped tourist destination and ceremonial event venue for Merced County. The rustic lakeside expanses are often utilized by locals as weekend barbeque spots or children’s birthday parties. Adventurous youth love to skin their knees on the fallen and broken twigs from the authentic conifers surrounding the shores, play hide and seek around the brick outhouses and swollen wood planks of the boat shack, and absorb the grisly mud under their fingernails as they sit and splash in the cold, murky water. A visit to Lake Yosemite is always a sinfully dirty and wet experience! Some locals will even rent houseboats in the dead of summer so they can jump from the decks and plunge into the opaque depths.
Simultaneously, Lake Yosemite is also a popular loitering location for the young adults attending University of California, Merced, which is located merely a quarter of a mile down the road. The college kids, especially those who live in the dorms, routinely spend their late night study sessions out by the scenic lakeshores, generally with several coolers of their preferred brews. They are famously friendly, as any citizen of Merced County will attest, and their delightful revelry can sometimes be heard all the way down Lake Road in the suburbs of the outer city. They will even, on occasion, leave the area decorated as a surprise for the next group of visitors—they will line their cans and bottles up in carefully considered patterns and stacks on the picnic tables and around the trunks of the trees, occasionally even leaving a full drink in the mix as an anonymous gift!
The waters of Lake Yosemite, as well as the connected Le Grand Canal, are teeming with native aquatic species, several of which are held in extremely high regard as protected wildlife by the Biology and Life Sciences Departments at UC Merced. In fact, the mascot for UC Merced’s athletic teams is none other than the Fairy Shrimp, an endangered Midvalley vernal pool dweller which swims upside down and can sometimes reach over six inches in length. During the construction of UC Merced there was severe controversy concerning the potential risk that it posed to the anostraca habitat; in response, to honor the important species and pacify environmental extremists, the university’s mascot was proudly dubbed their colloquial moniker, Phil the Fairy Shrimp.
The mascot attends every athletic event diligently; there were some worried parents and faculty concerning the possible risqué elements of the costume (as the Fairy Shrimp’s long, thin white appendages are equipped for reproductive purposes) but it was eventually decided that, the primary function of the appendages being swimming, the student body would uphold a mature and respectful demeanor. The costume was designed to be as anatomically correct as possible, with the appropriate amount of appendages stretching from each side of the back, and the totally opaque black eyes placed on opposite sides of the head. The leg portions of the costume serve as the fused, thicker appendages toward the tail end of the Fairy Shrimp body, and two protruding antennae hang from the center of the face. Phil even walks backward everywhere he goes!
Both the University of California, Merced and Lake Yosemite are surrounded by quiet and open agricultural land, extending several miles to the east, north, and west. Farther east are ranches where horses for the Merced Horsemen’s association are cared for and trained. Reaching across the length of Merced to the west of the lake is the new general hospital, which created over one hundred new jobs for the citizens of the area. Taking Lake Road to the south will lead the traveler back to Merced, and on the way lies Plucky’s Ostrich Ranch, the only one of its kind in all of Merced County. Plucky’s Ostrich Ranch is a must-stop for any tourist in the area, especially those with children. For a small fee one can ogle the tall, exotic birds, watch them as they meander across their enclosed area, even be approached intimidatingly by them as one gets noticed close to the fence. Their legs are incredible to witness as they charge over the field at one another or a tourist, the long slightly pink sinews stretching and rolling, their dingy tail feathers jiggling like old fashioned feather-dusters. Most enrapturing, though, are the long and flexible necks which the birds twist, twirl, knot, bend, and sway every which way at any given moment.
Plucky’s employees do advise that small children remain at least five feet from the fences, and that if the crowd hears the cat-like screams of one of the ostriches, to flee toward their cars until the employees deem it safe to approach once again. Visitors of Lake Yosemite need not fear of loose ostriches running amok and crashing their vacations—there has only ever been one reported incident of an ostrich making to the lake; eye witnesses described the ostrich as being more interested in squirrels than anything else.
These destinations are clearly fun, adventure-filled, and engaging for the whole family. There’s no charge to visit Lake Yosemite or UC Merced, and Plucky’s has been touted as worth the price just to see the expressions of delight, wonder, shock, and terror on your children’s faces!
The Existential Van 