Portland to Lake Tahoe

Working with all the photos I took during a recent amazing road trip from Portland to Lake Tahoe, California to visit family has proven a challenge. Finding time to transfer them from the camera card to the computer and share some around has been a bigger obstacle than I expected. In an effort to break the inertia, I hope to split them up in small chunks by subject and get them up over the next few days. A second 93-degree day in a row played a supporting role by keeping me close to home.

As a first installment, here are some photos taken quickly during the drive south, which I accomplished in a 12-hour push on June 21, traveling south from Portland on I-5 and taking a left at Mt. Shasta, then heading through Lassen National Forest and Susanville. Summer solstice is a good day to cover a lot of geography since it’s the longest day of the year. Apart from a few brief stops for gas/food/restroom/photos (and to pick sage on the side of the highway), it was all gas.

I was unable to get a decent photo of 14,000-foot Mt. Shasta from the car at 70 miles per hour, but I got this one of Mount Lassen. You can make out the distant peak through the trees.

Mount Lassen from Car

I found a viewpoint of Lassen a few miles later and stopped to snap a pic and stretch the legs.

Mount Lassen

The highway from I-5 to Susanville has many different moods. I was in such a hurry to keep moving toward my destination that I snapped a few photos from the car.

There was a storm off in the distance for many miles. Storm clouds on an otherwise sunny afternoon did wild things with the light.

Coming next: A hike around Lake Tahoe and an attack by ferocious chipmunks.

Another Obama First

Looks like President Barrack Obama will get to keep his BlackBerry, I mean his African-AmericanBerry, after all.

Revenge on a Bank

In a short passage in his 1945 novel Cannery Row, John Steinbeck describes the Monterey, California laboratory of a central character of the book:

“There is a stairway up the front of the building and a door that opens into an office where there is a desk piled high with unopened mail, filing cabinets, and a safe with the door propped open. Once the safe got locked by mistake and no one knew the combination. And in the safe was an open can of sardines and a piece of Roquefort cheese. Before the combination could be sent by the maker of the lock, there was trouble in the safe. It was then that Doc devised a method for getting revenge on a bank if anyone should ever want to. “Rent a safety deposit box,” he said, “then deposit in it one whole fresh salmon and go away for six months.”

There Is a Time

Remember the bluegrass band from the Andy Griffith Show named The Darling Family? They were mountain folk who occasionally rode into Mayberry on an old flat bed truck to stir things up, picking tunes the whole time.

They were portrayed by a real band named The Dillards (after brothers Doug and Rodney Dillard).

I always thought it was funny how ‘the boys’ never talked on the show, but when they played, their music spoke volumes. It was only much later that I realized how accurate was this portrayal of the mountain people of NC and VA where this music came from. Not much talking, but they could draw together in a circle and play a hundred old mountain tunes with complete mastery.

Andy Griffith repeatedly gave the Dillards two or three minutes of his prime time TV slot and let them share this music with the world.

Here is an amazing song called There is a Time from an episode filmed in 1963. The woman singing is an actress who played the role of Charlene Darling on the show.

Time to Get a Grip

I got a text message yesterday from a friend that’s in town for a visit. We traded a few general texts over a day and a half and I ended with one asking her to call me Friday night to firm up our plan for Saturday. She left a voice mail.

Imagine my surprise when I listened to the message and realized I had a completely different person in mind when I was sending the messages. Now I have the same plans with a different friend.

Financial Tsunami

Remember the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 250,000 people on the South Asian coast in 2004? Do you remember the descriptions or the video of the sea receding, exposing the sea floor and then thundering back as one gigantic, endless wave? I think we are riding the lip of that wave as it winds up to throw us back into the shore.

Who Needs a Teleprompter?

I just watched New York Governor David Patterson give his first State of the State address since taking office after former governor Eliot Spitzer resigned for being caught patronizing high-priced hookers. To quote George Costanza, Governor Patterson was boppin’ and riffin’ for the entire thing. It was remarkable to watch him give a detailed, impassioned and often hilarious address about the state of affairs in the state of New York. He never missed a beat even though he had no teleprompter displaying the text of a speech. And even if there had been a teleprompter in front of the governor, he would not have been able to use it. He’s blind.

He often held his hands behind his back or clasped in front of him, but occasionally would put them behind the ledge of the podium. Is it possible he had some kind of scrolling braille notes on the podium?

This guy is a natural.

Murky Future

I live near Canyon Road, which contains one of the Portland area’s largest clusters of automobile dealerships. I am working on a list of all of them, from the smallest used car operation to the largest dealerships. There’s a lot of new empty lots on Canyon and I expect more spaces will be vacant.

Diamond Motors near my bus route would seem to be at some risk. They have a lot full of $30,000 to $45,000 European used cars and SUVs. Tonight when I stopped for the photo we had ‘freezing fog’ and black ice. Treacherous conditions like the ones working over the car dealers.

Silent

President-Elect Barack Obama works on his golf game in Hawaii while remaining silent about (and therefore tacitly approving) the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, where one observer notes that civilians are paying the price.

[Update: Here is an article further detailing Israeli pilots targeting civilians in Gaza.]

South Carolina Unemployment Benefits Run Out Tomorrow

Here’s some unsettling news from my home state of South Carolina: This economic shit storm is just getting rolling and the state’s unemployment benefits will be exhausted TOMORROW!!

Did you know that 30 American states have unemployment insurance trust funds that will run out of cash within the next few months? (Several already have.)

But it’s all good: The federal government “insures” the money, so the states just plan to “borrow” the money from the feds. Indiana and Michigan alone have already “borrowed” nearly One Billion Dollars from the United States and will need more money within days.

South Carolina may also get the money ($146 million for January, February and March 2009) but the governor has refused to ask for it until the state’s Employment Security Commission submits to an audit of its books.

[Update: At the last minute, the governor relented and asked for the federal money. South Carolina will receive $146 million for three months, but rising numbers of layoffs mean the money won't last that long.]