Traveling

[Vrede too]

Good question - thus the reason for looking at more than one reference for issues of any importance or complexity. For debunking tinfoil hat stuff, though, sometimes just applying the least bit of actual thought will take care of it.

Yep, to the extent that the fact checkers cover the same topic, they fact check each other, duh. In this case, they all confirm each other. Then, there are always the butthurt people that have been shamed by the fact checkers hovering like vultures in hopes of finding something like a 2 year-old divorce to deflect to in lieu of facing their own failings.

... This is all about 1 FAT CAN desperately trying to deflect from having been so stupid as to have shared the "Chuck Norris" lie, and so stupid as to think that first O Really and then I wouldn't check. It's really pitiful the lengths spineless 1 FAT CAN will go to in order to cower from admitting being duped. What a sniveling wimp!

Still.

[O Really]

Fall hits with a real vengeance this year! Two Sundays ago, we were literally sunning ourselves by the water; this weekend, there's up to 30 cm of snow across the praries and down into the Cascades. No snow in Seattle and Victoria, but miserable weather anyway. So it's pointing south for us. First stop The Dalles, OR, and then on to Bend. With any luck, we'll get some fall colors and cool-weather hiking around Crater Lake.

[O Really]

Reasons to like California...

Shaming kids whose parents are late with lunch money...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1 ... California

Guns...
https://ktla.com/2019/10/11/new-califor ... n-the-u-s/

Animals...
https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local ... 4bb8be7e4c

Keeping Trump from allowing drilling on public land...
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... evelopment

List from 2019...
http://www.capradio.org/tags/news/2018/ ... laws-2019/

[O Really]

Reasons not to like California so much...

Realtime fire sites
https://ucanr.edu/sites/fire/Wildfire_H ... y/Current/

[Vrede too]

Keeping Trump from allowing drilling on public land...
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... evelopment

I'd wonder if the feds can argue that's a taking, like if one blocks a historic right of way. Might not be worth it to them to try and find out, though.

List from 2019...
http://www.capradio.org/tags/news/2018/ ... laws-2019/

Too many great ones to highlight, but this one is amazing:

Requires all dogs, cats, and rabbits sold in California pet stores to be obtained from animal shelters or rescue groups.

[O Really]

So today was Crater Lake NP, day one. We've been to most of the big parks and a lot of smaller ones and state parks and Crater Lake just jumped to the top. We got to drive the entire rim on a beautiful clear sunny day. Ordinarily, that would seem to be good fortune, but I had no idea how lucky that is. The rim road is only open about 4 months a year, roughly July-October, and a lot of that time the park is cloudy and/or the lake misty and much of the time you can't see the lake at all, or clearly the mountains around. Today, you could see for miles. In addition to the drive, we took a couple of short hikes, one along the rim and the other to a spectacular waterfall. (Yeah, having seen many great waterfalls in WNC, I still found it spectacular) The lake's color is crystal blue, clear to the bottom of its almost 2,000 depth and some of the purest water in the world. Crater Lake is pretty much out of the way for anybody coming from most anywhere, but absolutely worth it. It somebody was going on a national park trip and asked about Crater Lake or Grand Canyon or Glacier or even Arches and maybe Yellowstone, I'd say go to Crater Lake. Tomorrow is likely not so clear and sunny, but we've got a good hike planned, part of which is on the Pacific Crest Trail.

[O Really]

As it turns out, Oregon is like New Jersey in requiring that gas be pumped by an attendant - no self-service. There are several somewhat silly reasons related to "safety" (1951 version) that somehow never get repealed. Anyway, it is, IMNVHO, a pain in the ass...except...today it's about 43 degrees and a 15mph wind blowing wet dampness so it's almost luxurious to just sit in the car and let them pump the gas. They don't do windows, though.

[GoCubsGo]

As it turns out, Oregon is like New Jersey in requiring that gas be pumped by an attendant - no self-service. There are several somewhat silly reasons related to "safety" (1951 version) that somehow never get repealed. Anyway, it is, IMNVHO, a pain in the ass...except...today it's about 43 degrees and a 15mph wind blowing wet dampness so it's almost luxurious to just sit in the car and let them pump the gas. They don't do windows, though.

I know it's hard knowing, but how much do of a premium do you think you are paying for that?

[O Really]

I know it's hard knowing, but how much do of a premium do you think you are paying for that?

Dunno, but Oregon prices are a little higher than Washington, except for Seattle area, and less than California, around $3.20 for regular. But it varies a lot by location, too, with the stations in the far boonies substantially higher than the cities. Gotta be a cost associated with the service, though. I filled my tank at Fred Myers because they've got a gas discount card (Similar to Ingles) and there were at least 4 attendants at the 9-pump islands. Interestingly enough, it magically becomes "safer" and drivers become more capable after closing hours of the store and in counties with fewer than 40,000 people where you can pump your own.

[Doug1943]

The only difference in being on a ship at sea and being in jail is the added risk of drowning.

, as Doctor Johnson said.

He also said something which shows why women will soon rule the world: "Nature, having given woman so much power, the law wisely allows her but little." Now those legal barriers have been dropped. And since any reasonably good-looking woman can wrap any heterosexual male around her little finger, get ready for big changes in who runs things.

I would like to think this will mean fewer stupid wars, but I then am reminded of a poem by another Englishman, entitled "The Female of the Species", with the repeated conclusion for each stanza, that "The Female of the Species is Deadlier than the Male."

[Doug1943]

So today was Crater Lake NP, day one. We've been to most of the big parks and a lot of smaller ones and state parks and Crater Lake just jumped to the top. We got to drive the entire rim on a beautiful clear sunny day. Ordinarily, that would seem to be good fortune, but I had no idea how lucky that is. The rim road is only open about 4 months a year, roughly July-October, and a lot of that time the park is cloudy and/or the lake misty and much of the time you can't see the lake at all, or clearly the mountains around. Today, you could see for miles. In addition to the drive, we took a couple of short hikes, one along the rim and the other to a spectacular waterfall. (Yeah, having seen many great waterfalls in WNC, I still found it spectacular) The lake's color is crystal blue, clear to the bottom of its almost 2,000 depth and some of the purest water in the world. Crater Lake is pretty much out of the way for anybody coming from most anywhere, but absolutely worth it. It somebody was going on a national park trip and asked about Crater Lake or Grand Canyon or Glacier or even Arches and maybe Yellowstone, I'd say go to Crater Lake. Tomorrow is likely not so clear and sunny, but we've got a good hike planned, part of which is on the Pacific Crest Trail.

And don't forget The Pinnacles: https://www.americansouthwest.net/orego ... trail.html

More travel tips:

Youth hostels. Join Hosteing International ( https://www.hiusa.org/hostels ) and stay in them where you can -- you meet all sorts of interesting people. Before you book, check them out to see whether they are full of drug addicts though. My favorites are two former lighthouses on the West Coast south of San Francisco, and the 'Sin City Hostel' in Las Vegas. (I stayed there with my wife and her pre-teen grandchildren a few years ago, and had to quickly think of a story to explain a woman walking down the sidewalk outside with a whip. Some good shooting ranges in Las Vegas as well.)

Valley of Fire State Park, not far from Las Vegas. It's not on the International Tourist Trail, which fills up the National Parks in August with furriners, bless them, and is beautiful in its own right.

The ferry from Bellingham Washington to Alaska ( http://alaskaferry.com/FerrySchedules/A ... nformation ) If you're a backpacker, you can travel cheaply by pitching your tent on the deck. An amazing journey along the Inner Passage, and Alaska is wonderful as well.

On the other side of the country, the Eighth Maine Regiment Memorial 'hotel' on Peaks Island near Portland (Maine). A wonderful story, look it up, and a great place to stay. Do your own cooking there. And while you're in that part of Maine, go visit the home of Joshua Chamberlain, a most amazing man, whose story every American should know. It's celebrated in the novel The Killer Angels, one of the best war novels ever written in my opinion, and also in the movie Gettysburg. He was a professor at Bowdoin College. If only our professors today were like him! A summary of his life is here ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Chamberlain ), but read the novel!

[O Really]

And don't forget The Pinnacles: https://www.americansouthwest.net/orego ... trail.html

More travel tips:

Youth hostels. Join Hosteing International

We did take the Pinnacles hike - spectacular!

Lady O says she'll stay at the Youth Hostel if they have parking for the motorhome.

[O Really]

Barstow, CA is a desolate, sad place. Sure, you'd expect desolate - it's out in the desert with not much of anything else for miles, but there are lots of homeless people, and some unbelievable living spaces out in the desert. Rotting RV's, shacks built out of scraps, piles of garbage around, makeshift tents. And the town's Main St., despite the markers showing it to be a part of the old Route 66, is full of empty store fronts, some plywood boarded, others still with the heavy duty burglar bars used when they were open. The large Walmart at town's edge probably didn't help the situation with the downtown stores, but Amarillo has Walmart too and they really did a good job on their part of 66. It's especially sad because of the lost potential. Barstow is where I-40 starts (or where you get onto I-40 if you're coming in from Bakersfield) and it's on I-15. If you're going from anywhere in or north or south of LA and going to Las Vegas or headed east on I-40, you're going to go through Barstow. Both those interstates, plus the highway going straight to/from Palm Springs pass within a half mile or so with easy of/on to the old 66 Main St. And they can't manage to take advantage of all those visitors? Give them something to spend money at? There is a "Route 66 Mother Road Museum" but it's literally on the other side of the tracks and is mostly photographs and a few artifacts and a totally horrid website... http://www.route66museum.org/ There is also a good attraction about 8 miles outside of town, the Calico Ghost Town that a lot of people go somewhat out of their way to get to, but Barstow doesn't seem to attract any on their own.
There's a Marine logistics depot, which I can just imagine is a thrill to get assigned to. Just a sad little desert town, with lost potential.

[O Really]

Oops, just clicked on the link. I was referring to Pinnacles National Monument in California's Central Valley. Not the trail in Oregon.

I'll look for a link later.

Opps happen. Actually, we wanted to go down to Pinnacles during our stay at Monterrey, but we ran out of time before we ran out of good places to go and things to see.

[neoplacebo]

Barstow, CA is a desolate, sad place.

Barstow got an honorable mention in Hunter Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; A Savage Journey to the Heart of The American Dream." If I recall it went something like this; "We were somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to take hold...."

[O Really]

Barstow, CA is a desolate, sad place.

Barstow got an honorable mention in Hunter Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; A Savage Journey to the Heart of The American Dream." If I recall it went something like this; "We were somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to take hold...."

Yeah, it's mentioned in "Grapes of Wrath" too. No surprise there.

Daggett, California: "It was near midnight when they neared the Daggett" (Steinbeck 225). The Joad's were stopped for an inspector.

Barstow, California: "They drove away into the darkness and the little hills near Barstow were behind them" (Steinbeck 226).

Daggett is a dead town about 8 miles out of Barstow.

[Vrede too]

Barstow, CA is a desolate, sad place.

Barstow got an honorable mention in Hunter Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; A Savage Journey to the Heart of The American Dream." If I recall it went something like this; "We were somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to take hold...."

Rolling Stone, November 11, 1971:

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
A savage journey to the heart of the American dream

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. …” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about 100 miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough....

The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station. We had sampled almost everything else, and now – yes, it was time for a long snort of ether. And then do the next 100 miles in a horrible, slobbering sort of spastic stupor. The only way to keep alert on ether is to do up a lot of amyls – not all at once, but steadily, just enough to maintain the focus at 90 miles an hour through Barstow....

Tuesday, 9:00 AM … Now, sitting in “Wild Bill’s Cafe” on the outskirts of Las Vegas, I saw it all very clearly. There is only one road to L.A. – US Interstate 15, a straight run with no exits, no alternate routes, just a flat-out high-speed burn through Baker and Barstow and Berdoo and then on the Hollywood Freeway straight into frantic oblivion: safety, obscurity, just another freak in the Freak Kingdom.

But in the meantime, for the next five or six hours, I’d be the most conspicuous thing on this goddamn evil road – the only fireapple-red shark convertible between Butte and Tijuana … blazing along this desert highway with a half-naked hillbilly mental case at the wheel. Is it better to wear my purple and green Acapulco shirt, or nothing at all?

No way to hide in this monster....

Idk, Barstow sounds kinda fun.

[Vrede too]

What many outofstaters don't realize is that California isn't just pretty bridges and overpaid tech geeks. It's always been chock-a-block with the descendants of redneck dust bowl refugees who have set up shop in the most God-forsaken corners of the state. Their sole purpose in life appears to be to torment the coasties with their complete lack of any sense of proportion.

Plus, many are surprised to learn that the HQs for some of our most extreme rightwing and Christian orgs are in "liberal" CA, mostly southern.

[neoplacebo]

What many outofstaters don't realize is that California isn't just pretty bridges and overpaid tech geeks. It's always been chock-a-block with the descendants of redneck dust bowl refugees who have set up shop in the most God-forsaken corners of the state. Their sole purpose in life appears to be to torment the coasties with their complete lack of any sense of proportion.

Plus, many are surprised to learn that the HQs for some of our most extreme rightwing and Christian orgs are in "liberal" CA, mostly southern.

My only experience with California is from when I was in the Navy. I thought southern CA sucks (San Diego) but really liked Northern CA. My ship was ported in Concord, but in general the northern part of the state seemed to me to be like a different world from the southern part. But I guess one could say that about the US in general; the southern part is generally ten years behind the curve of the rest of the country. Like some sort of cognitive dissonance, or just abject ignorance. I consider myself lucky to have grown up in the south and be able to recognize it for what it is. I only wish I could somehow replace all the little statues of black guys in jockey shorts at the end of driveways down here with statues of trump with his head up his ass.

[neoplacebo]

Barstow, CA is a desolate, sad place.

Barstow got an honorable mention in Hunter Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; A Savage Journey to the Heart of The American Dream." If I recall it went something like this; "We were somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to take hold...."

Rolling Stone, November 11, 1971:

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
A savage journey to the heart of the American dream

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. …” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about 100 miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough....

The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station. We had sampled almost everything else, and now – yes, it was time for a long snort of ether. And then do the next 100 miles in a horrible, slobbering sort of spastic stupor. The only way to keep alert on ether is to do up a lot of amyls – not all at once, but steadily, just enough to maintain the focus at 90 miles an hour through Barstow....

Tuesday, 9:00 AM … Now, sitting in “Wild Bill’s Cafe” on the outskirts of Las Vegas, I saw it all very clearly. There is only one road to L.A. – US Interstate 15, a straight run with no exits, no alternate routes, just a flat-out high-speed burn through Baker and Barstow and Berdoo and then on the Hollywood Freeway straight into frantic oblivion: safety, obscurity, just another freak in the Freak Kingdom.

But in the meantime, for the next five or six hours, I’d be the most conspicuous thing on this goddamn evil road – the only fireapple-red shark convertible between Butte and Tijuana … blazing along this desert highway with a half-naked hillbilly mental case at the wheel. Is it better to wear my purple and green Acapulco shirt, or nothing at all?

No way to hide in this monster....

Idk, Barstow sounds kinda fun.

Ah, yes, it's all coming back to me now. I can remember heading to the Garden Basket where they sold Rolling Stone when it was a bifold paper that came out every two weeks. Always looked forward to Thompson's contributions. His analysis of the 72 election is what got me into politics. I can only imagine what he'd have to say about trump.