Travelogue VIII: Morning at the Beach and Starting Home

August 18, 2007


We woke in the morning on S.'s futon in Pacifica, California. It was a cool, foggy morning on the coast and we would have snuggled under the sleeping bag longer, but S. was up and ready to take us to breakfast.




S. lives in a small house that he has renovated about three blocks from the beach. I was really impressed with his bathroom renovation, for he had completely rebuilt the bathroom and it was beautifully done, with the claw-foot tub, and old fashioned fixtures. The original garage is now his bedroom and he has plans to add a sun room where the deck is now. S. is a very interesting person; he builds steam engines, has a restored Model A "woodie" and he grows Shitake mushrooms in his backyard. He also knows Bruce completely, and teases him about his perfectionist tendencies. "That's right, Bruce, get that crease just right, so you can jam it into a bag!" They are very good friends and I can hardly wait to have S. visit us here.






After breakfast, we visited the beach at the center of Pacifica. I was anxious to get on the road home, but N. was having a difficult morning. He was tired from his week at camp and he was needing to adjust to the noise and confusion of riding on freeways, being with adults (who talk as if he isn't there), and, especially to being with parents. We had debriefed the camp experience with him only a little and so he was reserved and what was meant to be gentle teasing on the part of S. and Bruce annoyed him tremendously. The beach was a good place for him--he worked out his frustrations by jumping from rock to rock on the breakwater. In the absence of his beloved swings, he had to find another physical outlet for his mood.






S. and Bruce, ambled along the waterfront, talking and teasing each other, sounding for all the world like they were still teenage friends. I let them be to themselves, and enjoyed trying out different features of my new camera by shooting pictures of the incoming tide, surfers and the shorebirds.


The cool, foggy air and the salt spray felt wonderful on my skin, and soon the half-an-hour turned into an hour-and-a-half. It was all to the good. N. got his tensions worked out physically and returned from the rocks at peace emotionally as well. Bruce had more time with S., and I had some down time alone with my camera. All was needed before the long drive home, where we would all be confined together in the truck for hours at a time.





We left Pacifica a little after noon, crossed the Bay on the San Mateo bridge and got to I-5 near Livermore by about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I-5 runs right along the boundary of the Coast range and the Central Valley for about 60 miles south of Livermore.


The great water projects that make the Central Valley fertile can be seen from vista points along this stretch of the freeway. Water is pumped across the hills from the Sacremento River Delta, and then runs by gradient and pumping down the Central Valley from Sacramento to the Tehachipi Mountains, a distance of more than 300 miles. The irrigation canals cross back and forth across the immense valley. The energy and scale of this immense project is awesome to behold. We said the blessing that translates to: Blessed are You, Eternal our G-d, Creator of the Universe, who has endowed the human being with wisdom and knowledge."


From the vista point, the immensity and fruitfulness of the great Central Valley can be seen very well. If not for the irrigation canals, and the hills under my feet, the lack of cornfields and the dry air, I could have imagined that I was in central Illinois, standing on the Bloomington moraine, which overlooks the immense flat farmlands to the south.



After the first hour of driving south, the mountains retreated to the west, and the highway followed the middle of the central valley. We drove past immense groves of fruit trees and fields of lettuce, strawberries and other fruits and vegetables. Somewhere between the exits of Merced and Fresno, we transitioned from Northern California to Central California. And at the California Route 46 exit, we left I-5 to turn east-south-east to Wasco and then Bakersfield. Tired of reading the infrequent entries in A Roadside Geology of Northern and Central California, I brought out a set of Lake Wobegon tapes, and we traveled across to Wasco listening to stories about farming and fertility told by Garrison Keillor. It was quite fitting, really.


As we turned south towards "Baker's Acres" as Bruce calls it, we began to notice that the sky was becoming dusky and smoggy looking. Bakersfield was in the thick of a dust storm, and when we stopped for gas there at about 5 o'clock, I took a picture of the red sun, still high in the sky. We all had that heavy depressed feeling that lack of direct sunlight gives New Mexicans, and Bakersfield did not seem like an appealing place to me and N. Bruce, who has been through there many times, said that he had never experienced a dust storm there before. He wondered aloud if it was an anomaly or if it was a seasonal occurence. We never did find out the answer to that question. As we continued southeast from Bakersfield toward Tehachipi, the thickness of the dust in the air began to dissipate, but it was completely gone until we crossed the Lone Wolf fault and begain to climb into the Tehachipi Mountains.




These mountains are fault block mountains and they divide the Central Valley from the Mojave desert. They look quite a bit like the Sandia Mountains except that they are more rounded and the underlying igneous rocks are not as striking.

For the second time that day, we saw the huge windmills that generate electricity. The first was in Livermore and now near Tehachipi. They are both projects out of Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque. We turned off Lake Wobegon so that Bruce could tell us about them. Although he is not in this area, several people who work on his floor do engineering for these wind farms.

As the evening rolled across the land, we descended across a fault zone from the Tehachipi Mountains and into the Mojave desert. This brought us out of Central California and into Southern California, so the Roadside Geology was no longer useful to us. And anyway, it was getting too dark to see the landscape we were traveling through. Even though the darkness deepened as we traveled southeast through Boron ("Gateway to Edwards Air Force Base--Landing site of the Space Shuttle!"), the temperature was climbing. Creosote and Joshua trees replaced the sparse Pinyon-Juniper woodlands of the Tehachipi. In Barstow, the truck thermometer read 95 as we caught the start of I-40. When we pulled into Needles, California at 10:30 PM, it was 103 degrees (F). We made two decisions: 1) Needles was a good stopping point for the night and 2) we would not attempt to camp because we were not acclimated to the heat. When we opened the doors to get out at the motel, it felt like opening an oven door.

Our day had started in the cool, foggy air at 58 degrees (F) on Pacifica beach. It ended far to the south and east, in the Mojave desert air at 103 degrees (F).A big Change over a long drive.

Travelogue VII: Coyote Tracks and the Slow Road to the Golden Gate

Friday, August 17, 2007

The day began in Vacaville, where we checked out of the motel, stopped at a store for some tylenol and then began the drive up the coast and across the coast range to Bolinas. We took the way through Novato and across to Olemas, rather than go through the city and hit highway 1. According to Google Maps, it was only a few miles longer and way less congested.

Novato is situated among the hills of the Coast Range, and when we stopped at a gas station, I took this picture. The beauty of the hills with the dry grass and open oak groves is so different from what we are used to that I just couldn't get enough of them.




When we reached Bolinas and drove up to the camp, the campers were engaged in a closing activity. I intended to get a photo of N. doing the activity, but he saw us and ran toward us as I depressed the shutter button.

He came running up to us, happy, dirty and smelling of wood smoke, sunshine and salt water. His first words to us were, "I want to do the next class. The one in the Pine Barrens in New Jersey!" We laughed and sent him back to the group.



We followed the group up to the fire circle, for the closing ceremony. Some of the campers started the fire using a bow drill that they had made. This one was large and required three people to work it and make the fire.
One held down the fire stick and two others worked the bow drill. Finally, smoke. Quickly, several others worked with the tinder, sheltering it from the wind and breathing on it to encourage it to burn to coals. Then, in triumpth, one of the campers held up the burning coal to the wind, where it ignited and the fire was transfered to the fire pit. The closing ceremony included a thanksgiving address, then a smudge ceremony, a story and song. The campers were reminded to take their skills home with them and to teach others.




I could tell that those who attended the camp had become close from all of the unself-conscious hugs and good-bye's that took place. Each of the camp leaders had a word for us about N. Tom said that he "really got into this stuff and had learned much." Rick said that he was "very focused and had great patience with the younger ones." Matt pulled N. in for a hug, saying, "Even Navy Seals need a hug!"

Meanwhile, Bruce had gone looking for the latrines and found the Yurt. Since he now wants to put a Yurt on our land in Madeline and have star parties there, he investigated it closely. It had a beautifully finished pine platform floor, a woodstove and was as comfortable as my living room. Bruce wrote down the Yurt makers name and address for further investigation. We lingered a while longer, talking to the Commonweal Gardens people about getting off-grid using wind and solar energy. As we were driving out, we were passed by a little car with New Jersey plates--the camp teachers. I wonder how far they got that day.


As for us, we decided to take the slow road to the city. We found one on the map that lead from Bolinas across the hills, through a resevoir, and into San Rafael. We turned on what we thought was road, which was unmarked, hoping that it was the right one and knowing that it would be beautiful. It climbed immediately away from the coast, providing the most wonderful views of Bolinas Bay and the ocean beyond. In the background is Mount Tamalpias.



Soon, the road took us across a small divide, and we began to descend through redwood forest. The tall trees made a green and cool cave across the road, as it twisted and turned through hairpins on the way down to the resevoir.
We stopped to marvel at the ferns and moss that grew in the shadow of the redwoods. In many places, Australian Eucalyptus trees added a shaggy beauty and a pungent odor to the woods. There is something about the twisting, turning road and the deep shadows and pools of sunlight in the redwood forests that beckon one forward. We were silent for a long time in awe of this shaded, green world, in which the sound of our voices seemed to be an intrusion. And then we began to see a few other vehicles as we came down to the lake.





We followed the road as it crossed the dam and then began to climb again, among hills bordering the north bay. We were once again among the dry grasses and open oak groves. Near the top of the divide, we stopped to have a picnic lunch under an oak tree. Here, at last, we began to talk again. N. did most of the talking--unusual for him, as he told of the adventures he had and the things he had learned at Coyote Tracks. We told him that we noticed that he had grown a bit and that he seemed happy and relaxed. After our picnic lunch, we continued on the road and found that, indeed, it did come out at San Rafael. I had phone service again, there, and we were able to call an old friend of Bruce's family in Oakland who was expecting us to stop by.


W. lives in the Oakland Hills, which was wiped out by a great fire a number of years ago. He took us out on the deck and pointed out that all of the houses we saw, including his, are new. 300 homes were lost to that fire and 17 people lost their lives. W. had been Bruce's religious school teacher at Temple Sinai in Oakland. He and Bruce caught up while we ate home-made ice cream (peach from the trees in the hilly yard) and had coffee. N. almost fell asleep at the table, so W. showed him a place to rest. Then he took us out to a funky hamburger place on Peidmont street, just up the hill from Fenton's. And then it was time to say good-bye.

The next stop was at S.'s house in Pacifica, where we would spend the night before leaving for New Mexico in the morning. S. has been Bruce's best friend since childhood, and I was looking forward to meeting him. After another trip across the Bay Bridge, N. fell asleep on the way. We arrived in Pacifica in the twilight, and we stayed up far too late, talking over apple pie.

Travelogue VI: Back to the Bay Area

Thursday, August 16, 2007

After visiting the Lassen County Offices of Planning and Development and Surveying, Bruce and I talked briefly to the realtor again about our plans for the land. Everyone was saying that we really, really should actually see the land because it is so beautiful. But it would mean about an hour and a half in the wrong direction. It was so frustrating that we did not know where it was when we were in Medford because we could have gone by it on the way to Susanville. Bruce and I debated, but only for a few minutes. It was already nearly noon. And we had to be at the Commonweal Gardens in Bolinas by noon the next day to pick N. up from camp. And we were already facing a 5 - 6 hour drive, depending on road construction. So we determined that we would drive out to Reno another time with no other obligation than to see our land.

A stop at the gas station for fuel--petroleum for Henry and caffiene for us, as we headed back up onto the Lassen volcanic field to the west for the drive. It was my day to drive. Bruce planned to nap, but he didn't do much of it really! Riding with a geologist driver in new country can be kind of exciting at times!

After only about an hour on the road, we came to one of many reserviors in Lassen County.

Actually, we didn't even know it was there, but there was a sign for a Vista Point, so we stopped to get still another picture of Mount Shasta. However, when we drove in, we saw the most beautiful mountain lake, surrounded by tall mixed conifers--including spruce and fir.
The waters of the lake were as blue as the sky, and the scents from the trees were indescribible. And there was a small picnic area there.

It was a little after one o'clock. That settled it.

It was time for lunch.

Bruce brought out the picnic basket and I got out the party mix. Sandwiches were made. It was lovely.

Then it was time to wipe off the dishes, put the cans in the recycle bin--California may be under the 'govenator', but it is definitely a recycle-consciousness sort of place. Maybe the two are not mutually incompatible.

I drove for another hour and more, twisting through the mountains and slowing down for a little mountain town. Then past the sample labs for Lassen National forest. And then we began to descend. Down, down, across the edge of the volcanics, across the faults, and through the foothills to the Central Valley.

In several places along our journey through California, I had become intrigued with the dry summer grasses on the foothills and the lovely open oak groves. Here the oak is not the small stands of Scrub Oak, but rather the full, spreading habit of actual oak trees, complete with acorns still green on the boughs. The lack of brambles and weedy plants on the floor of the community indicates a mature ecosystem. Beautiful. Marvelous.

As the driver, it was my perogative to stop for a picture.

Then it was on down the last ear-popping thousand feet to floor of the Central Valley. And another few hours down I-5 towards Sacramento. And I noticed something else. California drivers are fast, but for the most part, not agressive. Most everybody drives in the right lane and moves left only to pass. Turn signals are used. People move out of the way for faster cars. At least in this place on this Thursday afternoon. Population pressure does have its compensations.

By the time we reach the I-80 by-pass towards Vacaville, I was becoming tired. We had planned to try to camp at a state park near Olema. But as I pulled into Vacaville, looking for a gas station, Bruce realized that I could not continue driving. He told me where to get off the highway for a Nut Farm there, and we saw a wonderful sight. Fenton's had branched out to one of the 'burbs! So we ate dinner there, and while we sipped our raspberry swirl milkshakes, we looked in the AAA book for a reasonably priced motel. From a look at the book, it was apparant that it must be Vacaville. From there we would head back across the wine country and the coast and prices increased accordingly.

We found the Super 8 just up the road. Set back from the freeway quite some distance. Quiet. It was very good. A shower. Rest. And we had only about a two hour drive to Bolinas. Excellent.

Travelogue V: Across to Susanville

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

After spending two nights at R.'s little house in Medford, Oregon, we packed up Henry to travel to Susanville, California where we were to meet a realtor about land that Bruce and R. had inherited in Lassen County. The original plan had been that we would go to Oregon to meet R. and drive him down to Susanville with us to get the lay of their land. But R. is in the middle of sugery to replace the lenses in his eyes. He had the left eye done a week before we left and he will have the right eye done this very week. When he is done with it, he will be able to see better than anyone in the family and his life will change considerably. R. had appointments on Thursday and he also needed some help around the house. It is a small house that R. bought for a song. Built in the 1920's, it has the original built-ins and beadwork wainscotting--and hardwood floors! R. had a front porch added (pictured) and some structural work done before moving in, but much remains for when he can see well. Given the time constraints and the condition of the house, we decided we'd do better to help R. out a little with some housework. He also needed a vacuum cleaner and some other household items. So we drove him to a "club" store for those things and then we helped with some cleaning. Bruce got a little overzealous, trying R.'s patience at times--it's the sibling thing. I guess none of us ever really outgrow it! We did make a sizable dent though, and R. will be more comfortable until his eyes heal. The house is going to be a gem when R. gets done with it!

With an eye toward camping on our own land that night, Bruce and I stopped at Safeway before heading out of town. Back up, up, up out of the Oregon Valley and across to California on I-5. This time, though, we got off the interstate at the town of Mount Shasta to drive southeast to Susanville. Soon we were in the National Forest, surrounded by Ponderosa Pines and Douglas Fir. The road was relatively lightly traveled and we were able to stop to get some really good pictures of Mount Shasta as we went. I was marveling at the difference in the Alpine life zones this far north. Although our elevation was lower than where we live in New Mexico, the life zone of mixed conifer was all around us. Latitude makes a great difference and the life-zones shift down in elevation as you travel north in latitude.

We stopped for lunch at a Mt. Shasta vista point, thinking we'd drive straight on to Susanvill without a stop. But even in the wilds of northern California, summertime is also construction season! Cal-Trans was doing a rather ambitious project to replace the road and widen one stretch. The sign said that the stop time could be up to half-an-hour. So as more and more cars lined up to wait for our turn to be taken through the mess, people got out of their cars to use the conveniently placed facility and enjoy the green shade of the trees, feel the cool breeze and smell the fresh oxygen wafting across the forest. We realized that we were not going to make Susanville by mid-afternoon, and so what? We shrugged and laughed and decided to enjoy the forest.






After a while, the pilot vehicle appeared and a prodigious line of cars, lumber trucks and construction vehicles passed by. Then it was our turn to follow the pilot through the maze of stabilized dirt road, twisting and turning past men and women in hard hats, surveying stakes, and heavy equipment. I was happy that we were driving Henry!

The construction past, we found ourselves in the Lassen volcanic field, the southernmost part of the High Cascades. Mount Lassen stands within the collapse caldera of a larger volcano, Tehama, that 450,000 years ago, stood within the even larger caldera of the massive volcano Maidu. Tehama was at least as large as Mount Shasta is at present, and Maidu, which preceded it by hundreds of thousands of years, was truly a giant! Mount Lassen is an active volcano and last erupted in 1915. Lava flows and ash and mud slides from that eruption are still raw and obvious, and I took this picture as we rounded Lassen's northwest flank. The growth on the ash and lava shows the succession from pioneer species to more stable stages, however the mature forest has not yet appeared. One can see the boundaries of the flows from far away, by noting where the shrub and tangle give way to mature forest.

As we rounded Mount Lassen, we came into Lassen county, and after winding across the volcanic terrain, we descended to Susanville, which lies between the High Cascades and the Basin and Range.

When we met with the realtor, we found out that our land was about an hour north in Madeline, California. Had we realized that, we could have driven from Medford through Klamath Falls, Oregon and come right by it! We also found out that the land in that area had not appreciated in value much since 1969, although sooner or later it probably will, being about two-and-a-half hours from Reno. The realtor advised that we visit the Lassen County Development Office to find out about zoning and restrictions. It was clear we were not going to see our land that day!

Instead of camping on our land, we checked into the River Inn, a small motel near the middle of town. It was an old motel, but very comfortable. While Bruce took a nap, I downloaded pictures and discovered that I had internet access--even in a small town on the road to nowhere! After we had our picnic supper in our room--cold fried chicken, cole slaw, potato salad and Mandarin Lime sodas--we went out looking for ice cream. And the manager of the motel turned out to be a wealth of information about the area where our land is located. "It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen," he told us. "Really dark at night so you can see the stars. It is a plain surrounded on three sides by mountains. There is nobody there. It is definitely worth keeping." Bruce and Dave discussed putting up a Yurt, using solar and wind power to stay off-grid, and running a camp for astronomers in the summer.

Our visit to the county the next morning got us information on the zoning--rural, agricultural, residential. And the county planner also enthused about the beauty of the Madeline Plain. "You gotta see it!" he said, repeatedly. He was planning to buy a piece and put up--you guessed it--a Yurt, live off the grid and hunt and fish to his heart's content.

We decided that it was not a good time to sell the land and that we ought to see it on another trip. In the meantime, the realtor, Elizabeth, would check to see if we could lease it out for agricultural use.

All in all, it was a productive visit to Susanville even if we didn't get to camp on our own land--this time!

Travelogue IV: Oregon by Way of Wine Country

Monday, August 13, 2007

Petaluma, California. The morning is cool and the air is damp at sunrise as we get ice into the coolers. Today's objective is to drive up to Medford, Oregon to see Bruce's brother, R.
We are going to cut over to Napa and drive up highway 29, the road through wine country and then, at the north end of it, cut back east to hit I-5 for the run up to Oregon.

It feels really strange to be just the two of us again, after the intense weekend with N. But he is at camp. I wondered how he was doing and checked my cell phone just to be sure that they hadn't tried to call and I missed it somehow. I'm such a Jewish mother!


In Napa, we tried to have breakfast at Bruce's mom's favorite place, but it was not serving breakfast, so we settled (rather comfortably, though) for Marie Callendars. Then it was on up to Yountville, where we drove to the California Veteran's Home Cemetery, where Bruce's parents are buried. Bruce's dad resided at the veterans home during the last years of his life because he had Parkinson's Disease. His mom sold their home in Oakland and lived her last years nearby, in Yountville. When Bruce's dad died in 1992, he was originally interred at the National Cemetery at the Presidio in San Francisco. Bruce's mom remained in Yountville, where she made herself indispensible as a volunteer at the Veteran's Home. So when she died unexpectedly in 2000, the administrators agreed to allow her to be buried there in the cemetery. So Bruce had his father moved to Yountville and buried with his wife, Bruce's mother. The marker has Bruce's father's name and dates on the front and his mother's are on the back. When I took the picture above, Bruce stepped in behind the marker just as I snapped the shutter. But you can see that we had already placed the stones on the marker, as Jews do, when they visit the graves of loved ones. It was the first visit Bruce had made since the unveiling of the gravestone in 2001. So he cried a little and then we admired the beauty of the place--for the cemetery is surrounded by fields of grape vines and that has a symbolism all its own.


Having taken care of his filial duties, Bruce and I drove on down to the road to Cakebread Cellars. Jack Cakebread, proprieter of Oakland's famous Cakebread Garage, had been involved in Little League when Bruce was a volunteer umpire, and he had fixed Bruce's cars over the years.
He was also a photographer, and while on assignment in the Wine Country, he fell in love with the beauty of the place and told a family friend with land there that he would buy if they ever wanted to sell. They did want to sell. Right when Jack had children in college, but he and his wife took the gamble, and then had to learn to make wine! They never expected to be as successful as they became at it, and they marvel at their good fortune. Now semi-retired, Jack works with college students, teaching them how to follow their dreams, and he's still out and about at the winery. He remembered Bruce, and when we told him where N. was, he recommended Outward Bound for him when he gets a little older. He had sent his son, he said, when he was in high school. He said he sent them "a sixteen year old boy and I got back a sixteen year old man." Although we did not have an appointment, we were escorted into a tasting and learned a lot about the Napa Valley. Of course we came home with some really good wine as well.


After the tasting, we drove on up through the wine country, enjoying the sights of all the wineries and the fields. They have all manner of technology to assist in the growing of the grapes, in case "mother nature throws us a curveball," as our guide for the tasting put it. The picture is of a heater for the vines should the temperature become too cold.

The Napa valley can produce all sorts of varieties of grapes because the soil differs so much across it. This is because the coast range to the west is composed of various metamorphics that are part of the Coast Range Amphibolites, and the range to the east is volcanic. The Napa river flows through the middle of it all, and has made lenses of different soils. The climate is mediterranian and quite mild, usually, which is good for the grapes as well. Jack says that you need a good grower and a good wine maker and good grapes and then mother nature can throw all the curves she wants (note the baseball analogy!), but you will have good wine.


We left wine country and continued north through the lake district until we reached the Andersen Valley. There, we made our way east through the open oak groves on the coast range, until we came out into the great and fertile Central Valley. The Central Valley bedrock is the same as rocks in the Coast Ranges, but in the ranges the rocks are a melange--all messed up--whereas in the valley they are almost layer-cake in their simplicity. The Central Valley is a great sliver of oceanic crust that got stuck in the Sierran Subduction Zone, and did not subduct when the subduction then began occuring further east, at the Franciscan Subduction Zone. On that bedrock, alluvium from the Sierras and river sediments have formed an amazing flat, fertile valley that stretches several hundred miles from the Tehachipi mountains in the south, to the rise of the Klamath north of Redding, California. It is incredible in it's flatness, it's immensity and fertility. Although there is not much to see geologically speaking, just alluvial fans here and there, and some stray volcanoes near Colusa, it is still impressive in a way that words cannot describe. I remembered the Central Valley as hot, with a hard brightness that hurts the eyes. And it was. But we zipped as quickly up I-5, getting more than twice the distance that we got while winding through the volcanics north of the Wine Country.

North of Redding, we began to climb into the Klamath Mountains. The Klamath are a block of the Sierra that broke away and moved 60 miles north and east. The terranes are analogous to the suspect terranes of the Sierra, and are every bit as faulted and overturned and sometimes unidentifiable. By the time we stopped at a rest stop for Lake Shasta, I-5 was riding in between the melanges and terranes of the Klamath to the west and the High Cascade Volcanics to the east.

There was no good view of the lake at the rest stop, but I got this wonderful picture of a blue jay working for pine nuts. The jays were plentiful and not too shy--they seemed used to tourists and the sounds of their cameras. As for the lake, the crossing on the bridge was spectacular, but you will just have to imagine the very blue and white waters surrounded by mountains!


Mount Shasta,, the highest mountain in California, was constantly in sight from just north of Redding until our descent into Oregon.
It is a Rhyolite volcano. These volcanoes are very gassy and viscous, producing explosive eruptions, with clouds of glowing welded tuff that can blanket the countryside. Shasta, like all of the volcanoes of the Cascade range, was made by ongoing subduction of Pacific plate crust under the westward moving North American plate. Although the Franciscan Subduction zone was replaced by the San Andreas fault, subduction and volcanism are still occuring farther north. This means that the volcanoes of the Cascades are still active, as anyone who remember the eruption of Mount St. Helens can attest.

As we left Mount Shasta on the horizon behind us, we climbed the pass and then made the steep descent into the Orgegon valley. The descent was so steep, even on the interstate highway, that we were in 4th gear most of the way. When we came to Medford, we had the unique experience of being guided through the streets by a legally blind, non-driver. We had to go slow as the landmarks a walker orients by are different, but after a few miscommunications we made it to Crater Lake Avenue, and R.'s 1920's "diamond in the rough." The day ended with Chinese food and being greated by a big black bear of a dog, Xena, the Princess Warrior. She looks fierce but she is very quiet and friendly. She doesn't wag her tail to greet you. Oh, no! She wags her whole body with excitement!

Travelogue III: Two Bridges to Camp

Sunday, August 12, 2007: We woke up in Auburn, California, which is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. We missed seeing the Sierra from I-80, because we made the drive from Reno to Auburn at night. I really regretted that, because the Sierra was formed by the building of California by suspect terranes, and I wanted to see some of the terranes. But, we were closer to where we needed to be and planned to take a drive through Oakland, Bruce's hometown, before proceeding on to Bolinas, where the COTE Cyote Tracks Camp was to to take place. The drive to Oakland started in the foothills of the Sierra and then we quickly descended into California's Central Valley, a unique landscape created by a change in subduction zones toward the end of the Mesozoic period. I-80 crosses the great Central Valley on the Sacramento river delta, which is actively building, and then proceeds through the Coast Range from Vacaville into Oakland. The Coast Ranges started by the subuction of island arcs in the Franciscan trench just off the coast of northern California, in Miocene time (26 to 20 million years BP). When the trench met the oceanic ridge where new crust was forming, the trench and ridge became inactive and the North American and Pacific plates met along a right lateral transform fault, the famous San Andreas Fault. When the fault swerves left, rocks jam up against thrust faults, and that forms the Coast Ranges in California. I say "forms" because the San Andreas is active: the North American plate is moving west and the Pacific plate is moving northwest, so there is still friction along the fault and the mountains are still rising.


Oakland, California is built on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. The commercial district and the Port of Oakland (largest container port in the world) are on the flat shore, and the town rises into the Oakland Hills, part of the Coast Range. The area is faulted like nobody's business, and the Hayward fault runs through Oakland.

After negotiating Sunday noon traffic from I-80, our first stop in Oakland was Fenton's Creamery, because Bruce insisted that this was an Oakland tradition. The parking lot on Piedmont street was full so Bruce, a pro at parallel parking--"Hey, I'm an Oakland boy!"--parked up the curb on a narrow side street.


Bruce said that all rules are in abeyance when you go to Fenton's, so N. had the Jumbo Banana split for lunch. It contains three pounds (yes, pounds) of ice cream, but N. managed to eat most of it without help. The picture is proof that I am not exaggerating!

Bruce and I split a Jumbo Mocha Almond malt, which left room for us to split a tuna sandwich on San Francisco Sour Dough as well.
N. was not hungry for the rest of the day! :)
We had just enough time after Fenton's to drive around Bruce's childhood neighborhood. Up and down the hilly, narrow streets we went, and we saw Bruce's grandma Sarah's old house, his first house and his second house on Clarendon Crescent. I was glad Bruce was driving Henry--who seemed to be a "Supersize Red Truck." I realized then and there, that most people probably do not drive full-sized pick-ups with standard shifts if they live in the Bay Area.


Then it was time to drive N. out to Bolinas, which is on the coast, north of Sausalito. We alloted ourselves two hours to get him there. It was almost enough.

First, we had to cross the famous Bay Bridge from Oakland to San Francisco. They make you pay to get into San Francisco on any of the bridges, but you can get out for free! So we had to wait in line to pay our toll, being that we are outlanders and did not have the automatic toll reader. The picture was taken as we approached Treasure Island on the first part of the bridge.

Then we had to get off I-80 and wind around the city streets in San Francisco, on Highway 101. The approach to the Golden Gate Bridge is from Van Ness Avenue, but we had to twist and turn on a few other streets as well. Although there was no toll to cross the Golden Gate going north--they really do let you out of San Francisco for free--it was a Sunday afternoon and it took nearly an hour to get to and cross the bridge. I took the picture as we were stopped on the bridge approach.

We still had time for our five o'clock arrival at the Commonweal Gardens, but the directions we got did not say that staying on highway 101 meant twisting through the streets of Mill Valley. We ended up going straight where we should have turned and we saw the sawmill at Mill Valley, before stopping to get directions from a local who was walking her dog. That got up back to the intersection and we then stopped at a taco place to get more comprehensive directions. The girls there happily told us how to get there.
A short conversation:
Girl: "You'll think you are going nowhere, but keep with it. The people from Bolinas don't want people from here to find them. They take down signs. There will be no sign to Bolinas."
Me: "Why is that? Are they stuck up?"
Girl: "No, they are the original 'flower children hippies.' The authentic thing. They think the rest of us in Marin County are stuck up."
I was having my doubts at this point. What is this place I am taking my son to? I mean, I don't really know these "authentic hippies". But I said nothing to Bruce and N. and we pressed on.



After winding our way slowly and in traffic across the divide and around Mount Tamalpias, we finally made it to the camp. It was beautiful. Bolinas sits on a spit of land that juts out between Bolinas Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The camp was located among oaks, eucalyptus, and pine in a valley on the shore. No wonder the native "authentic hippies" don't want the tourists to find it! They'd be innundated.

We were a few minutes late, but when I tried to explain why, Rick--the guy from New Jersey who runs Coyote Tracks just said, "You're not late. Everybody seems to be arriving now." And I realized that they were running on a version of Jewish Standard Time. Perhaps called "Naturalist Standard Time?" Whatever. In any case, on time obviously meant "whenever everybody comes." Getting N. "registered" was really informal, too. It mean explaining to Rick how to do N.'s meds, loading his stuff onto a hand-cart and standing around smelling the eucalyptus while N. got started on making some rope. I was impressed by the gentle directions being given and the low-key but focussed approach by which N. was being taught. Finally, we just drifted away, since we were hungry and needed a campsite.

We drove on up Highway 1 to Olema, where we found the Olema Farm House. Very good pasta and not too bad of price considering that we were in Marin County. And then we went looking for a camp site and encountered the realities of the California lifestyle. In New Mexico, when you want to go camping you just drive onto the National Forest, find a campground, drive around it until you find an open spot, occupy the spot and pay at the self-pay station. This has been true any place we have camped in the intermountain west as well as other parts of the country. Not in California. There you must make resevations to camp weeks in advance and follow a complicated set of instructions to register and pay. California is over-crowded and over-regulated, and, as we discovered, over-priced. It cost $40.00 for a tent-site at the campground near Olema. For a tent-site! One night. They did provide wireless internet access and a shower, but who needs wireless if you are tent camping! It was pretty and a short drive from the coast, but still!

California: regulations up the whazoo! Traffic. And really expensive camping. Well. California. Nice place to visit but make a reservation. And expect to pay.

Posted from Sedillo, New Mexico! We are home.

Travelogue II: The Loneliest Road and Beyond

Saturday morning, August 11, 2007: The second day of our journey started in Salina, Utah. We woke early, ate a cold breakfast at the campsite, hiked up to the bathroom, packed and, after a stop for coffee at Burger King--hey, Starbucks has not quite made it to central Utah--we were on US 50, heading 39 miles to the Wasatch front. The Wasatch is a fault block mountain range that demarcates the beginning of the Basin and Range. Along the back of these mountains, the slope is gentle--this is the hinge side of the fault, and the valley has beautiful Mormon farms. They seem to produce mostly alfalfa here.

A quick trip nine miles south on I-15, and we are once again on US 50, America's Loneliest Highway. At Delta, Utah we will leave the farms and fields behind and embark across the Great Basin of Utah. Delta is named for the ancient feature it sits on, a delta made by a long-ago river as it slowed down and dropped it's sediments upon entering glacial lake Bonneville. The Great Salt Lake far to the north is only a remnant of that ancient lake, one that covered all of central and southwestern Utah and on into eastern Nevada.

The Great Basin of North America has no outlets for water. All rivers that enter here do not flow out again anywhere. Rather they peter out into sinks, where they form ephemeral lakes that evaporate in the dry desert air, leaving only salts. In this picture you can see one such playa lake. The range in the distance is in Nevada. The car driving past is one of only two that we saw the entire distance between Delta and the Nevada border. This land is hot, dry and empty. The ecological zone is cold desert and the index species is Artemesia tridentata, which is Big Sage. And yet, in it's emptiness, this land evokes a sense of grandeur and spaciousness that expands the soul. There is room here, room for something beyond the small and petty concerns that often crowd our lives.

And yet, there is also evidence of the human attempt at mastery of nature. We found an old witness post and survey marker near the road. This boundless place, too, has been mapped and bounded. But there is a certain timelessness as well. It takes long spaces of time for the desert to remove tracks, fence posts and otehr evidence of our presence.

The Utah stretch of the loneliest road was indeed the loneliest part. And small evidences of human presence in the Great Basin only serve to remind us of how awesome and vast is this place. How very fortunate we are

to live in a small window of time in which we can drive through this place in great comfort and so see it. It is not soon forgotten.

As we approached Nevada, we left the Great Basin behind and began to approach the Basin and Range Province proper. Up, up to the highway pass for a range, each marked by the elevation above sea level and by the presence of a weather station powered by solar panels and connected to the rest of earth by a satellite dish for uploading data.

Basin. Range. Basin. Range. It was about 60 miles and two Basins and Ranges until, in the third Basin, we came to Ely (Ee-lee), Nevada, where we fed Henry the Big Red truck a lunch of petro-chemicals and we had lunch, too. Ours was also organic, but of a different kind. It has been years since there was a Sinclair station anywhere near where I lived, so it was a real treat to see the friendly Apatosaurus in the hills of eastern Nevada. We ate right there at a picnic table outside the station. The sun was warm and the breeze persistent and cool. Next services, more than 100 miles. Basin. Range. Basin. Range.

From our experience on Saturday, it appears that America's Loneliest Highway is becoming somewhat popular. In the second range outside of Ely, we came upon two U-Hauls that would not pull into the pull-outs to let cars by, despite the fact that we could not pass them until the next basin. And we saw more traffic on US Highway 50 than we had in Utah.

Basin. Range. Basin. Range. As we approach western Nevada, we notice that with each range, we gain less height and that with each basin we descend further towards sea level. Our net altitude is going down.

Basin. Range. Basin. Range. As we descend to the Fallon Sink, we see the 'shoe tree' near a lonely bar. Lovers making up after a quarrel are supposed to throw their shoes into the tree. And then the endless salt flats and dunes that lead into Fallon, Nevada, home of a US Naval Air Station far from the sea. Salt flats and playa (ephemeral) lakes are good places to test airplanes because you can land on the flat.

Fallon itself has grown as the Navy has combined several different divisions of its "airdales" at the Fallon Air Station.

Finally, even as we are descending toward the Carson River, we are leaving the Basin and Range. The Carson River has an outlet from the Fallon Basin. And as we leave Fallon, we can see the Sierra Nevada ahead, way past Reno. The high Sierra are not part of the Basin and Range, and yet the rocks there are remnants of various island arc terranes that crashed into North America when the subduction zone was just east of where the mountains now stand. The island arcs were floating on dense oceanic crust that was subducted and recycled to come to light again as volcanic rock and glass. But the lighter continental crust of the islands themselves could not be subducted, but crashed into the country rock, causing thrust fault zones that lifted the ranges in the Basin and Range.

We planned to stay at Reno, and we stopped to eat at the Black Bear Diner in Sparks before finding a room for the night. But when we inquired at a modest place, the price was incredibly high. We were puzzled until a local told us about Hot August Nights--a street festival in Reno. So we got back into the truck and drove another two hours plus to Auburn, California, where we got the last room in town! (Yesterday in Susanville, which is 84 miles from Reno on the road to nowhere, the motel proprietor told us that during Hot August Nights in Reno, he fills up and has to send people four more hours to Oregon. Incredible). We took the room with only one bed and no extra towels. N. slept in his sleeping bag on the floor. We used our own towels. And considered ourselves lucky. Since we were nearly three hours further along than expected, we left instructions for a late wake-up call and fell into our beds. Sweet sleep!

Published from Vacaville, California

Travelogue I: Albuquerque to Utah

Friday, August 10, 2007: Woke up at 4:30 AM. Lots of running around, getting the last minute packing up of food and needed toiletries done. Breakfast was cereal and yogurt, with my last cup of home-brewed coffee.

On the road at 6:09 AM. I drove, radio tuned to NPR for a rare listen to Morning Edition. ABQ traffic heavy but normal. We took I-40 west to I-25 north. Off at Bernalillo on 550 north to the Four Corners region.


We drove through Bernalillo. Lots of development there. Talked about how Starbucks is taking over the world. "If you want to take over a country, you have to establish a presence," said N.

The road curves up to the north and then to west across the badlands around the Rio Puerco. White Mesa to the south at Zia Pueblo, home of the type specimen for a small purple daisy, Erigeron gypsophilia, an endangered flower first identified by Tim Lowery at UNM while I was his student. N. was fascinated by the idea of a flower that could live on gypsum. We talked about how adaptation works.

Up, up, up onto the Colorado Plateau. We seem to be driving up the edge of the earth. Past the purple, pinks and greens of the Jurassic Morrison Formation, the base of the Plateau here in NM. Up, up, up, finally driving on the red shales below the the towering cliffs of the Dakota Sandstone near Cuba. Then over the continental divide and into the Farmington Basin. Here we are driving past the uncomformity between the Cretaceous rocks and the younger Kirtland formation--coal and oil bearing sands and shales. We stop in Farmington for the bathroom and a snack. Lots of oil and gas company vehicles in the gas station parking lot and on the streets. Bloomfield, Farmington and Aztec have the boom and bust look of oil towns. We talk about the economic geology of oil production and distribution.

On the way to Four Corners we pass by Shiprock, a diatreme that is sacred to the Navajo. A diatreme is the frozen neck of a volcano exposed due to weathing of the cone around it over time.

We have traveled up through time this morning, from the rocks of the early Mesozoic period about three hundred million years ago through to the earliest Cretaceous. The volcanics are younger still, coming from activity as recent as a few thousand years ago as the continent stretches and thins in the Rio Grande Rift--and area where the continent is drifting apart due to differential movement on either side of the rift.

Four Corners, New Mexico-Arizona-Utah-Colorado. After taking a turn standing with one foot over the four corners, thus briefly residing in four states at once, we had lunch at 12:30 PM. Or was it 11:30 AM? Although all four states are in the Mountain Time Zone, Arizona does not follow Daylight Savings Time. So we gained an hour whenever we went into Arizona. All of this about boundaries provoked the following thoughts from N:

"The land over there in Utah and Colorado and New Mexico--it is all the same as the land here in Arizona where we are sitting to eat lunch. The rock formations are the same. And the sun is about at local noon. The boundaries--they are not really real.They are made by people. I guess they are made for reasons, but the land itself--it does not have these reasons. The state boundaries are for governments, right? It's so that people know who to pay taxes to and what sheriff to call? The time one--that's different. It is kind of real. Because the earth turns--it turns and that takes time--24 hours. So the dawn comes later in the west (of the US) than the east...but where exactly to put the difference? I guess that the railroads decided that. The actual place is not important...it's...it's ..."

"Abitrary," said Bruce. And that started a discussion of arbitrary that lasted well into Utah.

In the afternoon, we drove up through more of the Colorado Plateau in Utah. The route we took did not go through Monument Valley, but we could see the castle-like buttes and mesas away to the south as we drove across the Morrison formation near Bluff. There we climbed up onto the Bluff sandstone, which has it's type-section there in bluff--for which it is named.

From Bluff Utah to Blanding, we played peek-a-boo with the colorful Morrison and the overlying sandstones as the road came up and down into canyons formed by the rivers in the Dakota Sandstone. After Monticello, Utah, things got really interesting as the Entrada formation appeared. The Entrada is a resistant, colorful rock underlaid by a muddy shale that erodes easily, so there are formations like church rock.

Approaching Arches National Monument, things got really interesting as we entered the La Sal Anticlinal Valley, and later the Spanish Trail Anticlinal Valley. What happened in these places is that salt, which flows under pressure, was pushed in between the rock units with the Entrada on top. The salt formed an arch, which made the rocks above fold over it into an anticline. Then the salt was dissolved out by water and the anticline collapsed making a valley with the oldest rocks visible in the middle and the youngest on the edges. The Entrada formation has two members that weather differently and viola! You get arches, like this picture of Window Rock.

We took a rest stop in Moab and loaded up with gas, having come nearly 400 miles from Albuquerque. At Moab, we crossed the Colorado river, where we stopped to put our feet in the water and get a little muddy.

N. was feeling anxious to continue driving and at the same time, he wanted to stop at the river. But he did go down to get his picture taken there. The last time I stopped there, in 1999, the river was low and relatively clear. This time it was high and fast and carried a lot of the sediments that give it the colors for which it was named.

Then we drove past the actual entrance to arches, and began to climb out of the anticlinal valley toward I-70.

At this point we began driving out of the Colorado Plateau highlands toward the Wasatch front. In the process, we crossed the beatiful Green River (of Flaming Gorge fame) at the town of Green River, and then up across the San Rafael Swell, a structural feature similar to an anticline, but with a gentle slope on one side and a steep on on the other. The San Rafael Swell gives a wonderful view of the Cretaceous in Utah. The towering dune sandstones of the Navajo and Wingate sandstones, both deposited by wind, show sweeping cross-bedding. Further, we crossed into the earliest Paleocene (Cenezoic rocks), and saw the contact that identifies the unconformity between the two eras. It is more visible in the four corners, though, where you can put your finger across the period of the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The picture above is of Castle Valley seen from the crest of the San Rafael Swell.

It was getting late and we attempting to get all the way to the junction between I-70 and I15, when we noticed that highway 50 crossed I-70 at Salina, Utah, as we began the climb to the Wasatch front. A quick consultation of the map indicated that we could knock off about 70 miles by cutting across 50, around the north of the mountains to the front. So we did a little backtracking and then saw a pleasant campground right at Salina. We were tired, hungry and cranky, so we pulled in and got a tent site for the night.

Shabbat dinner of cold chicken and bread and wine under the stars completed our day. A needed oasis appeared in the desert after 550 miles of driving!

Oops! I downloaded another picture of Four Corners. Same as the first picture, too. And in real time we are in Susanville and we need to get going if we are to reach the coast today! We have to pick N. up by Noon tomorrow, PDT. And we need to stop at Lassen County Courthouse to get information about our land here. So...you get another picture! I don't have time to figure out how to delete it.

One of these days, I'll learn to really use Blogger.

Published from Susanville, CA

Live from Susanville, California

Shalom from Susanville, California!
We are still traveling, but tonight is the first night that I have both the energy and the internet connection to give a short update. More detailed travelogue to follow.

On the first day of our journey, my true love said to me: Exactly how many times were we in Arizona today?

I lost count.
That's because we ate lunch at the Four Corners monument. We started out in New Mexico, we then entered Arizona on the way to Four Corners, but the access road was in New Mexico. We parked in Colorado, stood in all four states at once, then ate our lunch in Arizona. We crossed back into New Mexico to leave--the access road again--then back into Arizona, then into Colorado to get the road we wanted into Utah. The rest of the day was spent driving through south-eastern Utah to get to I-70. The picture of Church Rock (above right) was taken as we were stopped for road construction south of Arches National Park on our way to Moab. If you have to be stopped for a while, this was the place (with apologies to Brigham Young). We slept in Utah, too.



On the second day of our journey, my true love said to me: How many ranges did we cross?

I lost count again.
This was the day of America's Loneliest Road. We started in Salina, Utah, where we camped at a wonderful little camp park. At Delta, Utah, we began our trek across the Great Basin and the Basin and Range Geologic provinces on Highway 50, America's loneliest road. And we drove. And we drove. And we drove. Basin. Range. Basin. Range. Basin. Range. Basin Range. I guess that's why they call it the Basin and Range. We had lunch in Ely (pronounced "ee-lee"), Nevada, and dinner in Reno. But it was "Hot August Nights" in Reno, and the few open hotel rooms came with price tags so jacked-up, that we'd have paid over a hundred bucks for a Motel 6. And the KOA was full. On to California! Another two hours to Auburn, where we got the last room in town. N. had to sleep on the floor--but, hey, we were supposed to be camping! The picture (above, left) is of the road sign for America's loneliest road as you leave Ely, Nevada for points west.


On the third day of our journey, my true love said to me:
How many bridges did we cross?

I lost count. Again!
California has rivers. And bays. And Golden Gates. And marshes. And lagoons. But I do remember the trip from Oakland over to Bolinas. We crossed two famous bridges within sight of each other over the span of two hours. The Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate bridge. Two hours? Yep. You have to wait in line to pay a toll to get to San Francisco on the Bay Bridge. (They let you out for free). And access to the Golden Gate is by city streets in "the City by the Bay." So it was bumper to bumper. And we were driving Henry, the standard shift pick-up truck on the hills of San Francisco. It got kind of exciting a time or two. The picture shows Henry's beautiful red front end approaching the first tower of the Golden Gate. We dropped N. off at COTE Camp, Coyote Tracks, in Bolinas' Commonweal Gardens. The we stopped for the night between Bolinas and Petaluma, California.



On the fourth day of our journey, my true love said to me: How many gravestones do you think there are?

I didn't even try to count. As we drove through wine country on our way to I-5 north, we made three stops: for breakfast, at the Veteran's Home Cemetery, and at Cakebread Winery. The cemetery was the most important. Bruce's Mom and Dad share a grave at the Veteran's Cemetery in Yountville, California--in the hear of wine country, just north of Napa. It is an incredibly beautiful place to be buried. We then stopped by to visit Jack Cakebread, a friend of Bruce's before he became a vintner. And we tasted some wine. Then it was on to I-5, picked up south of Redding, and on up to Oregon, to see Bruce's brother R. The picture (above left) is of the graves in the Veteran's Cemetery marching into the hills of wine country.



On the fifth day of our journey, my true love said to me:
How many hours of sleep have we lost?

I was too tired to calculate. R. has a beautiful 1920's house that is a diamond in the rough. It has lovely glass-doored built-ins in the dining room. It has original latch-front cabinets and beadwork in the kitchen and bath. But in order to use the bathroom or sleep in the bedroom, it was vital that we clean them. Really. R., who is legally blind, is in the midst of having the lenses of both eyes replaced. They do one lense and then three weeks later, the other. He will have the best vision in the family when it is finished, but he needed a great deal of help with his house on Tuesday. We took him to get a new vacuum, supplies and sundries, and then pitched in on more cleaning on Tuesday. It was not what I expected, but we did have fun together. The picture is of R. standing on his new porch with Xena, his best friend.



On the sixth day of our journey, my true love said to me: How many mountain pictures have you shot?

Ahem! I lost count.

There has been the Jemez, the Nacemiento, Ute Mountain,the La Sal Anticline, the Wasatch Front, the ranges of the Basin and Range, the Sierra, the Coast Range, the Klamath, Mt. Shasta and the High Cascades. But the last so far (this WILL change), is the Lassen Volcanic Field. Today we drove down from Medford, Oregon to Lassen county, in Eastern California, to look at some land Bruce and R. inherited from their mother. The picture is of Lassen Peak, an active volcano, taken today as we drove past on the way to Susanville.

Wow. We have travelled a lot of miles thus far! And we still have to go back to Oakland to visit with a friend, pick up N. from camp and then go home! Maybe tomorrow's question should be: When do we stop driving.

I thought this would be a short post. You know? This is just highlights. Just to whet the appetite for the play-by-play. That will come later. Maybe. But now, dinner in the motel room. A walk out for ice cream. And sweet sleep, nature's balm!