cascadian telegrams

dave's long way down days 7,8,9: there and back again (Baja <-> LA)

Day 7

Greetings all from sunny and warm Rosarito Beach in Baja California. Mile 1372, and the farthest point south I will be visiting on this trip. So, two days in the sun and I start my push north again (sadly).

I departed Los Angeles Thursday morning to a sunny 53 degrees and headed south on I-5. I don’t want to say I super-slabbed my way to the Baja border because Los Angeles has built much more than super highways. As the song says, ‘nobody walks in L.A’. I had forgotten how car-depedent Los Angelians had become. I road down sections of Interstate 5 that were 9 lanes in each direction. Aircraft carriers could easily traverse the distance between L.A. and San Diego.

I crossed the US/Mexico border into Tijuana about 2pm Thursday afternoon, and blew right past Tijuana to make my way down the coast

I decided to stop for the evening in the town of Rosarito, 18 miles south of Tijuana. Rosarito has changed immensely since last I visited in the mid-eighties. Condos and High-Rises going up everywhere. Obviously the Baja coast is doing a thriving business during the summer months.

Rather than camping on the beach, I decided to ‘rough it’ by checking into a hotel on the beach. At least here at the hotel I don’t have to worry about having all my camping gear stolen if I step away for 5 or 10 minutes.

So, I get a full day of sun and beer drinking without having to worry about the bike. Saturday I depart Baja to return to my brother’s place in Los Angeles for one more overnight. Then Sunday I’m homeward bound.

Day 8

Day 8 of my trip, still in Baja, staying at the Los Pelicanos Hotel in Rosarito Beach. I had no particular agenda today, so I did this ALL day;

Notice the stack of empty plastic cups starting to build next to my chair. Those were Sol beers and Margueritas, (yes, I was double-fisting drinks that day). This is why I came to Baja. To get some sun and have a few drinks. Mission accomplished.

I’ll depart Baja on Saturday morning to push back up into the US, and one more overnight with my brother Matt in Los Angeles before I start my trek homeward.Adios from Baja!

Day 9

Day 9, I’m at mile 1539 of my trip, and finally starting northward again. I crossed the border back into US territory at 10am this morning. Then headed back up I-5 North through San Diego and back into Los Angeles for one more overnight with my brother Matt and his wife Colleen

I want to give a special thanks to both Colleen and Matt as my acting ‘pit-crew’ for my journey since their help was instrumental in making my trip a success.

Tonight we all go out for dinner, have a couple of drinks, then home to bed. I’ve got to get an early start tomorrow for the northward push. I’ve got a somewhat clear weather window to get back up into Oregon Sunday and Monday before the next storm front hits the Pacific Northwest, so I’ll have to burn up some miles within the next two days to beat the incoming rains/snows.

I’ll keep you posted along my journey home.

The Big Here (Kevin Kelly)

Kevin Kelly has a great post entitled The Big Here which asks "30 questions to elevate your awareness (and literacy) of the greater place in which you live".  Many of these are questions that I've often wondered about but don't know for my city, Seattle:

30 questions to elevate your awareness (and literacy) of the greater place in which you live:

1) Point north. [Recommendations for answer methods]

2) What time is sunset today? [Recommendations]

3) Trace the water you drink from rainfall to your tap. [Recommendations]

4) When you flush, where do the solids go? What happens to the waste water? [Recommendations]

5) How many feet above sea level are you? [Recommendations]

6) What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom here? [Recommendations]

7) How far do you have to travel before you reach a different watershed? Can you draw the boundaries of yours? [Recommendations]

8) Is the soil under your feet, more clay, sand, rock or silt? [Recommendations]

9) Before your tribe lived here, what did the previous inhabitants eat and how did they sustain themselves? [Recommendations]

10) Name five native edible plants in your neighborhood and the season(s) they are available. [Recommendations]

11) From what direction do storms generally come? [Recommendations]

12) Where does your garbage go? [Recommendations]

13) How many people live in your watershed? [Recommendations]

14) Who uses the paper/plastic you recycle from your neighborhood? [Recommendations]

15) Point to where the sun sets on the equinox. How about sunrise on the summer solstice? [Recommendations]

16) Where is the nearest earthquake fault? When did it last move? [Recommendations]

17) Right here, how deep do you have to drill before you reach water? [Recommendations]

18) Which (if any) geological features in your watershed are, or were, especially respected by your community, or considered sacred, now or in the past? [Recommendations]

19) How many days is the growing season here (from frost to frost)? [Recommendations]

20) Name five birds that live here. Which are migratory and which stay put? [Recommendations]
21) What was the total rainfall here last year? [Recommendations]

22) Where does the pollution in your air come from? [Recommendations]

23) If you live near the ocean, when is high tide today? [Recommendations]

24) What primary geological processes or events shaped the land here? [Recommendations]

25) Name three wild species that were not found here 500 years ago. Name one exotic species that has appeared in the last 5 years. [Recommendations]

26) What minerals are found in the ground here that are (or were) economically valuable? [Recommendations]

27) Where does your electric power come from and how is it generated? [Recommendations]

28) After the rain runs off your roof, where does it go? [Recommendations]

29) Where is the nearest wilderness? When was the last time a fire burned through it? [Recommendations]

30) How many days till the moon is full? [Recommendations]

The Bigger Here Bonus Questions:

31) What species once found here are known to have gone extinct? [Recommendations]

32) What other cities or landscape features on the planet share your latitude? [Recommendations]

33) What was the dominant land cover plant here 10,000 years ago? [Recommendations]
34) Name two places on different continents that have similar sunshine/rainfall/wind and temperature patterns to here. [Recommendations]

dave's long way down day 6: still mile 1255 (+4 miles on foot), hate to admit it but LA rocks!

Yes, it’s the end of December, a sunny 63 degrees in downtown L.A., barely a hint of a breeze, and they have THIS in the front yards!

It’s just not fair I tell you! We Pacific Northwesterners have to succumb to the perpetual drizzle starting in October and continuing through April. A few days of this warm weather and it’s gonna be very hard forcing myself to return to the rain and sleet in Portland.

Anyway, I got a day off of the bike today at my brother Matt’s and my sister-in-law Colleen’s near Marina Del Rey in Los Angeles. A very cute house and notice the roses still in bloom in the front yard.

So, since I had the day to flop in the sun, I might as well flop in the sun!

Tomorrow I push off for Baja. I’ll be in Baja for two days without my laptop in fear of having it stolen, plus I will be beach-camping and probably won’t have internet access anyway. I head back up to L.A. on Dec. 29^th to visit my brother again, so I’ll post my pictures and reports from south-of-the-border when I get back to L.A..

Adios until Saturday,

Dave

passive-aggressive apple computer

Apple has been taking the piss out of Microsoft/Vista this Christmas with this series of holiday ads:

In the ad, the PC guy (naturally, the middle-aged doofus in business attire, not the stubble-chinned twenty-something) changes the lyrics to "Twelve Days of Christmas" to something along the lines of "You should buy a PC not a Mac..." etc. while Santa and the emo-twentysomething look on, astonished.

Ha ha.

I've posted before on how irritating Apple ads are.  They're also disingenuous:  Vista is not as bad as Apple portrays it (I'm running Vista on 3 machines @ the moment) and OSX is not as great as they portray it either. [disclaimer: although I work for Microsoft, I love Apple hardware/industrial design and admire many features of OSX].

The funny thing is that they portray the PC guy as the 'agressor'... sneaking in snarky lines about the Mac into a Christmas song, but it's really Apple and this Apple ad that are going out of their way to take a whack at Windows and PCs.  It's dishonest and passive-aggressive.  Even with cutesy cartoon characters, they can scarcely contain their shrillness.

I hope it backfires on them, but Apple is trading at $200 per share today, so I doubt it.

So, Steve Jobs, allow me to flip you the proverbial bird as a holiday greeting, you self-satisfied twit.  Ho ho ho.

Christmas 2007

Though we're still cooped up in our little temporary housing apartment in downtown Seattle, it was a nice Christmas.  Susan made a lovely roast lamb Christmas Eve and Malcolm got to open his presents a day early as we spent Christmas Day with friends (heaven forbid he'd have to wait until after that to open presents... he was beside himself with excitement for weeks leading up to Christmas).

By far the most interesting thing he received (from his Uncles Dave & Matt and Aunt Colleen - Thanks!!) was an ugobe pleo robotic dinosaur.  It's like a little robotic pet with light, motion and sound sensors and servo motors for walking and exploring its surroundings.  It is eerily lifelike and highly freaky to our cat Charlie

Malcolm appropriately named her 'Emmo' (appropriate as in 'emotive'... interesting also that he decided that the pleo is a 'she') and he's following the included instructions on how to train, feed and take care of her.  Cool/weird... I feel like I'm looking at the first robotic pet or something.

We spent Christmas Day with our friends Susan & Alex and their kids Charlie and Clara @ their new place down in Ranier Beach... what a great time!  I sometimes forget how nice and relaxing it is to spend time with those guys.  We got a bit of snow in the afternoon which -- gasp!! -- let the kids go out and play in the snow for a bit... that doesn't happen often enough from our 13th floor flat

 

Susan H. made a delicious Christmas dinner and much fun was had hanging out and chatting, dancing and letting kids run a bit wild ;)...

 

Being an 'orphan' at Christmas was never so much fun!  Snaps are here.

dave's long way down day 5: mile 1255, rolling into LA

Greetings all from sunny Los Angeles!

I left Patterson, California this morning with the intent of heading up into the Mojave Desert to see my old stopping grounds at now-defunct George Air Force Base outside of Victorville, California. Unfortunately, I forgot about the winter seasons in the High Desert. You know the seasons are changing in the desert only when the high winds start blowing. And boy, the Santa Ana winds are blowing up there now. Frequent dust storms and low visibility, plus riding in a perpetual cross wind getting up there and back didn’t sound that appealing.

So, I decided to press south on Interstate 5 all the way into Los Angeles a day early. It was a good riding day down I-5, 50 degrees, and minimal gusts across the freeway, so I soldiered on down I-5, covering 433 miles through some of the most desolate landscape on the planet.

Yes, the scenery was so boring, I had to resort to taking pictures of myself.

Anyway, my early arrival in L.A. gives me an extra day to flop off of the bike before I depart for Baja Thursday morning. I think I’ll bum around my brother Matt’s neighborhood tomorrow and wander out towards the beach and get some pics.  Stay tuned… I’ll post more trip reports when I start rolling again.

Dave

dave's long way down day 4: Mile 822, Sunny Skies, 60 Degrees and Flyin' (12/24/07)

Greetings all from sunny Patterson, California. Located on the I5 corridor in central California about 60 miles southeast of San Francisco.

I left Garberville, CA about 9am this morning to sunny skies and drying pavement, but still a somewhat chilly 44 degrees.

 

Garberville is in the middle of this map, just above Benbow Lake. I kept chugging along through the remainder of the Redwoods, and noticed it was starting to warm up and seeing a lot more dry pavement while passing through Ukiah, CA. I continued southward on Hwy. 101 into Santa Rosa, and had to stop because I couldn’t believe what I was feeling. It was sunny and 60 degrees in central California today! Traffic was moderate, but uneventful today around the shopping mall areas, (yes, Californians also wait to the absolute last minute to finish their Christmas shopping obviously).

Santa Rosa mall traffic above.

I continued down Hwy. 101 into San Francisco and briefly into Berkeley, just to say I’ve been there. Typical traffic through the Bay Area. Four lanes of super-slab on all the major freeways, and everybody hangs in the left lanes. I stayed in the right-most lane and cruised along happily at 70mph.

Berkeley flats on University Ave. Lots of students and gangsta’s on the streets, but all very laid back.

From Berkeley, I cut east heading for I-5 and central California on my way to the Mojave Desert tomorrow. I forgot how arid central California is once you move away from any of the coastal towns.

I stopped briefly in Livermore, CA to hit a Starbuck’s and get pumped up on two hits of expresso for the push eastward. Yes, that’s arid desert land in the background, surrounding a very yuppie bedroom community.

I pushed on eastward across Interstate 580 to ride I-5 southward, and jump off of I-5 tomorrow to head up to the High Desert. I cruised down I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley for about an hour and decided to hole-up somewhere near the freeway because the sun was setting and the winds were picking up, (I also forgot about how windy it gets going through the I-5 corridor in central California).

Yep, pretty bleak riding through central California, and the scenery doesn’t change hour after hour. I can see why long-haul truckers go nuts driving through this stretch of highway.

Anyway, I’m heading eastward and upward tomorrow into the High Desert of Victorville, CA to see what it looks like today, (I was stationed there in the US Air Force back in the mid-eighties).  Then, Wednesday, I head down to Los Angeles to hook up with my sister-in-law Colleen. Thursday to Baja.

I’m wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I’ll keep my reports coming…

Dave

dave's long way down day 3: Outrunning the Rain (12/23/07)

Greetings all from foggy, (but dry!), Garberville, California. I broke the 500-mile mark on my trip today.  I actually rode on dry tarmac today! All the other motorists traveling along Hwy. 101 today probably thought I was losing my mind while I doing my saddle ‘happy dance’ while blasting along at 65mph.

Yes, the day started out as another soggy riding day, as I left Brookings, Oregon this morning in a perpetual drizzle. But, I was determined to keep pushing south to get out from under the new storm front moving into the Pacific Northwest.  Here was my view for the first 3 hours of riding today…

 

Yes, that’s actually what I see looking through the face shield on my helmet.  Anyway, I kept heading south from Brookings, OR, and crossed the California border at about 10:30 this morning. I traveled down through the Redwoods, beautiful from what I could see of them, and pressed on to Eureka, CA to stop for lunch.

After stopping in Eureka, I noticed the rain was slowing significantly. I decided to keep going south to outrun the rain all together. About 3pm, I decided to stop in Garberville, CA to grab a hotel for the evening and start my nightly bike gear drying sessions, (although my riding suit has a gore-tex liner, I stay warm and dry, but all of the gear gets very wet and heavy after several hours in the rain).

Garberville, CA is about 200 miles north of San Francisco, nestled in the Redwood Forest. A beautiful little Alpine-like town with obviously a lot of ex-hippies residing here.

Actually, Garberville has to be one of the most picturesque little Northern California towns I’ve ever seen. A very strong alt-culture vibe in this town. I’m definitely planning on stopping here again on my trek home in a week.

Tomorrow, I head for San Francisco and take a look at Berkeley. I’ll keep my posts coming. Everyone have a very Merry Christmas. I’m enjoying the hell out of mine.

Dave

dave's long way down day 2: In a Rainstorm at the Oregon Border (12/22/07)

Greetings all,

Day 2 of my Baja odyssey, and not a lot of mileage in today (only 60 to be exact). I woke up this morning in Port Orford, OR with the intent of pressing south down into the Redwoods before the next storm hit. No such luck. I woke up this morning to the sound of wind and pouring rain. I decided to start late, around 10am to see if the rain would slow down some. Again, no such luck.

So, I rode south on Hwy. 101 in wind and rain going sideways. I wanted to get down into the Redwoods today, but only got as far as Brookings on the California border. I’ll hunker down here this evening and hope I get a break in the rains tomorrow, (Sunday).

More later,

Dave

dave's long way down day 1: Hello from Port Orford (12/22/07)

[my brother Dave is on an 11-day motorcycle odyssey from his home in Portland, OR to Baja Mexico and back; I'm blogging his trip from his emails]

 

Greetings all,

I left this morning for my Baja trip, and 276 miles into my trip, so far, so good. I left Beaverton this morning at 8:30am under a mix of rain and snow, yes snow, and pushed southward.

I super-slabbed I5 down to Corvallis, then cut in towards to coast. I hit Florence, OR, and proceeded south on 101. I decided to overnight in Port Orford, OR to see if my parents were right in their rave reviews of this town during their past visits. I hate to say it… but my parents were right. This town is beautiful! I want to live here!

From here, I cross California, then into Mexico. I'll keep you posted on my travels…

Dave