Almost Home: Random Thoughts

We're in Weed, CA, where you see signs like "Weed like to welcome you" or "Weed, A Natural High." I wonder what Abner Weed, the man for whom the town was named, would feel about these sentiments?

It's been an easy drive, but not necessarily the most interesting. Western Idaho was rather flat and bland, not to mention dry. Eastern Oregon was hillier, still dry but more interesting to look at. Still, the communities looked like they had died 30 years ago! We stayed in the tiny town of Vale, OR where the sidewalks were rolled up by 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon. We drove around the whole town (about 8 blocks long) and could not find much to recommend it. The campground however was clean and had all the services that we needed.

As we were driving through Burns, my cell phone rang. We were surprised to hear it, thinking that cell service in this remote corner of OR would be unavailable. Then, we looked at the top of a nearby hill, and there was a cell tower! It was a Verizon tower too!

Driving into Bend, we tried to follow the instructions delivered by Stu-y our "faithful" GPS, and once again, he earned his name (which is short for Stupid). He directed us to a 1 lane dirt road that would eventually link up to a road near our campground. We looked at the path and decided that Stu-y was wrong one more time. When I got to the campground I asked about the dirt road and the two clerks laughed saying that all the GPSs lead folks via the back road...and some folks even take the dirt road instead of driving 5 extra miles to the paved road that goes the same place. Whoever said that maps are not necessary when one has a GPS needs to do some rethinking.

When you see figures that tell about the population density of the US, you tend to think that there are large collections of people everywhere you go. Then you get to this corner of the US, and discover that there are far more trees than people. It's good to know that not everywhere looks like the SF Bay Area, LA, NY or Chicago!

Tonight in Weed we are enjoying a rainstorm. We hope it stays a rainstorm and does not become a snowstorm. When we arrived here this afternoon, we had a wonderful view of Mt. Shasta. All 14000+ feet of her was standing tall and proud without any cloud cover. Then, out of that blue cloudless sky came the rain (and we hope no snow) that we are having tonight!