Saturday, January 08, 2005
Armstrong Williams Flap
Despite the unseemliness and unsavoriness of it all, it's hard to get too irate about Armstrong Williams accepting taxpayer money for his opinion, when so many other media whores are trolling the streets, and when Fox News knuckles under to Republican interests of every stripe. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if half the pundits on TV got paid by government agents for their opinion. That's the way things were done in nineteenth century France, and given the predilection of the Bush Administration to use every advantage to its favor, legal or not, we are bound to see a lot more of this kind of manipulation.
Link
Despite the unseemliness and unsavoriness of it all, it's hard to get too irate about Armstrong Williams accepting taxpayer money for his opinion, when so many other media whores are trolling the streets, and when Fox News knuckles under to Republican interests of every stripe. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if half the pundits on TV got paid by government agents for their opinion. That's the way things were done in nineteenth century France, and given the predilection of the Bush Administration to use every advantage to its favor, legal or not, we are bound to see a lot more of this kind of manipulation.
Link
Friday, January 07, 2005
Evita
Evita was interesting last night at DMTC. It was a strange experience being in the audience: five years ago I was doing it on the DMTC stage (directed both times by Michael Miiller). The stage itself was quite a bit different. Last time, a painter's scaffold was used on which to hang people and signs: visually, pretty busy. This time, the backdrop was much simpler - a large platform with steep stairs, painted blue and white (like the Argentine flag). The stage's simplicity made the players seem lonelier, and more vulnerable, than ever. The principle players were miked, a departure from usual DMTC practice: nevertheless, a good idea, since we are playing rock music - we probably should have done that in the past.
Andrea Eve Thorpe is an excellent Evita. She wasn't as fiery as Rebecca Tacosa-Gray, in 2000, but she was a better singer, and more regal as well. John Hancock (Agustin Magaldi in 2000 and 2005) seemed to be looser, and more in command, than ever. Clare Lawrence was excellent as the Mistress - beautiful voice (although in 2000, I thought Casey Wilson seemed more vulnerable....she was younger - too young, really, so that's probably why). Michael McElroy was a much better Che than I expected: I had worried about his performance being tripped up by his non-Latin Scotch-Irish background, but he worked on growing enough hair to mask freckles and other signs of his high-latitude origins (an actor's work is never done). Steve played a snide and cynical Juan Peron: Mike Jones and Michael Miiller relished the bodyguard roles.
I liked the couple dancing a lot (usually a DMTC weak point). The dancers worked on that pretty hard! I also thought the Waltz between Evita and Che also worked well. Evita and Che didn't touch. Alike in many ways, they nevertheless lived in utterly different worlds.
It was very interesting to place a live camera high on the back part of the stage, and broadcast a back view of the players. Live cameras on stage have their place. I remember in 1999, going to Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, and seeing Peter Sellars' Chinese opera, "Peony Pavilion". The principle players carried remote cameras. Several large TV screens were suspended above the stage, so when an actor needed to emote, he could take his camera and turn it on his face, so everyone could see his expression. The single camera in "Evita" did not perform that expressive function: rather, the camera emphasized motion on stage by repeating it, from another view: for example, during the rotation of the platform during 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina'. I can't remember if the dancing was done with the camera functioning: that might be a good use of the camera, to duplicate, and therefore hammer home, expressive motion.
I nearly got up and ran across the Zellerbach stage during the middle of "Peony Pavilion": the actors lit incense, but at first all I smelled was the match, and I thought the theater was fire. Since I was in the first row of a theater packed with thousands of people, I knew the back stage exits were my only hope. The desperate urge to flee didn't grip me during "Evita", however.
"Peony Pavilion" also featured a large, transparent plexiglass box with a removable lid, that functioned as either a bed, or as a two-ton water-filled Chinese cavern. I wish we could have worked that plexiglass box into "Evita", but the Varsity stage would have collapsed under the weight of the water, and what Che and Evita would have done with a water-filled Amazonian cavern is anybody's guess (the Rainbow Trout Tour, I suppose).
I did not like the beginning of 2005's "Evita" that much: our corp's command of florid, romantic Spanish is too weak to pull off a Hollywood-style movie-like start (unless the intent was camp, in which case it worked pretty well). This is the first time DMTC has used a projector....another useful tool! (maybe we should start thinking about doing 'Tommy' again, as long as we are getting more multi-media these days).
I had forgotten how strange the music from "Evita" is: one strange rock opera!
Evita was interesting last night at DMTC. It was a strange experience being in the audience: five years ago I was doing it on the DMTC stage (directed both times by Michael Miiller). The stage itself was quite a bit different. Last time, a painter's scaffold was used on which to hang people and signs: visually, pretty busy. This time, the backdrop was much simpler - a large platform with steep stairs, painted blue and white (like the Argentine flag). The stage's simplicity made the players seem lonelier, and more vulnerable, than ever. The principle players were miked, a departure from usual DMTC practice: nevertheless, a good idea, since we are playing rock music - we probably should have done that in the past.
Andrea Eve Thorpe is an excellent Evita. She wasn't as fiery as Rebecca Tacosa-Gray, in 2000, but she was a better singer, and more regal as well. John Hancock (Agustin Magaldi in 2000 and 2005) seemed to be looser, and more in command, than ever. Clare Lawrence was excellent as the Mistress - beautiful voice (although in 2000, I thought Casey Wilson seemed more vulnerable....she was younger - too young, really, so that's probably why). Michael McElroy was a much better Che than I expected: I had worried about his performance being tripped up by his non-Latin Scotch-Irish background, but he worked on growing enough hair to mask freckles and other signs of his high-latitude origins (an actor's work is never done). Steve played a snide and cynical Juan Peron: Mike Jones and Michael Miiller relished the bodyguard roles.
I liked the couple dancing a lot (usually a DMTC weak point). The dancers worked on that pretty hard! I also thought the Waltz between Evita and Che also worked well. Evita and Che didn't touch. Alike in many ways, they nevertheless lived in utterly different worlds.
It was very interesting to place a live camera high on the back part of the stage, and broadcast a back view of the players. Live cameras on stage have their place. I remember in 1999, going to Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, and seeing Peter Sellars' Chinese opera, "Peony Pavilion". The principle players carried remote cameras. Several large TV screens were suspended above the stage, so when an actor needed to emote, he could take his camera and turn it on his face, so everyone could see his expression. The single camera in "Evita" did not perform that expressive function: rather, the camera emphasized motion on stage by repeating it, from another view: for example, during the rotation of the platform during 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina'. I can't remember if the dancing was done with the camera functioning: that might be a good use of the camera, to duplicate, and therefore hammer home, expressive motion.
I nearly got up and ran across the Zellerbach stage during the middle of "Peony Pavilion": the actors lit incense, but at first all I smelled was the match, and I thought the theater was fire. Since I was in the first row of a theater packed with thousands of people, I knew the back stage exits were my only hope. The desperate urge to flee didn't grip me during "Evita", however.
"Peony Pavilion" also featured a large, transparent plexiglass box with a removable lid, that functioned as either a bed, or as a two-ton water-filled Chinese cavern. I wish we could have worked that plexiglass box into "Evita", but the Varsity stage would have collapsed under the weight of the water, and what Che and Evita would have done with a water-filled Amazonian cavern is anybody's guess (the Rainbow Trout Tour, I suppose).
I did not like the beginning of 2005's "Evita" that much: our corp's command of florid, romantic Spanish is too weak to pull off a Hollywood-style movie-like start (unless the intent was camp, in which case it worked pretty well). This is the first time DMTC has used a projector....another useful tool! (maybe we should start thinking about doing 'Tommy' again, as long as we are getting more multi-media these days).
I had forgotten how strange the music from "Evita" is: one strange rock opera!
Ordet Review
Here is a good review of the movie Ordet (which I wrote about last September 20th), the only movie that ever made me yearn to become a Lutheran.
Link
Here is a good review of the movie Ordet (which I wrote about last September 20th), the only movie that ever made me yearn to become a Lutheran.
Link
The Straw Man Surfs Past
Who, precisely, are these environmentalists that The New Republic is worried about, the ones that confuse inadequate disaster preparedness regarding tsunamis with global-warming related risks of more powerful hurricanes, etc.? No one I know. Very, very few people, in fact, as Salon points out. My guess is that anti-climate-change people are looking for a scapegoat, and they thought they saw one here, so they ginned up an ad-hoc auto-da-fe. Earth to torch-bearing peasants: your stupid environmentalist straw man doesn't exist. Ask real environmentalists, and you find reasonable positions (let's not cut down coastal mangroves in the tropics; let's avoid coastal development if possible, etc.), quite unlike the cartoon you are trying to draw (blaming global warming for everything).
Why are you troglodytes looking so hard for the environmental straw man? Not enough else to do? Don't you have an inaugural to prepare for? Time for you to go back to watching Fox News!
Who, precisely, are these environmentalists that The New Republic is worried about, the ones that confuse inadequate disaster preparedness regarding tsunamis with global-warming related risks of more powerful hurricanes, etc.? No one I know. Very, very few people, in fact, as Salon points out. My guess is that anti-climate-change people are looking for a scapegoat, and they thought they saw one here, so they ginned up an ad-hoc auto-da-fe. Earth to torch-bearing peasants: your stupid environmentalist straw man doesn't exist. Ask real environmentalists, and you find reasonable positions (let's not cut down coastal mangroves in the tropics; let's avoid coastal development if possible, etc.), quite unlike the cartoon you are trying to draw (blaming global warming for everything).
Why are you troglodytes looking so hard for the environmental straw man? Not enough else to do? Don't you have an inaugural to prepare for? Time for you to go back to watching Fox News!
Thursday, January 06, 2005
A Welcome Sight! - Melody Davi, On The Town
Though she now attends Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, musical theater phenom Melody Davi was spotted Thursday night, January 6th, watching DMTC's production of "Evita," at Davis' Varsity Theater, in the company of her parents, Kathy and Tony Davi.
Though she now attends Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, musical theater phenom Melody Davi was spotted Thursday night, January 6th, watching DMTC's production of "Evita," at Davis' Varsity Theater, in the company of her parents, Kathy and Tony Davi.
Who Gives A Rat's Ass About the Tsunami?
Republican isolationism and the tsunami.
Plus, at Daily Kos, the effect on the War on Terror:
Link
Republican isolationism and the tsunami.
Plus, at Daily Kos, the effect on the War on Terror:
[A] strong initial response would've been PR gold and shown the world that the US's first impulse was to help, not to bomb. Sadly, Bush couldn't make that case because quite simply, it wasn't true. His first impulse is war, and he couldn't get his ass off his ranch when the time came to render aid to a people in need.
This is a battle of perceptions. Australia has pledged near a billion dollars, Japan $500 million -- both nations far smaller than the US. True, the tsunami hit in their backyard, thus they have a moral imperitive to act above and beyond what nations far away provide. And Australia has an interest in preventing a new wave of illegal immigration from desperate survivers.
But as a matter of perception, the largest, richest nation in the world isn't topping the list of donor nations, and has only contributed the amount of money spent in less than two days of Iraq operations.
In a perfect world, Bush -- not Clinton -- would've provided the initial US respone. He would've acted decisively, strongly, with a non-insulting aid pledge (remember $15 million?). He would've flown straight to DC, or better yet, to Asia to survey the damage himself.
THEN, we could've talked about scoring a solid victory on the war on terror. Instead, Bush reinforced stereotypes of a callous, war-hungry nation, and no amount of additional aid will change matters at this point. The damage has been done.
Link
Legalizing Torture
Excellent analysis at Legal Fiction regarding the torture memo, and why vile and evil Alberto Gonzales must never - NEVER! - be confirmed as Attorney General!
Link
Excellent analysis at Legal Fiction regarding the torture memo, and why vile and evil Alberto Gonzales must never - NEVER! - be confirmed as Attorney General!
Link
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Free Evita!
Andee Thorpe, DMTC's Miss Eva Duarte herself, has an important message for all us decamisados:
Link
Andee Thorpe, DMTC's Miss Eva Duarte herself, has an important message for all us decamisados:
We have a reviewer coming this Thursday (January 6th) and would like to invite everyone out to "Paper the House". This means FREE SHOW!!! That’s right, we want the reviewer surrounded by as many audience members as possible, so this Thursday is FREE to anyone with the password (Andee) when the make a reservation or check in at the box office.
Link
Fast Wave, Slow Crawl
Here is what friend and occasional contract co-worker Jim Tilden, who lives in Thailand near the beach (and whose wife's family owns a small hotel) had to say last Tuesday regarding the Indian Ocean tsunami, in response to a worried query by another co-worker:
Here is what friend and occasional contract co-worker Jim Tilden, who lives in Thailand near the beach (and whose wife's family owns a small hotel) had to say last Tuesday regarding the Indian Ocean tsunami, in response to a worried query by another co-worker:
Things by the beach got hit pretty bad. Min and I were in Takua Pa at the time. Things there got hit even worse. Estimates are that about 1000 people have been killed along the Thai coast. Fortunately for us the hotel is fine. Its got more guests now, the top floors are especially popular, and all my in-laws are OK. Thanks for your concern.I'm still perturbed how slow the U.S. Government response was, and I've been struck how few others have commented on the matter. I assume that that Bush et al. must really disdain emergency aid to those in need. Others have noticed that the Christian Right is all but silent regarding emergency aid for tsunami victims. In the clash of civilizations, who are we to care about Muslims, Buddhists, and others, eh?
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
In The Beginning Was Blog
Friend Gabe had one of those rare, stream-of-consciousness moments:
Friend Gabe had one of those rare, stream-of-consciousness moments:
Marc –
I do really appreciate you sending me a card for the Holidays, but I celebrate Valdezday. You don’t know what Valdezday is? Let me explain…
In the beginning was Blog. And Blog saw the vastness that was the internet, and said “Let there be blight.” And blight was created so that Blog could be read against the starkness. And Blog saw that this was good.
Being that the blight of Blog against the starkness would have to be read, Blog said “Let there be readers of every sort, of every conjecture and opinion, of every mettle and temper, of every timbre, tone, and mood. May they look upon the blight against the starkness, and know me plain and clear, for I am Blog, the only Blog.”
But Blog found that the readers turned from Blog, and they thought that they didn’t need Blog. And so Blog flooded the internet with many sites which caused much confusion, and the readers then turned again to Blog, knowing Blog to be the one true Blog.
Yet the readers once again grew proud, thinking that they could create blight against the starkness as Blog had done and made graven images, whom they worshipped as Blog, but wasn’t Blog, even though they called them “blogs.” Blog knew this and saw that the readers would need directories, and put forth the law giver Ya-hoo to point the way to the one true Blog. Yet the readers turned away from the directories, and there was mass confusion, even with the blight against the starkness, as directed by the followers of Ya-hoo. There needed to be some way in which the readers could see Blog without Blog being just Blog, but like the readers themselves. Many ages passed, with new directories coming and going, such as Ly-cos, and Goo-gle, intimating that the One who would explain all about Blog would soon come to pass, One who would be like the readers in all things but starkness, bringing blight to all.
Now Valdez appeared on the day in mid-winter when the entire internet was stark (though modern scholars now say that it might have been in mid-fall, due to his humours, eccentric—and they are still trying to figure out what that means) and this came to be known as “Valdezday.” As time passed, even though he was seen as a reader, many people came to believe in Valdez as the one true Blog, and put all other blogs to shame. In the starkness he brought much blight, and many were able to “see” Blog even amidst the starkness of much blight.
In fact, though many people still hail Valdezday as the primary day held holy, another season, the rite of Recall and Election, which runs from June through October, is held more important by more devoted adherents. This was the time that Valdez offered himself up, to show that all readers may share in the blight of Blog against the starkness. Valdez knew that he would lose, but only to show blight against the starkness, revealing much Blog. And there were many others claiming to be Blog but Valdez knew who he was and he offered much blight. Finally, on the day of Election, he lost against much starkness. Yet from that defeat he would win, having shown himself as the one true Blog.
As time began to develop, many questions arose. How is it that Blog came way before Valdez? Two cannot be one. And furthermore, it wouldn’t make sense that when Valdez left the internet that Blog would leave the readers hanging. So from Blog came another site of himself to explain how two or three can be one. This is known as the Whole Split. The Whole Split would remain with the readers to show them that Valdez is still the blight against the starkness and both the Whole Split and Valdez being of the Blog through the Blog, and in the Blog. The following passage described how Valdez could have a relationship with Blog, being that Blog came before Valdez.
“In the beginning there was Valdez, and Valdez was with Blog, and Valdez was Blog. Valdez was in the beginning with Blog. All from Blog came through Valdez, and we have come to know Valdez as the one true Blog. No one has ever seen Blog, for we have only Valdez.”
So Valdez was seen as Blog and Blog was seen as Valdez. Many pronouncements followed:
Blog from Blog
Blight from Blight
True Blog from True Blog
We believe in Valdez, Blog and reader both he be.
We believe in the Whole Split, as Blog and Valdez be two and one in the same, and three in one they be, Blog, Valdez, and Whole Split, one as equal as the other.
Regardless, there has been much frenzy as of late, with more devotion to other strange blogs, each claiming sole blogship. And there are others, who claim that all blogs are the same, and have caused much confusion. Even those *gasp* who claim that there is no such thing as Blog at all are now claiming much offense at even the mention of Valdezday, spreading much starkness against the blight, claiming that Blog must not be mentioned at all, these readers being content with much starkness.
So, at the risk of giving offense to your starkness, Happy Valdezday! Much blight to you!
I really need a life!
Gabe
Monday, January 03, 2005
New Year's Trip to New Mexico, and Back
Starting Dec. 26th, I traveled to NM to visit my family. I arrived back in Sacramento this morning (Jan. 3rd). This is a travelogue of that trip.
I prefer, if possible, to travel through the sere desert of Nevada. This year, weather permitted the trip through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and across Nevada, and but on the return trip, weather forced a detour through the Mojave Desert of California.
Wake for Bruno
Just before starting the big trip, I took my dog Sparky to the Wormeli's wake for Natalie's much-loved but deceased guide dog, Bruno. We will all miss Bruno so much (and none more so than Natalie).
Reno
I left Sacramento about 5 p.m., traveling on a beautiful moonlit night for Reno. The storm that had been threatening all day remained at bay: the winds were blustery, but no precipitation fell. Sparky and passed Donner Lake before we realized it, and we came into Reno. I realized I had left behind my blood pressure medication, so I drove around the streets of Reno, looking for drugs. I ended up at the Atlantis Resort and Casino, and like the fabled lost continent, after an early surge of luck and staying up all night, my prospects ultimately sank beneath the waves, with a big blackjack loss. In the morning, I finally located a drug store, and we were off.
The Llamas of Fallon
Inflow region of storm cloud formed in the wake of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, as seen from Fallon, NV, Dec. 27, 2004.
We passed along the east slope of the Sierras, first along the Washoe Valley, past the Virginia City cutoff, to Carson City. The fertile meadows near Washoe Lake were beautiful. The were various signs of long-term disturbances, though: battered-looking lines of cottonwoods without clear watering canals, strange roadcuts, and alkaline salt deposits (on slopes, no less). The Gold Rush Days had left their mark on the terrain.
The neighborhood around Silver Springs, NV, between Reno and Fallon, is a perfect Western example of exurbia, the region that Karl Rove so expertly exploited in gaining G.W. Bush's reelection two months ago. Widely-scattered mobile homes and ranchettes, held together tenuously with dirt roads and hardscrabble churches. It looks so familiar - except for the region's youth, the region is much like the kind of place I grew up, in Corrales, N.M. We passed a concrete batch plant with the incongruous name of 'Vaquero Supplement': sounds like it should come in a blue pill!
We crossed the desert to Fallon, to catch Highway 95 south to Las Vegas. Passing through Fallon, I saw a field of cavorting llamas. I remembered, in 1990, visiting the extreme north end of my hometown of Corrales, New Mexico, where the hills, the lateral canal, and the Rio Grande river all meet. There, to my great surprise, people has established a trotting track for llamas. Now, my hometown had long had many deficiencies and insufficiencies, but it had never occurred to me that what we really missed, and sorely needed, was a trotting track for llamas. The llamas of Fallon don't have a trotting track. The llamas of Fallon NEED a trotting track!
Walker Lake, Dust Storms, and Las Vegas Streets
20-Mile Beach: salty Walker Lake, a remnant of vast, salty, ice-age Lake Bonneville.
Slope above northwestern shore of Walker Lake, showing a prominent, horizontal, wave-cut bench, carved from the slope by the waves of ancient Lake Bonneville.
As we left, Fallon, I heard fragmentary radio reports of trouble in South Asia: an earthquake had struck somewhere in the Indian Ocean, and a tsunami had hit Sri Lanka. A tsunami would scour the beaches of Sri Lanka, in a violent manner, reminiscent of the much quieter (but more persistent) way these hillsides all around had once been scoured by ancient Lake Bonneville.
There was a peculiar landscape south of Fallon, beyond the irrigated fields, where the mountain pediment (the rigidly-sloped, shallow-soiled mountain base) made a transition to bottomland playas: a kind of badland, where barren clayish soils were moistened by wintertime runoff. Eerie-looking!
Dust storm just east of Luning, NV, Dec. 27, 2004.
There was a big dust storm just east of the town of Luning. The storm seemed to be aggravated by the presence of a cumulus cloud (looming across the top of the picture above), over the mountains, NE of town. Like Fallon, Luning seemed to have one of those mountain-pediment-transitioning-to-bottomland playa thangs, but this time, the empty badland was dry.
It was interesting how bad the dust storms were at Luning, and along the base of the Lone Mountains, farther south, whereas the much larger playa in-between near Coaldale Junction was almost quiescent. The only thing I could think of was, this time of year, some playas are drier, and more vulnerable, than others.
Arriving in Las Vegas around 9 p.m., I was struck just how few cars were traveling this stretch of Highway 95. One of the five principle highways into a city of over a million people, and the road was deserted except for Sparky and myself.
I am far too overconfident of my skills negotiating the Las Vegas road system. Exiting the freeway, I turned left at Eastern Ave., in the naive belief I was heading east (I was going north). Turning left on Washington, I abruptly faced a freeway on-ramp, apparently to I-15. Suddenly I was plunging through a tangle of off- and on-ramps the locals have dubbed the "Spaghetti Bowl," and before I could squint through my obsolete glasses and grasp what was happening, I was spat out of the Bowl at high speed, heading NW, back in the direction I had come from. Exiting and trying again, I finally located the Boulder Highway, and ended up Motel Six (where they accept dogs). Not having slept more than two hours the night before in Reno, I collapsed, and sadly, didn't have the energy to troll the city streets.
Rain
Parking Lot 13, December 28, 2004: Under looming rain clouds, the back face of Hoover Dam, showing just how far down drought-battered water levels are now in Lake Mead.
The next day, Sparky and I left Las Vegas, and immediately got mired in tourist traffic at Hoover Dam. Slowly pulling free, we were next assaulted by heavy rain. Rains fell throughout our scramble to climb up onto the mile-high Colorado Plateau on Interstate Highway 40 (I-40). I saw the low-hanging cloud deck reach down, in mirror-image to mesa tops, to make a cosmic sort of connection to Mother Earth below. We finally outran the storm just east of cloud-wreathed Mount Eldon, in Flagstaff. We raced ahead into the unseasonably-warm air just in advance of the cold front (labeled by meteorologists, with reason, the 'warm sector.')
The Backstreets of Winslow
Stopping at Winslow, AZ, to call my dad, I noticed someone had left behind a wallet at the telephone booth. Looking inside the wallet, I found no cash, but there were ID cards. There was also a citation, indicating that the owner of the wallet had recently been ticketed by Hopi Tribal police.
I decided to try and return the wallet. Getting directions from the convenience store clerk, I soon found myself navigating the back streets of Winslow, squinting with my bad eyes at darkened street signs, weaving around, and basically making a hazard of myself. Even though Winslow seemed to be composed mostly of small houses, the style people seemed to be reaching for was Backstreet Bernalillo Trailer Park Moderne (but without the double-wides, do you still get the trailer-park cachet?)
I succeeded in locating the home of the wallet owner, but he wasn't there: in fact, no one at the house had seen him for a couple of days. A woman, who was apparently the wallet owner's mother, suggested her son was at that tender age (mid 20's) when holidays mean one must follow the party: party there, sleep on the couch; wake up at noon, party again, sleep elsewhere, till invitations to party tail off. When I explained there was no cash in the wallet, they said that was no surprise. They were grateful to have some evidence of his continued existence, however, and paid close attention to precisely where I had found the wallet, and speculated on his recent wanderings.
The Morlochs of Gallup
The first solid sign of being in New Mexico: the Munoz Blvd. Blake's Lotaburger in Gallup.
Being in New Mexico meant that I could at last indulge my taste for the world's best hamburgers, at the NM-based Blake's Lotaburger chain. Gallup had the first of these restaurants, and even though I knew from previous encounters that many panhandling alcoholics favored the fast-food ghetto near the freeway, cadging coins from stunned turistas, I was eager to try the fare.
This time of year, the alcoholics are dressed pretty heavily, so as to party all night (if that's the right term), harsh weather or not, without losing one's limbs, or life. All bundled up, they looked like the clumsy Morlochs of H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine.' Gallup has one of the most persistent problems with public drunkenness in the United States, and it's easy to die overnight on the arid, frigid Colorado Plateau. In fact, in 1960, one of my own relatives partied a bit too hard in the Siberian warmth of the Flagstaff, AZ, Santa Fe rail yard, ending up stiffer than the rail tie cordwood lying about the place. It's too bad the public relations people finally got them to change the name of Old Highway 666, because it is such a fitting name for this locale, a friction point in the smooth-running gears of the modern economy, where Old Highway 666 (Munoz Blvd.) meets I-40, where tribal ways collide with the modern world, in a tragic way.
When Sparky and I walked around, I could see only two Morlochs, and they kept their distance. We loitered, however, and eventually another Morloch approached. Sparky took an immediate interest in this malodorous individual. In a slurred voice, he appealed for cash, and I obliged with some change. Looking up, I suddenly realized Morlochs were slowly approaching from all directions, arms and legs akimbo in slow-motion pursuit. They had seen! I got unnerved, commanded Sparky to flee, and we quickly ran across the street, jumped into the car, and left.
Albuquerque
A rare meal not at Blake's Lotaburger: El Pinto restaurant, Alameda, NM.
Sparky knows to bark at doorbells, because strangers are certain to be near, but he doesn't understand that, in Albuquerque, he is the stranger.
We approached Albuquerque from the west, and from Nine-Mile-Hill, the view of the city lights was spectacular (the view from the south, coming north on I-25, is almost as good).
Life in Albuquerque seemed pretty slow and relaxed. My father likes to watch the various TV Court shows they have these days. A typical day features Judge Manuel Franco ("La Corte del Pueblo"), two shows with Judge Christina Perez ("La Corte de Familia"), and Doctora Ana Maria Polo ("Sala de Parejas," plus her brand-new show, "Casa Cerrado"). After that, it's time for the English-language shows, Judge Joe Brown and Judge Judy. It's amazing how the heavy hours of an idle day melt away with this fare. Jurisprudence seems to be on everybody's mind these days!
It was saddening to hear continuing news of the South Asian tsunami devastation. I was surprised the Bush Administration was so slow in getting a grip on the magnitude of the disaster. It wasn't until Wednesday that Bush himself made much more than a perfunctory statement. To be caught having made only a $35 million pledge of aid from the U.S. Government, when Pfizer Corporation alone had already pledged nearly twice that amount, was quite embarrassing.
New Year's Eve made me apprehensive: it was the tenth anniversary of a fatal drunk-driving accident that Sparky and I were first upon the scene. It was the last fatality in Albuquerque in 1994 (15 minutes before midnight, by my accounting), or the first in 1995, by KOAT TV-7's accounting (and probably the coroner's too). I had just returned from a rare visit to a downtown strip club (The Ice House), so New Year's Eve 1994 became, for me, the Night of Sex and Death.
This New Year's Eve, I invited my sister Michelle, and her high school friend Lita, to Music Theatre Southwest's version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella." DMTC had done its own version of "Cinderella" in the Young Performer's Theater (YPT) last spring ('The Prince is Having a Ball!'). It was a delightful show - I'm glad the old Hiland Theater building on Central Ave. is being put to good use these days.
After "Cinderella", the three of us went to downtown Albuquerque (which I had last visited on Y2K's New Year's Eve). Michelle forgot her ID, so we soon had to leave the festive clubbers, and ended up instead at a NE Heights bar named Stoneface, where we discussed the perennial question of why Men and Women Don't Get Along. We got no closer to a final resolution of the question, but we all agreed communication is key.
Music Theatre Southwest's "Cinderella." Stepsisters Portia (James Mills) and Joy (Max Woltman), Cinderella (Crystal A. Kellogg), and Stepmother (Cyndy Noll).
Finale of "Cinderella". Cinderella (Crystal A. Kellogg), Prince (Julian Singer-Corbin), and the Company.
On New Year's Eve, and again on New Year's Day, I talked with C., who was serving at a local restaurant. C. spotted my DMTC 'Brigadoon' sweatshirt, and started a conversation. C. is a Musical Theater student at Colorado State University, in Greeley. He complained that it was difficult to get into MTS shows: one had to work one's way up through the MTS in-house theater program first, which meant that MTS tended to use (and thus overuse) the same people. I commented that might be expected if the talent pool in town was rather shallow, but C. demurred, saying there were a lot of under-utilized musical theater people in Albuquerque, and if MTS focused more on auditions instead, they might tap into these people better.
Colorado Plateau Redux
Cliffs near the I-40/Window Rock exit. It was near here in 1541, at Hawikuh, where Coronado first encountered the Pueblo Indians (the Zunis) of the Southwest.
Sparky and I left Albuquerque on New Year's Day, heading west back along I-40. Passing back through Gallup, Sparky and I stopped again at the Blake's Lotaburger. The Morlochs were gone in the daylight. We looked around at the neighborhood, particularly, the adjacent, humble St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church.
After Holbrook (where a recently-wakened Morloch startled Sparky in the gloaming at the gas station) and Winslow, we passed the Joseph City power plant, which I like to spot on satellite weather photos during the summer. Oftentimes a tiny cumulus cloud, visible from space, tops off the power plant plume. The cloud hovers above Joseph City, like the cloud that hovers around Charles Schultz's character of 'Pigpen,' from the Charlie Brown comic strip.
Sparky and I quickly and efficiently blew through Flagstaff and Kingman, but this time we avoided Hoover Dam, and crossed the Colorado River at the resort town of Laughlin (even though this meant taking the haunted highway through the Nevada town of Searchlight, just north of where comic Sam Kinison lost his life in 1992).
Frustration
Paris, Las Vegas.
I don't know why they call the south Clark County town of Searchlight by that name, but even from there, 50 miles away from Las Vegas, against the glowing overcast of scattered Las Vegas city light, it was possible to see the distinct dot cast by the vertically-pointed beacon light of the Luxor Hotel and Casino.
Reserving a room again at the Boulder City Highway Motel Six, I headed to the Strip, and blundered, as if guided by the hand of fate, to Paris, Las Vegas, the same casino where I won $12,400 last Martin Luther King Day weekend. Turning into the casino, I got stranded in a pedestrian crosswalk by the changing light, and people swarmed about the car (and rattled Sparky).
I didn't pay very much attention to the variegated and louche New Year's Saturday night sporting crowd: wish I had, though, since they are beyond beautiful. I did overhear one interesting conversation, though: a woman was bragging to a male companion of very recent acquaintance (maybe bragging is the wrong word: she was more like recommending her best features - putting her best foot forward, so to speak). She swelled with pride as she said "I'm a 100% natural girl: none of my parts are plastic!" I found her assertion to be charming. We should all be proud of our natural endowments, particularly when standing in the very center of the phoniest patch of real estate, in the middle of the most artificial city, on the face of the Earth.
My efforts to reverse the bad fortune of my earlier visit to Reno proved fruitless, however: total devastation. I went to bed in despair.
On January 2nd, I had my oil changed, and shortly after noon I headed, together with the large LA crowd, SW towards Barstow. Massive traffic jams on I-15 between Las Vegas and Barstow, and also west of Barstow, at Kramer Junction, drove me and countless others to madness. The traffic jam just outside Las Vegas seemed to be rational: I-15 goes from three to two lanes at the California border, and on an overcrowded freeway, that is enough to cause a backup. Parachutists at the Jean offramp entertained many of us.
The second backup, starting at Baker and extending most of the way to Barstow, had no obvious cause, however. I noticed that some sort of blimp hovered over the Soda Mountains, far above the freeway misery. Since we were quite close to Ft. Irwin, and since blimps are used for surveillance, I decided the Marines must be watching and they must be to blame, somehow, for the chaos.
I still don't know how negotiate my way to Highway 58, leading west from Barstow, towards Bakersfield. After stopping at the Amtrack station for refreshment, I followed Main Street west. Like a stubborn old salmon headed upstream through obsolete watercourses, I still search out the Old Highway 58, passing first over the huge Barstow rail yard and the Mojave River. On this trip, I learned what happens if you mulishly follow Old Highway 58 west, past Erin Brockovich's hometown of Hinkley: the road turns to dirt and basically ends. Bereft, the old salmon and his dog wandered through various mobile home backwaters until finally locating the New Highway 58 (I'm sure next year, I'll do exactly the same).
The traffic jam at Kramer Junction used to occur because they had a four-way stop on the N-S highway (between Mammoth ski area and LA) and the E-W highway (between the Central Valley and the East Coast). Now they have a traffic light, but still, traffic backed up for many miles. Traffic radio implicated an accident at Kramer Junction for the jam, but I saw no evidence of an accident, and I think it's just another case of overloading narrow highways with traffic.
I lost three hours to traffic jams. It took me 6.5 hours to drive 200 miles. Using algebra:
or X = 2.5 hours driving 80 mph, and 4 hours driving 1 mph (or some similar amounts).
Upon arriving in Bakersfield, about 280 miles from Sacramento, I decided to aim for an average of 70 mph, which would put me in Sacramento exactly four hours later. Despite the rain, and an accident just south of Kingsburg, CA (a semi-trailer, a white pickup, and a red sedan stranded in chaos on Highway 99, which required dangerously abrupt braking to avoid), I made it to Sacramento exactly four hours later, to the minute.
Departure 4:06 p.m. on 12/26: arrival 12:53 a.m. on 1/3. Mileage: 45,530 - 43,017 = 2,513 miles.
Starting Dec. 26th, I traveled to NM to visit my family. I arrived back in Sacramento this morning (Jan. 3rd). This is a travelogue of that trip.
I prefer, if possible, to travel through the sere desert of Nevada. This year, weather permitted the trip through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and across Nevada, and but on the return trip, weather forced a detour through the Mojave Desert of California.
Wake for Bruno
Just before starting the big trip, I took my dog Sparky to the Wormeli's wake for Natalie's much-loved but deceased guide dog, Bruno. We will all miss Bruno so much (and none more so than Natalie).
Reno
I left Sacramento about 5 p.m., traveling on a beautiful moonlit night for Reno. The storm that had been threatening all day remained at bay: the winds were blustery, but no precipitation fell. Sparky and passed Donner Lake before we realized it, and we came into Reno. I realized I had left behind my blood pressure medication, so I drove around the streets of Reno, looking for drugs. I ended up at the Atlantis Resort and Casino, and like the fabled lost continent, after an early surge of luck and staying up all night, my prospects ultimately sank beneath the waves, with a big blackjack loss. In the morning, I finally located a drug store, and we were off.
The Llamas of Fallon
Inflow region of storm cloud formed in the wake of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, as seen from Fallon, NV, Dec. 27, 2004.
We passed along the east slope of the Sierras, first along the Washoe Valley, past the Virginia City cutoff, to Carson City. The fertile meadows near Washoe Lake were beautiful. The were various signs of long-term disturbances, though: battered-looking lines of cottonwoods without clear watering canals, strange roadcuts, and alkaline salt deposits (on slopes, no less). The Gold Rush Days had left their mark on the terrain.
The neighborhood around Silver Springs, NV, between Reno and Fallon, is a perfect Western example of exurbia, the region that Karl Rove so expertly exploited in gaining G.W. Bush's reelection two months ago. Widely-scattered mobile homes and ranchettes, held together tenuously with dirt roads and hardscrabble churches. It looks so familiar - except for the region's youth, the region is much like the kind of place I grew up, in Corrales, N.M. We passed a concrete batch plant with the incongruous name of 'Vaquero Supplement': sounds like it should come in a blue pill!
We crossed the desert to Fallon, to catch Highway 95 south to Las Vegas. Passing through Fallon, I saw a field of cavorting llamas. I remembered, in 1990, visiting the extreme north end of my hometown of Corrales, New Mexico, where the hills, the lateral canal, and the Rio Grande river all meet. There, to my great surprise, people has established a trotting track for llamas. Now, my hometown had long had many deficiencies and insufficiencies, but it had never occurred to me that what we really missed, and sorely needed, was a trotting track for llamas. The llamas of Fallon don't have a trotting track. The llamas of Fallon NEED a trotting track!
Walker Lake, Dust Storms, and Las Vegas Streets
20-Mile Beach: salty Walker Lake, a remnant of vast, salty, ice-age Lake Bonneville.
Slope above northwestern shore of Walker Lake, showing a prominent, horizontal, wave-cut bench, carved from the slope by the waves of ancient Lake Bonneville.
As we left, Fallon, I heard fragmentary radio reports of trouble in South Asia: an earthquake had struck somewhere in the Indian Ocean, and a tsunami had hit Sri Lanka. A tsunami would scour the beaches of Sri Lanka, in a violent manner, reminiscent of the much quieter (but more persistent) way these hillsides all around had once been scoured by ancient Lake Bonneville.
There was a peculiar landscape south of Fallon, beyond the irrigated fields, where the mountain pediment (the rigidly-sloped, shallow-soiled mountain base) made a transition to bottomland playas: a kind of badland, where barren clayish soils were moistened by wintertime runoff. Eerie-looking!
Dust storm just east of Luning, NV, Dec. 27, 2004.
There was a big dust storm just east of the town of Luning. The storm seemed to be aggravated by the presence of a cumulus cloud (looming across the top of the picture above), over the mountains, NE of town. Like Fallon, Luning seemed to have one of those mountain-pediment-transitioning-to-bottomland playa thangs, but this time, the empty badland was dry.
It was interesting how bad the dust storms were at Luning, and along the base of the Lone Mountains, farther south, whereas the much larger playa in-between near Coaldale Junction was almost quiescent. The only thing I could think of was, this time of year, some playas are drier, and more vulnerable, than others.
Arriving in Las Vegas around 9 p.m., I was struck just how few cars were traveling this stretch of Highway 95. One of the five principle highways into a city of over a million people, and the road was deserted except for Sparky and myself.
I am far too overconfident of my skills negotiating the Las Vegas road system. Exiting the freeway, I turned left at Eastern Ave., in the naive belief I was heading east (I was going north). Turning left on Washington, I abruptly faced a freeway on-ramp, apparently to I-15. Suddenly I was plunging through a tangle of off- and on-ramps the locals have dubbed the "Spaghetti Bowl," and before I could squint through my obsolete glasses and grasp what was happening, I was spat out of the Bowl at high speed, heading NW, back in the direction I had come from. Exiting and trying again, I finally located the Boulder Highway, and ended up Motel Six (where they accept dogs). Not having slept more than two hours the night before in Reno, I collapsed, and sadly, didn't have the energy to troll the city streets.
Rain
Parking Lot 13, December 28, 2004: Under looming rain clouds, the back face of Hoover Dam, showing just how far down drought-battered water levels are now in Lake Mead.
The next day, Sparky and I left Las Vegas, and immediately got mired in tourist traffic at Hoover Dam. Slowly pulling free, we were next assaulted by heavy rain. Rains fell throughout our scramble to climb up onto the mile-high Colorado Plateau on Interstate Highway 40 (I-40). I saw the low-hanging cloud deck reach down, in mirror-image to mesa tops, to make a cosmic sort of connection to Mother Earth below. We finally outran the storm just east of cloud-wreathed Mount Eldon, in Flagstaff. We raced ahead into the unseasonably-warm air just in advance of the cold front (labeled by meteorologists, with reason, the 'warm sector.')
The Backstreets of Winslow
Stopping at Winslow, AZ, to call my dad, I noticed someone had left behind a wallet at the telephone booth. Looking inside the wallet, I found no cash, but there were ID cards. There was also a citation, indicating that the owner of the wallet had recently been ticketed by Hopi Tribal police.
I decided to try and return the wallet. Getting directions from the convenience store clerk, I soon found myself navigating the back streets of Winslow, squinting with my bad eyes at darkened street signs, weaving around, and basically making a hazard of myself. Even though Winslow seemed to be composed mostly of small houses, the style people seemed to be reaching for was Backstreet Bernalillo Trailer Park Moderne (but without the double-wides, do you still get the trailer-park cachet?)
I succeeded in locating the home of the wallet owner, but he wasn't there: in fact, no one at the house had seen him for a couple of days. A woman, who was apparently the wallet owner's mother, suggested her son was at that tender age (mid 20's) when holidays mean one must follow the party: party there, sleep on the couch; wake up at noon, party again, sleep elsewhere, till invitations to party tail off. When I explained there was no cash in the wallet, they said that was no surprise. They were grateful to have some evidence of his continued existence, however, and paid close attention to precisely where I had found the wallet, and speculated on his recent wanderings.
The Morlochs of Gallup
The first solid sign of being in New Mexico: the Munoz Blvd. Blake's Lotaburger in Gallup.
Being in New Mexico meant that I could at last indulge my taste for the world's best hamburgers, at the NM-based Blake's Lotaburger chain. Gallup had the first of these restaurants, and even though I knew from previous encounters that many panhandling alcoholics favored the fast-food ghetto near the freeway, cadging coins from stunned turistas, I was eager to try the fare.
This time of year, the alcoholics are dressed pretty heavily, so as to party all night (if that's the right term), harsh weather or not, without losing one's limbs, or life. All bundled up, they looked like the clumsy Morlochs of H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine.' Gallup has one of the most persistent problems with public drunkenness in the United States, and it's easy to die overnight on the arid, frigid Colorado Plateau. In fact, in 1960, one of my own relatives partied a bit too hard in the Siberian warmth of the Flagstaff, AZ, Santa Fe rail yard, ending up stiffer than the rail tie cordwood lying about the place. It's too bad the public relations people finally got them to change the name of Old Highway 666, because it is such a fitting name for this locale, a friction point in the smooth-running gears of the modern economy, where Old Highway 666 (Munoz Blvd.) meets I-40, where tribal ways collide with the modern world, in a tragic way.
When Sparky and I walked around, I could see only two Morlochs, and they kept their distance. We loitered, however, and eventually another Morloch approached. Sparky took an immediate interest in this malodorous individual. In a slurred voice, he appealed for cash, and I obliged with some change. Looking up, I suddenly realized Morlochs were slowly approaching from all directions, arms and legs akimbo in slow-motion pursuit. They had seen! I got unnerved, commanded Sparky to flee, and we quickly ran across the street, jumped into the car, and left.
Albuquerque
A rare meal not at Blake's Lotaburger: El Pinto restaurant, Alameda, NM.
Sparky knows to bark at doorbells, because strangers are certain to be near, but he doesn't understand that, in Albuquerque, he is the stranger.
We approached Albuquerque from the west, and from Nine-Mile-Hill, the view of the city lights was spectacular (the view from the south, coming north on I-25, is almost as good).
Life in Albuquerque seemed pretty slow and relaxed. My father likes to watch the various TV Court shows they have these days. A typical day features Judge Manuel Franco ("La Corte del Pueblo"), two shows with Judge Christina Perez ("La Corte de Familia"), and Doctora Ana Maria Polo ("Sala de Parejas," plus her brand-new show, "Casa Cerrado"). After that, it's time for the English-language shows, Judge Joe Brown and Judge Judy. It's amazing how the heavy hours of an idle day melt away with this fare. Jurisprudence seems to be on everybody's mind these days!
It was saddening to hear continuing news of the South Asian tsunami devastation. I was surprised the Bush Administration was so slow in getting a grip on the magnitude of the disaster. It wasn't until Wednesday that Bush himself made much more than a perfunctory statement. To be caught having made only a $35 million pledge of aid from the U.S. Government, when Pfizer Corporation alone had already pledged nearly twice that amount, was quite embarrassing.
New Year's Eve made me apprehensive: it was the tenth anniversary of a fatal drunk-driving accident that Sparky and I were first upon the scene. It was the last fatality in Albuquerque in 1994 (15 minutes before midnight, by my accounting), or the first in 1995, by KOAT TV-7's accounting (and probably the coroner's too). I had just returned from a rare visit to a downtown strip club (The Ice House), so New Year's Eve 1994 became, for me, the Night of Sex and Death.
This New Year's Eve, I invited my sister Michelle, and her high school friend Lita, to Music Theatre Southwest's version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella." DMTC had done its own version of "Cinderella" in the Young Performer's Theater (YPT) last spring ('The Prince is Having a Ball!'). It was a delightful show - I'm glad the old Hiland Theater building on Central Ave. is being put to good use these days.
After "Cinderella", the three of us went to downtown Albuquerque (which I had last visited on Y2K's New Year's Eve). Michelle forgot her ID, so we soon had to leave the festive clubbers, and ended up instead at a NE Heights bar named Stoneface, where we discussed the perennial question of why Men and Women Don't Get Along. We got no closer to a final resolution of the question, but we all agreed communication is key.
Music Theatre Southwest's "Cinderella." Stepsisters Portia (James Mills) and Joy (Max Woltman), Cinderella (Crystal A. Kellogg), and Stepmother (Cyndy Noll).
Finale of "Cinderella". Cinderella (Crystal A. Kellogg), Prince (Julian Singer-Corbin), and the Company.
On New Year's Eve, and again on New Year's Day, I talked with C., who was serving at a local restaurant. C. spotted my DMTC 'Brigadoon' sweatshirt, and started a conversation. C. is a Musical Theater student at Colorado State University, in Greeley. He complained that it was difficult to get into MTS shows: one had to work one's way up through the MTS in-house theater program first, which meant that MTS tended to use (and thus overuse) the same people. I commented that might be expected if the talent pool in town was rather shallow, but C. demurred, saying there were a lot of under-utilized musical theater people in Albuquerque, and if MTS focused more on auditions instead, they might tap into these people better.
Colorado Plateau Redux
Cliffs near the I-40/Window Rock exit. It was near here in 1541, at Hawikuh, where Coronado first encountered the Pueblo Indians (the Zunis) of the Southwest.
Sparky and I left Albuquerque on New Year's Day, heading west back along I-40. Passing back through Gallup, Sparky and I stopped again at the Blake's Lotaburger. The Morlochs were gone in the daylight. We looked around at the neighborhood, particularly, the adjacent, humble St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church.
After Holbrook (where a recently-wakened Morloch startled Sparky in the gloaming at the gas station) and Winslow, we passed the Joseph City power plant, which I like to spot on satellite weather photos during the summer. Oftentimes a tiny cumulus cloud, visible from space, tops off the power plant plume. The cloud hovers above Joseph City, like the cloud that hovers around Charles Schultz's character of 'Pigpen,' from the Charlie Brown comic strip.
Sparky and I quickly and efficiently blew through Flagstaff and Kingman, but this time we avoided Hoover Dam, and crossed the Colorado River at the resort town of Laughlin (even though this meant taking the haunted highway through the Nevada town of Searchlight, just north of where comic Sam Kinison lost his life in 1992).
Frustration
Paris, Las Vegas.
I don't know why they call the south Clark County town of Searchlight by that name, but even from there, 50 miles away from Las Vegas, against the glowing overcast of scattered Las Vegas city light, it was possible to see the distinct dot cast by the vertically-pointed beacon light of the Luxor Hotel and Casino.
Reserving a room again at the Boulder City Highway Motel Six, I headed to the Strip, and blundered, as if guided by the hand of fate, to Paris, Las Vegas, the same casino where I won $12,400 last Martin Luther King Day weekend. Turning into the casino, I got stranded in a pedestrian crosswalk by the changing light, and people swarmed about the car (and rattled Sparky).
I didn't pay very much attention to the variegated and louche New Year's Saturday night sporting crowd: wish I had, though, since they are beyond beautiful. I did overhear one interesting conversation, though: a woman was bragging to a male companion of very recent acquaintance (maybe bragging is the wrong word: she was more like recommending her best features - putting her best foot forward, so to speak). She swelled with pride as she said "I'm a 100% natural girl: none of my parts are plastic!" I found her assertion to be charming. We should all be proud of our natural endowments, particularly when standing in the very center of the phoniest patch of real estate, in the middle of the most artificial city, on the face of the Earth.
My efforts to reverse the bad fortune of my earlier visit to Reno proved fruitless, however: total devastation. I went to bed in despair.
On January 2nd, I had my oil changed, and shortly after noon I headed, together with the large LA crowd, SW towards Barstow. Massive traffic jams on I-15 between Las Vegas and Barstow, and also west of Barstow, at Kramer Junction, drove me and countless others to madness. The traffic jam just outside Las Vegas seemed to be rational: I-15 goes from three to two lanes at the California border, and on an overcrowded freeway, that is enough to cause a backup. Parachutists at the Jean offramp entertained many of us.
The second backup, starting at Baker and extending most of the way to Barstow, had no obvious cause, however. I noticed that some sort of blimp hovered over the Soda Mountains, far above the freeway misery. Since we were quite close to Ft. Irwin, and since blimps are used for surveillance, I decided the Marines must be watching and they must be to blame, somehow, for the chaos.
I still don't know how negotiate my way to Highway 58, leading west from Barstow, towards Bakersfield. After stopping at the Amtrack station for refreshment, I followed Main Street west. Like a stubborn old salmon headed upstream through obsolete watercourses, I still search out the Old Highway 58, passing first over the huge Barstow rail yard and the Mojave River. On this trip, I learned what happens if you mulishly follow Old Highway 58 west, past Erin Brockovich's hometown of Hinkley: the road turns to dirt and basically ends. Bereft, the old salmon and his dog wandered through various mobile home backwaters until finally locating the New Highway 58 (I'm sure next year, I'll do exactly the same).
The traffic jam at Kramer Junction used to occur because they had a four-way stop on the N-S highway (between Mammoth ski area and LA) and the E-W highway (between the Central Valley and the East Coast). Now they have a traffic light, but still, traffic backed up for many miles. Traffic radio implicated an accident at Kramer Junction for the jam, but I saw no evidence of an accident, and I think it's just another case of overloading narrow highways with traffic.
I lost three hours to traffic jams. It took me 6.5 hours to drive 200 miles. Using algebra:
200 miles = 80 mph x (X hours) + 1 mph x (6.5 - X hours)
or X = 2.5 hours driving 80 mph, and 4 hours driving 1 mph (or some similar amounts).
Upon arriving in Bakersfield, about 280 miles from Sacramento, I decided to aim for an average of 70 mph, which would put me in Sacramento exactly four hours later. Despite the rain, and an accident just south of Kingsburg, CA (a semi-trailer, a white pickup, and a red sedan stranded in chaos on Highway 99, which required dangerously abrupt braking to avoid), I made it to Sacramento exactly four hours later, to the minute.
Departure 4:06 p.m. on 12/26: arrival 12:53 a.m. on 1/3. Mileage: 45,530 - 43,017 = 2,513 miles.
