Rice Hill to Central Valley

822.6 miles

13:48 moving, 6:01 stopped

Moving average: 59.5 mph

Overall average: 41.4 mph

Maximum: Who’s asking?

Sutter Buttes

Draggin

Satlóidh tú ar an leon is ar an nathair
Gabhfaidh tú de chosa sa leon óg is an dragan

779.8 miles

13:08 moving, 2:00 stopped

Moving average: 59.4 mph; overall average: 51.5 mph

Maximum speed: Who’s asking?

Thankfulness

Wolverines!

Turns out my mom was into this whole WWW thing before anyone, as this old shoe box shows.

And you thought people in Hush Puppies had trouble staying au courant.

(That’s the strangest looking wolverine I’ve ever seen, though.)

Mmmmmmm

Man, I’m stuffed!

Reflections on Power (II)

The second plant was not operating when I saw it. It’s a much taller plant than the first one.

Obscured

The hills around Tehachapi were wreathed in clinging mist.

Here and there I smelled wood smoke, but this was fog, not fire.

I did not get off the road to visit the Loop.

Reflections on Power (I)

For some reason, I saw the sun rise this morning over Barstow.

I got to visit two operating solar plants today.

They used slightly different methods to capture power from the sun.

Looking North to Silurian Lake

Actually, this pans from slightly south of due west to slightly south of due east.

Desert Garden

After Sunset

After the Fire

The Fire Down Below

People think you can’t see wind. This is what a Santa Ana wind looks like.

In the picture above, it’s blowing, hard, from right to left (east to west).

Humidity is in single digits. Temperature is like an August day.

Over the mountains, the air is crystal clear.

From Long Beach, even further west, the smoke looks dramatic. Curling white and black ashes float down from the sky like snowflakes. The light on the street is yellow; stripes of blue show through between long brushstrokes of brown sky. The sun descends blood red, marking what Cormac McCarthy calls an evening redness in the west.

The pictures above are from the area between Seal Beach and Sunset Beach (taken from Pacific Coast Highway).