Pretty, pretty. Today was about 60 degrees and just gorgeous. Of course, in the summer, those hills will be straw colored and it will be over 100 degrees...
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Green rolling hills
I went on a jog today in sunny California and took a couple of pictures I thought I would share to make you jealous.
Pretty, pretty. Today was about 60 degrees and just gorgeous. Of course, in the summer, those hills will be straw colored and it will be over 100 degrees...
Pretty, pretty. Today was about 60 degrees and just gorgeous. Of course, in the summer, those hills will be straw colored and it will be over 100 degrees...
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Sunny California
Last Sunday, almost exactly one week ago (I left my house at 9:00 AM) I left Portland to go work in California. I'm working in the East Bay, and the drive was supposed to take 11 hours. I had never taken my car (94 Taurus wagon) on a long road trip, so I was a little nervous. Also, I hadn't ever traveled between Oregon and California in the winter and wasn't sure if there wouldn't be hazardous road conditions at the highest elevations. I didn't want to be the next news story about the person who took a wrong turn and ended up in the Oregon wilderness, possibly rescued, or possibly and tragically found frozen. Seriously, this happens multiple times every winter. Once you leave a town or city in Oregon, you are in the wilderness.
The first hitch occurred on Saturday. I opened my car's hood in an attempt to check fluids, etc. I checked my oil and added a little. Then I added some washer fluid. That is the extent of my automotive savvy, so I was prepared to stop there, when I glanced over at my battery. There was a bunch of fluff on top of it. Huh? How did that get there? Then I thought, I wonder if an animal was trying to build a nest in my car? I took a stick and poked the fluff and to my surprise, uncovered a nest of dead baby mice! (They could be rats, but I prefer to think of them as mice, thank you.)
Poor little guys. I don't drive very much, so I don't know when they were born. They also aren't very decomposed so I must have recently killed them. Mick helped me decide if the fluff had come from some important car component. We determined that it had not and that it was safe for me to make the trip.
I managed to get out the door by 9:00 AM on Sunday and was on the road with a full tank of gas. I made great time, because there were hardly any other people on the road. About 10:00 AM, I realized that I had forgotten crucial items: my I-9 identification documents! I knew that the organization I am working for would not let me start working without proper identification, so I turned around to go back home. Meanwhile, I called Mick to see if the documents could be overnighted. He called FedEx, who wanted $173 to get me the documents by Monday. Yikes! That was just too much money, so I drove all the way back home, picked up the documents and headed back out. Sigh. By this time, 11:00 AM, there were more people on the road. RVs were driving in the fast lane on hills, dummies were sitting in the passing lane matching the speed of the slow lane, etc. So, I added more than 2 hours onto my trip by having to go back...
After this snafu, the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, except that I drank more coffee than I have ever drunk before in order to stay alert on my now 13+ hour drive. After getting out of the mountains in the north, the roads in CA are fairly straight, and speed limits are over 70, so driving was fairly easy and fast. I arrived a little after 10:00 PM, unloaded a few necessities from my car, and was done. Thankfully, my start date was Tuesday and I had Monday to recover from the stress of Sunday.
So, compared to Portland, probably everywhere is relatively sunny. Still, having only been here a week, I am constantly amazed that the sun is shining. There have actually been a couple of cloudy days and I did see evidence of precipitation on the ground, but really, the difference is amazing. Today, in JANUARY, it's sunny and supposed to be 63. I could get used to this! The only thing that casts a shadow over every day is that I miss Mick... He's busy in Portland with his many entrepreneurial endeavors and we'll have to settle for being together on weekends for the time being. Someone please invent teleportation so that I can work here and be in Portland for dinner. Beam me home, Scotty.
The first hitch occurred on Saturday. I opened my car's hood in an attempt to check fluids, etc. I checked my oil and added a little. Then I added some washer fluid. That is the extent of my automotive savvy, so I was prepared to stop there, when I glanced over at my battery. There was a bunch of fluff on top of it. Huh? How did that get there? Then I thought, I wonder if an animal was trying to build a nest in my car? I took a stick and poked the fluff and to my surprise, uncovered a nest of dead baby mice! (They could be rats, but I prefer to think of them as mice, thank you.)
Poor little guys. I don't drive very much, so I don't know when they were born. They also aren't very decomposed so I must have recently killed them. Mick helped me decide if the fluff had come from some important car component. We determined that it had not and that it was safe for me to make the trip.
I managed to get out the door by 9:00 AM on Sunday and was on the road with a full tank of gas. I made great time, because there were hardly any other people on the road. About 10:00 AM, I realized that I had forgotten crucial items: my I-9 identification documents! I knew that the organization I am working for would not let me start working without proper identification, so I turned around to go back home. Meanwhile, I called Mick to see if the documents could be overnighted. He called FedEx, who wanted $173 to get me the documents by Monday. Yikes! That was just too much money, so I drove all the way back home, picked up the documents and headed back out. Sigh. By this time, 11:00 AM, there were more people on the road. RVs were driving in the fast lane on hills, dummies were sitting in the passing lane matching the speed of the slow lane, etc. So, I added more than 2 hours onto my trip by having to go back...
After this snafu, the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, except that I drank more coffee than I have ever drunk before in order to stay alert on my now 13+ hour drive. After getting out of the mountains in the north, the roads in CA are fairly straight, and speed limits are over 70, so driving was fairly easy and fast. I arrived a little after 10:00 PM, unloaded a few necessities from my car, and was done. Thankfully, my start date was Tuesday and I had Monday to recover from the stress of Sunday.
So, compared to Portland, probably everywhere is relatively sunny. Still, having only been here a week, I am constantly amazed that the sun is shining. There have actually been a couple of cloudy days and I did see evidence of precipitation on the ground, but really, the difference is amazing. Today, in JANUARY, it's sunny and supposed to be 63. I could get used to this! The only thing that casts a shadow over every day is that I miss Mick... He's busy in Portland with his many entrepreneurial endeavors and we'll have to settle for being together on weekends for the time being. Someone please invent teleportation so that I can work here and be in Portland for dinner. Beam me home, Scotty.
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