on the road
What a crazy day. I got an early start from Santa Nella, CA and made my way north making good time. Beautiful country–not the typical California I had seen. Orchards and farms. Lots of grazing cows. Happy cows come from California, I heard.
Shasta National Park, 12/14/08
It was mostly overcast all day and started to rain about an hour south of Mt Shasta National Park, turning to a heavy snow with increasing elevation. Shasta National Park is amazing–even more so when it snows. However, it’s hard to enjoy much when you’re driving over a snowy highway in a rental car that you discover has bald tires and the sides of the road have 300 foot drop offs. And then, I got stuck behind a really slow car but couldn’t even get around because every time I tried changing lanes into a more snowy lane, my car would start skidding around. Sheesh.
North of Shasta National Park 12/14/08
I managed to get through Shasta National Park without skidding into a ravine or Mt Shasta Lake– unforunately without seeing Mt Shasta (too much fog and snow I guess)–and the snow stopped! Awesome. And again–beautiful country! California is just a beautiful state. I managed to make some good time before it started to snow again. Just a few more miles to Oregon–if I could make some decent time for the next few hours, I would be in a good spot to get to Seattle tomorrow. Have any of you driven through Oregon before? If you haven’t, it’s state law to carry tire chains in your car in case of snow. Before tonight, I wouldn’t have guessed that. Five miles from the California and Oregon border, I see highway signs saying “Tire Chains required in 5 miles.” What?!?!! Eventually, everyone on the highway was pulled over on the side of the road putting tire chains on. My guess–the rental car company in San Diego forgot to give me tire chains. I was about to get turned around by the highway patrol when some guy, who apparently makes his Christmas money by selling tire chains to people who get stranded in the snow, sold me tire chains for $120. I don’t know how much tire chains cost but I’m pretty they cost an order of magnitude less than what I had to buy them for. In fact, I’m actually scared to check Google for how much tire chains cost. Well, long story short, I made it into Oregon and over the Siskiyou Pass to the first hotel I could find. Whew–I am exhausted.
I’m told that I have at least one more major mountain pass to get through tomorrow. I hope it stops snowing but I’m pretty sure it won’t. No matter what though, I gotta be in Seattle on Tuesday morning for my next residency interview. Hopefully it won’t take until then to get there from when I head out tomorrow morning…
