Dead Saturday

Saturday, 19th September
Burns, Oregon --- 360 miles

I didn't pay much attention to him at first.  Just another silver Ford Expedition in the right lane, creeping up to my side.  Then he started drifting into me, so I tapped my horn.  That failed to get his attention, so I laid into my horn.  He continued to bully me, pushing me into the far left lane --- and flipping off my seventy-eight year old mother for good measure.   Mother returned him an age-spotted finger.

"He's talking on his cell phone," she reported from the back seat as we decelerated out his way.

Such arrogance.  It was almost as if he had a jackass accomplice on his cell, and they saw a ten year old Prius with a faded equality sticker ahead and decided to take aim.  My husband next to me did a silent, slow boil.  I was thankful that I had only two more exits before I could get off the Interstate 5 and hit the two lane, where coping an attitude involves more risk.

Shoulders have been added to a considerable stretch of 299 in the name of safety.  There's now room to serve out of the way of the arrogant or oblivious, but that means there's also more room to exhibit either trait.  The width slacks the sense of speed, dulling the driving experience --- and the right foot presses on and the mind wanders.

Finally the shoulders fall away, revealing the original 1930s driving experience.  Flaming red poison oak flashes past my right fender; old apple trees bend down under the weight of an unattended crop.  There's an amazing amount of large fruit considering it's another drought year, but nothing is close at hand unless I want to get a rash or tackle barbed wire.  Collecting apples is one of pleasures of fall travel.

299 curves gracefully along side       , gently climbing towards Round Mountain.  Another curve reveals a pair of Ford Model As ahead of us puttering along at 45 MPH.  I follow along, studying the cars and slowly loosing patience.

"Too bad they don't have those retrofit four speed gearboxes," I said to my husband.  "Remember the fleet of As actually climbing to Frazier Park at 50-55 MPH?"  He did.

Eventually the As found a suitable place to pull over and let me pass.

We stopped in Burney to breakfast at the Rex Club.  We were the only ones there, but the atmosphere suggested a long wait.  Good coffee and a quietly perky waitress tempered that, and the silence was somehow comforting.  The furnace fired up, and I did a NASA-style countdown aloud, perfectly predicting when the blower would kick in.  Everyone laughed in amazement.  Out the window nothing much was happening.  A couple of characters sauntered by with their yard sale finds.  A huge woman in an electric wheel chair rolled by, her chihuahua perched on her lap.  Eventually our orders arrived, and were well worth the wait --- my omelet being one of the fluffiest I've every had.

On the road again, we passed the woman in her electric wheelchair well past MacArthur and heading east to God knows where.  Her chihuahua had grown a bit impatient with the long ride and was now perched high up on some sort of pack behind the seat.  She definitely had confidence in her battery.

We climbed and dropped through thirsty pines and oaks just starting to turn rusty for autumn.  The towns seemed more threadbare than ever, and a late frost had stripped all the fruit from both feral and front yard apple trees.  Thoughts of winter subsistence on venison and sage-tainted rabbit played through my mind.  The only real sign of activity was at the little regional supermarkets a few of the relatively larger towns had.

Alturas, California in better days.

We detoured down the main street of Alturas.  So ghostly for a Saturday noon.  The few thrift stores were strangely closed on what should be their busiest day, but we found the one for the Humane Society open on a side street.  I parked in the shade and jokingly warned Mother not to talk to any trailer trash from the sad camp nearby, and we went inside.  It wasn't as bad as it could be, and a 1950s celery green plastic flour canister for fifty cents did tempt, but where would I put it?  We turned our attention to an inner room filled with cages and kittens, where a crazy cat lady delineated their method of naming alphabetically.

"This is Peter, and this is Paul," she babbled, "but this is a girl --- "

"So she should be Mary," quipped my husband.  She thought he was quite clever.

We stuck our fingers into the cage of a lively, highly spotted gray tabby and then left.

Continuing out of town on the side streets, we kept on the look out for neat old houses midst the latter-day desecrations.  Alturas has a number of quaint stone homes, but our find that day was a substantial brick bungalow with dressed stone around the windows and doors.  Zillow reports the unlikely high value of $240,000 during the real estate bubble, now down to a bargain at $64,000 --- unless you consider the neighboring gray pile. 

Goose Lake was practically dry.  When it first receded in white man's history, during the dry 1920s, wagon tracks were revealed from the pioneers trekking the Applegate Trail.  I wondered if they still existed, or were obliterated by the curious in the dry 1970s.  The adjacent wild plum winery was closed, the dry-farmed trees twisted and laying down to die.  A few branches sported large red fruit, but the wayward apple trees were still bare.

Lakeview, Oregon seemed somewhat more lively --- if only for an inordinate amount of smokers standing outside in support of their habit.  However, the antique store revealed that nothing has moved in the last ten years.

We passed crusty Abert Lake, smelling like a freshly opened can of cat food.  The landscape, suddenly lunar, reflected on the liquid mirror.  Birds stood talon deep in the fairly fresh liquid of the north shore.  And then there was endless miles of empty high rolling sage.

It wasn't always this empty.  Desolate, yes, but in 1908 the first transcontinental automobile trip passed through here, and they reported two things: A migrating family, who hid under their wagon  because they mistook the auto for "a train that ran off its tracks", and a night at a homestead of an elderly couple --- sleeping under quilts that looked as if they came West in '46 and hadn't been washed since.

Perhaps this homestead became Wagontire --- which, in its last incarnation, was a 1950s cinder block motel/cafe/gas pump.  Empty now, except possibly for an adjacent 1970s mobile home.  Opposite is a large sign high up on telephone poles.  It's black; perhaps white lettering has long since disappeared --- just as the black is beginning to, revealing a valuable gold and red circa 1930 porcelain enamel Shell sign. 

These days being half way to someplace else isn't a good enough reason to stop for gas and a Coke.