The great travel narratives do not discuss traffic. We will never know if the road out of Ur was congested when Abraham left his hometown, not did Chaucer’s pilgrims seem to complain about too many people or donkeys on the road to Canterbury. But we live in Los Angeles, and the apprehension of being stuck pointlessly on a highway is as deeply ingrained in us as ancient sailors feared falling off the edge of a flat world. So, we packed our bags yesterday, packed the car last night, and we were traveling west on the Santa Monica Freeway not long after the sun had risen.
Our strategy worked, and we sailed north on the San Diego Freeway passing the remnants of the Mulholland Bridge, scene of last week’s not-so-apocalyptic “Carmageddon.” Both dogs were attentive but calm. Edie is always that way in the car, but I had the foresight to give Eli one of his “doggie downers” before we left this morning. Without canine sedation, Eli becomes so excited when we start a big trip that he pants, whimpers, and tries to get in the driver’s seat. With the help of the medication, he was pretty docile. But, after driving for 90 minutes or so up through the Grapevine, we figured that even sedated dogs might like a break. So we stopped at Fort Tejon State Historic Park.
Fort Tejon was established shortly after the Gold Rush, ostensibly to protect the native peoples of the San Joaquin valley from land-hungry whites. The Fort was famous for a couple things. First, the great earthquake of 1857 was named for the fort, although the epicenter was probably much farther north. Secondly, in the 1850’s, Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War in the Pierce administration, decided that camels might work well in the arid territories newly acquired from Mexico. A number of those camels were sent to Fort Tejon, though the poor beasts were in fact ill-suited to the terrain. Today, two other beasts found the grassy field around the reconstructed buildings a delightful place to get a little exercise, and to do what dogs usually do after they’ve been stuck in a car for a while.
From Fort Tejon the highways descends rapidly into the San Joaquin Valley. This is surely one of the least interesting stretches of highway in the United States. John and I took turns driving. To relieve the tedium, we plugged the iPhone into the car’s sound system and started listening to The Help. It’s a good car book so far. It’s interesting enough, but does not require really intense concentration to follow the story. So, listening to the story of black maids and a white journalist in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963 the hours on Highway 5 passed pleasantly enough.
We arrived Sacramento a little after noon. We made plans with our friend Dan to meet for lunch. Dan has a sweet little townhouse on Q Street. He has done an amazing job creating a lovely garden on the patio. I wish this picture did it justice. Sometimes it’s just impossible to get the lighting right.
On the way to lunch, we passed by Sacramento’s most famous sight. The dogs were interested more in finding possible messes on the lawn than in contemplating that mess that is our state’s budget process.
We had a pleasant meal with Dan on the patio of the Esquire Grill. Dan works as a bartender in Sacramento, and he has lots of a great stories about the governors, assemblymen, and lobbyists.
From Sacramento, we headed north on Highway 5 towards Mt Shasta. The Sacramento Valley is smaller and somewhat more attractive than the San Joaquin. Still, it would be a stretch to call this an interesting drive either, so we settled down to listening again to The Help. Around six in the evening, we pulled into the town of Mt Shasta, named for California’s largest volcano.
This is an odd part of the state. Not that long ago, it was the center of an active lumber industry, and many of those lumbermen are still around trying to make ends meet the best they can. There is also no shortage of young environmentalists, freshly minted from Davis or Berkeley, clad in Columbia sportswear with kayaks strapped to the roof of their hybrid cars. You see signs around here still demanding the Obama “Produce the Birth Certificate!” Meanwhile, another group here earnestly believes that Mount Shasta is the home of the Lemurian people who fled here to create the subterranean city of Telos.
We’ve stayed in Mt Shasta before at one of the chain motels near the center of town. This time we decided to try something different and we chose the Mount Shasta Ranch Bed and Breakfast. I had my doubts when John made this choice, but it is a really sweet place. It’s located a couple miles out of town in an old farm house with a very large lawn.
It has a wonderful front porch we looks out at the great snow-covered volcanic peak.
After we settled into our new accommodations and had a little snack, we decided to take the dogs to nearby Lake Siskiyou. They ran through the woods and fields and splashed happily in the water.
The Sacramento River flows out of the lake, and we stopped by the edge of the river on a whim. We found that on the rocky shores of the river people had arranged the stones into the most astonishing rock piles. Who knows? Maybe it was the Lemurians who did it.
Tomorrow, on to Portland.
