Category Archives: Americana

While we were in Boise

Americana, Travel

 

Boise is a shock of green after hours of driving through miles of sun-bleached-beige drylands. Especially at Ophelia and Peter’s home which is near the Boise River (not the Snake River as some, sometimes, tend to mis-identify it.

 

In the green and the softness of Boise’s early fall afternoons, it is also a little shocking to a coastal Californian that – shocking in the morning when we go outside, that is – that it had frozen the night before.  But, by mid afternoon when we went over to see Peter and Ophelia’s grandkids and grand chickens, it was short sleeve shirt weather.

While we were Boise, in the outside world, the tide turned against Lance Armstrong, one of the Pussy Rioters was released from prison, and, contrary to my prediction, Obama was hit hard in the poles over the debate. Each thing was sort of shocking to me and each was, really, already there.

In a way, in the back of my mind where I am not paying much attention, I have known for a while that Armstrong was doing something. Winning seven times is a lot and the were growing rumors that he was doping, or juicing, or whatever is the proper term. But the magnitude of the whole thing, the amount of evidence, the casualness of it all that is just now coming out, is still shocking.

And what is it with the russian courts? It turns out that Yekaterina Samutsevich wasn’t even in the cathedral for the hooliganization for which she was convicted. So a higher court suspended her sentence. To an American mind, in my mind, it seems that she is either guilty or she should be let go. That she is innocent but we will still call you semi-guilty is bizarre. But, then, I have no idea about how any Russian court should work.

And coming back to the reality of post vacation news – in the post debate polls – to find Obama trailing is very shocking. I think that, with Romney gaining stature by being on stage with the President, that he , Romney, came across less evil than he had been painted by the Obama ads. But, in a way, he has always been personable. That is his schick. Somehow Romney was able to pull off the slight of hand of announcing a goal – reducing the national debt, for example – being the the same as actually having a policy.

Driving to Boise took most of a day and driving home was the same, so our time enjoying the warmth and camaraderie of our little group was very short. Soon it was time to wave goodbye and get back on the road.

Going to Boise

Americana, Photography, Travel

Last weekend, we drove – with Aston and Eileen – to Boise Idaho to see Ophelia  and Peter for Ophelia’s birthday. It is a trip that I have never made but – in the map of my mind’s eye – I thought  that Winnemucca would be about two thirds of the way. I sort of picture Idaho as being over Nevada and Oregon as being over California. In reality, Eastern Oregon is over a big hunk of Nevada and, after going north from Winnemucca deep into Oregon, one is then required to go east to Boise. It turns out that Winnemucca is about the halfway point and the drive, north and then east, takes on the qualities of a Are we there, yet? atmosphere.

I mean Are we there, yet? in the best possible way. This is the kind of country that I love to drive through – just to drive through – even without the reward of Peter and Ophelia at the other end. The drive was a delight for us. It was photo-less interstate driving all the way to Winnemucca where we made a left to head north into Oregon. (Winnemucca is in the Humboldt Basin in the Great Basin meaning that everything drains to the Humboldt Sink rather than some ocean.) Heading north, we slowly climbed out of the Basin running along side Santa Rosa Range.

The land is more Drylands than Desert with dry grass and soft mountains. While we are still in the Basin, the land is spotted with small farms and ranches. Not small in size but small in the amount of money that can be eked out. As we go north, the ranches become even more hardscrapple and the land becomes more dramatic. This is Red Country, independent and poor, not acknowledging that they are grazing their cattle on our – the American people’s – land.

We leave Nevada with the de rigueur casino where we have an early lunch and try our hand at the penny slots (Michele won five cents which she then lost on the nickel machine),

then we drive out of the Basin and through the high Drylands of Easter Oregon where the living is even more scrapple.

Then, down into the Owyhee River Basin – which drains into the Snake River and then into the Pacific Ocean – which seems both richer and more dramatic,

and into Idaho where we got a celebratory cup of coffee – technically a capuccino, in my case – knowing we only had 41 miles to go.

From there it was through the Owyhee Mountains where we can look down into the Snake River Basin and, then, it is an easy hop to Boise where we go for a walk along the actual – flowing to the sea – Snake River.

To be continued…

McLaren

Americana, Cars

McLaren makes awesome race cars, it is in their DNA, just like Ferraris. The founder, Bruce McLaren, was a  race car driver from New Zealand. Early in his career, he started modifying the cars he was driving and, then, designing them from scratch. In the CanAm Series – which featured huge American V-8s stuffed into lighweight bodies, and where I saw my first McLaren in 1967 – they became the dominant manufacturer (if manufacturer can be used for a company making ten to twenty cars a year).  In 1967 they won five of six races they entered and by 1968, McLarens won 11 of 11 races. In 1980 – eleven years after he left home to go to Europe to race, eleven short years – Bruce McLaren died in an accident testing one of his own cars.

As tragic as that was, Bruce McLaren might not have felt that way, he once said about a team-mate that was killed The news that he had died instantly was a terrible shock to all of us, but who is to say that he had not seen more, done more and learned more in his few years than many people do in a lifetime? To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one’s ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone – the company didn’t die and has gone on to become one of the great racing teams in Formula 1.

The McLaren- Ferrari Formula 1 rivalry is the longest-lasting rivalry in motor racing. Now McLaren, about 49 years after the company was founded, has started making street cars1  to go after Ferrari. I think that there is a difference between a company that races to promote their regular cars and a company that sells cars to help them race. McLaren falls into the latter group…with a vengeance. Their cars can go over 200mph and get to 60 from a standstill in 3.1 seconds. There are ten dealerships in the US and one is in Silicon Valley, where I went to take a look.

They are selling  about five cars a month. Sixty cars a year is terrible if you are a Chevy dealership, but pretty good, I guess, if you are selling a little known car that sells for about $300,000. The cars are more subtle than Ferraris and, to my eye, more elegant. Because McLaren has made its living racing cars – they spend about an half billion a year to race two cars in twenty races – it figures that the cars they make would be all about passion but they really aren’t. The McLaren way is about getting the details right. The McLaren street cars are at their best in their details.

From the doors to service area, to the receptionist’s desk, even to a small flower arrangement – in the McLaren “official” color of orange, of course – everything pushes the McLaren image.

 

Having said that, I am not too sure what the McLaren image is. Perfection, meticulous hard word work and attention to detail, I guess; efficiency and attention to detail, maybe. Either way, they are handsome devils and their detailing is exquisite.

From their carbon brakes and wheels with tires that are less like balloons to cushion the ride than like wallpaper,

to the perfectly detailed, 600 hp, turbo-charged, V-8, engine – visible under glass for all to admire –

to the steering wheel and shifting paddles controlling the seven speed transmission (although I am not so sure that I like the leather doily over the tach).

The major design elements are the the tilting doors and the huge side scoops.

I like McLaren, I root for McClearn’s Formula 1 team. When they are leading a race, as they were today at Singapore, and then have a mechanical failure, I am disappointed. But I think that I admire them more than I love them. It would be hard not admire them, they are staggeringly fast, marvelous to look at, and competent in the extreme but, somehow – to me – don’t generate much lust. In the end, this precision over passion is slightly strange; the company was fathered by a passionate man and the CanAm cars, like the one at the top of the page, are all libido. These McLaren street cars will will probably be driven by a guy that is nice enough -deeply nice enough – that anybody would be comfortable having him take out their daughter and brash enough to have had made their first $100,000,000 by the time he is forty (many McLaren buyers already have a Ferrari that they don’t bother trading in).

1. Although they did make a – sort of goofy – three seat, hyper-fast, hyper-expensive, street car for a while and they did most of the heavy lifting on the $450,000 Mercedes Benz SLR.