Category Archives: Travel

To the Mullin and starting back, thinking about Political Bravery and Dishonesty

Politics, Travel

Mullin-1898Driving south to The Mullin Automotive Museum, we gently climbed up the Salinas Valley to Paso Robles. This is Steinbeck Territory,  and heavily Mexican (it is not an area of the United States that one would have to learn English to prosper). It is rich farmland, with a highway through it. After the rains – not the last deluge, but the rains for the last couple of weeks – the land has been transformed. For at least three years, our Savanna has been lifeless, the golden hills, brown and dull. Now it is coming alive. The green is emerald, so bright it is shocking, Michele says it looks like Ireland.  Mullin-1900

We started the drive late, just as the storm was clearing. As we head southeast, the storm was moving east even faster. so we drove on wet roads with clearing skies.

At the southeast end of the Valley, as we started to climb out of the alluvial bottomland, we passed what I had expected to be the depleted San Ardo Oil Field. Except that it seems to be no longer depleted. All the old, rusted rocking horses – rocking horses is what I grew up calling them but they are also called pumpjacks and they are those big see-saw thing that pump the oil out of the ground – have been giving a fresh coat of paint or replaced and are ready to pump out more oil. With all the new technology – including fracking, but far from only fracking – they are getting better at finding and extracting every last drop. We now produce almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia and gas seems cheap again. Good Times must be here to stay.  Of course the damage to the planet that burning that oil is still the same, but, at least, it is cheaper to do it.

As we drove into a great sunset, we talked about oil and politics and  Dianne Feinstein’s act  of courage.
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Releasing that Senate Intelligence Committee’s Report must have been very  painful. Feinstein is no Liberal, she voted for the Patriot Act  and its extension, including the FISA provisions. She thinks that Edward Snowden is a traitor and she has voted to give NSA more powers. Feinstein is head of the Intelligence Committee and she has been a cheerleader for the CIA. but, apparently, the CIA she cheers for, doesn’t condone torture.  The other CIA, however, didn’t want the report released and either did President Obama. Feinstein had to fight to get the Report even done. Releasing as much information as she released was damaging and must have cost her friendships.

Our plan was to meet Malcolm Pearson in Ventura where we would spend the night. The next morning we went to the Mullin Museum with Malcolm and then we split. Malcolm journeyed  deeper into the Southland and we spent the night in Ventura. As it turned out, our timing was perfect, as the day ended, we wandered past the strawberry fields of Oxnard and down to the beach just in time to watch the sun set over the Channel Islands.
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Then we caught the 38th Annual Ventura Harbor Parade of Lights (wheeee!).  Mullin-2069
Mullin-Sunday morning, as we had breakfast before starting for home, we heard that the Senate had passed the $1.1 trillion Spending Bill. We weren’t sure, but the inference was that the passed bill included language – written by the lobbyists for CitiGroup and put in at the last minute – that relaxed or eliminated many of the government controls put in by the Dodd-Frank Bill. It will now be easier, again, for banks to do, among other things, credit swaps and still be eligible for Federal Government Bailouts. I thought that stopping risky behavior was one of the main reasons Dodd-Frank was passed in the first place. Now we are back to where we started, if the banks gamble and make money, they keep it and pay big bonuses, if they lose, the taxpayer bail them out.

To round out the Spending Bill, it provides $64 billion for military campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other countries, while money is saved by cutting the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service which should make it easier for companies to trash the environment and lower the taxes they pay. What galls me the most about all this is that it was a bipartisan bill with the Democrats claiming it Was the best we could get. Maybe, but I am inclined to think that it is just politics as usual with the Democrats just giving lip service to fighting Wall Street while they vote like Republicans. The only good thing about the way the voting went is that neither California Senator voted for it. They voted the way they talk.

After breakfast, we started home on the Pacific Coast Highway (which is really on the coast less than half the time).

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To end on an aside, we left Ventura and drove along the coast until the highway turned inland, about 30 miles north of Santa Barbara, at Gaviota. I was driving and Michele was riding shotgun with the camera. It wasn’t until we turned inland that Michele took her first shot. We both thought that was telling. Telling what, we weren’t sure, but something. End aside.

Torture

Cars, Politics, Travel

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We may have made a few terrorists uncomfortable for a short period of time in order to get information that we felt was essential to protecting the United States. Deputy Director of the CIA, John McLaughlin.

There really weren’t many surprises in the Senate Torture Report. When it was reported that Lynndie England, Ivan Frederick  – who his friends affectionately called Chip – Megan Ambuhl, et al, posted pictures of their torturing prisoners sometime in 2003-2004, I didn’t believe that they were Lone Wolves. To me, and everybody I talked to who had been in the military, they were just too far down the ladder to have made that decision and then blithely photograph it. I thought that the decision had been made much higher up and, when the Privates and Spec 4s had been caught, they were scapegoated.

It really didn’t surprise me that the CIA was lying, anybody who read about the CIA fighting and redacting the Senate Report. Speaking of which, I was surprised that Senator Feinstein took such a strong stance. Pleasantly surprised.

What also surprised me was that the CIA paid something like 80 million dollars – EIGHTY MILLION – to a couple of consultants to torture people.

Peter Kuhlman, on facebook, linked to an article in The American Conservative that makes as much sense as anything I have read. As Peter said,  Money quote:”Willingness to torture became, first within elite government and opinion-making circles, then in the culture generally, and finally as a partisan GOP talking point, a litmus test of seriousness with respect to the fight against terrorism. That – proving one’s seriousness in the fight – was its primary purpose from the beginning, in my view. It was only secondarily about extracting intelligence. …It was never about “them” at all. It was about us. It was our psychological security blanket, our best evidence that we were “all-in” in this war, the thing that proved to us that we were fierce enough to win.”

In the meantime, Michele and I are heading south to see a special show on the art of the Bugatti brothers at the Mullin. We will try to not think about torture.Mullin-0452

 

 

Hiking – to use the term loosely – out of Coyote Gulch

Camping, Travel, Utah

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We spent the second night on a sandy bench under a huge wall on the outside of a meander with the sky trying to clear. After our morning toilette,Escalante Trip-0110
and instant oatmeal with dry fruit for breakfast, we wandered around the area for a few minutes. Up until now, we have been walking through Navajo Sandstone, but, now, the creek – brook? stream? – has carved its way down into another layer or, more accurately, down into multi-layers; and the canyon starts to take on a different character.
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Today we walk under Coyote Bridge, following the stream, and nobody is around. Yesterday, we walked by Jacob Hamblin Arch, probably the most famous – using the term famous relatively – place in Coyote Gulch, but there were two large parties camped there, so we kept on walking. For the most part, we are hiking alone, although we do run into people going the other way or going faster (we don’t pass anybody who is walking slower than me). The first time I came here, we didn’t see anybody and now there are probably thirty people spread out along the thirteen mile canyon.

We are in an official park, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument but this is land that is administered by the Bureau of Land Management rather than The Park Service. It is the BLM, to anybody who lives in the Rural West. The BLM which administers over 245 million surface acres and 700 million acres of subsurface mineral rights. The BLM: giver of grazing and mining permits, regulator – over regulator or under regulator depending on you point of view – of fracking. Normally they do not administer parks and I really don’t remember the political reasons that brought this on except that the Monument was set-up under Clinton/Gore and Gingrich was running the House at the time.

What ever the reason, the BLM is much less formal than the Park service. In Zion National Park, many of the trails are paved, even in the Yosemite highcountry, some of the trails have wooden boardwalks and, in The Valley, some have guard rails. In Coyote, there  are no trails, there is only the way (as in this way may go through, or this way is better, or no way!). Sometimes the way is over a sandy bench covered in wild grasses, sometimes the way is in the river, sometimes it is through Gamble Oaks and Willows, but the way is always down into the canyon.
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Sometimes we take a break, just to bathe in the beauty, the wildness,
Escalante Trip-0168but the way always takes us deeper into the canyon.
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Escalante Trip-0155After a small waterfall, we ran into a slickrock section that required help from a stick that Courtney found. I kept thinking, I have been both down this section and back up, it is very doable. But I am older and stiffer and more brittle and, looking down at the landing zone, I realized that I would not make it without the stick. We slid halfway down on our butts, scooched to stage right, and then slid off the ledge to the solid sand landing zone. It was one of those places that is physically pretty easy, psychologically scary, and takes lots of time-consuming discussion.
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Escalante Trip-0175The last night in the canyon, we camp in a huge alcove. Alcoves are not my favorite place to camp because they seem so well used, maybe overused. I know that the Anasazi must have stopped here because they like alcoves, but they abandoned their major cities like Mesa Verde and Chaco near the end of the 13th century, and this is far from those cities. The magic, if it ever existed,  is gone, wiped clean by years of ranchers and cowboys using this place.
Escalante Trip-0188After our morning meditation, we hike the last couple of miles of Coyote Gulch, Escalante Trip-0191

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Coyote Gulch ends at the Escalante River at just about the place that the Escalante River, itself, ends at Lake Powell. It is as deep as we can go. But there is a way out – a long walk up a sand dune, just before the end – that leads to the Crack In The Wall. This sand dune has been a major worry for me, it is steep, sandy, and doesn’t have any shade, so Michele and I started while Gina and Courtney explored downstream. The hike up the sand dune is much worse – and much shorter – than I remembered it and my tactic becomes look up the trail, pick out a destination 15 to 20 feet ahead – like an Opuntia – then hike to that point to take a break and catch my breath. I repeat it about 50 times.Escalante Trip-0219
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Escalante Trip-0244Finally, we get to the Crack and it is much narrower than I remember – I am almost too fat – but I am able to squeeze through, only to be stopped by a block that has to be climbed.
Crack in the WallAt this point, the only way out is to go up, going back is a two-day slog, at best. With Courtney directing my feet and Gina pulling, I get above it and then scramble to the top of the plateau and, shazam!, we are out (with only a tiring, flat, walk back to the car). That night, we have a delicious dinner at the Hell’s Backbone Grill.
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The end of the Range Rover

Camping, Cars, Travel

Range Dog-3592I discovered the American Desert in the late spring of 1976 – my mom took me to Death Valley when I was about eight but I’m not counting that although it probably did plant the seed – it was a spiritual experience.

On the first trip, I drove a 1974 BMW Bavaria 4 door sedan. A friend had called and said that he had just been to Death Valley, it was fantastic, and he wanted to go back (in retrospect, he probably wanted somebody else to take their car). We drove across most of the Mojave Desert, in the dark, and camped in an empty Mahogany Flat Campground at 8,133 ft, on Telescope Peak. I slept on a cot so that I wouldn’t be attacked by snakes.

It did not take very long – but longer than it took to fall in love with the desert – to figure out that a Bavaria was not the ideal vehicle to get into the desert. The next vehicle was – and here I  am quoting from a list of my cars that I made in 2003 – A 1976 GMC 4 wheeldrive pickup: desert tan with whorehouse red vinyl interior and a GMC, OHV V8, big enough to pull a tree-stump out of the ground. It burned more gas than a 747 but was a very handy vehicle: four people could ride in the front (only) seat and drive to Death Valley. The truck really wasn’t mine, it was a company truck used by one of our superintendents, and I would use it the couple of times a year that I went to the desert.

Next was an almost new Jeep Cherokee that I bought from a friend. He sold it cheap because his parents had spilled milk and then let the milk dry under the seats and the Cherokee smelled. I don’t remember how we got rid of the smell, but it became Samantha’s car except when I wanted to go the desert. Finally, in 1988, I got a new Range Rover, described in my Car Log as A 1988 Range Rover: Olive Drab with grey interior and powered by a Rover V8 (really a modified mid-60s Buick V8 that Rover bought from GM). The perfect car for me at the time, it would go anywhere from the symphony to Coyote Gulch. And finally, A 1992 Range Rover: white. Same-o, same-o.

But it wasn’t the Same-o, same-o the 92 Rover took us all over the Western Outback – mostly the Eastern Mojave Area, the Escalante area in Utah, and Northwestern Nevada – for over ten years. It wasn’t particularly reliable, but it never left us stranded until March 29th, 2013 – about 4 o’clock in the afternoon when it gave up on 395, just north of Minden.

 Before that, we did have a couple of close calls. One memorable close call was when the alternator gave out in Soldier Meadow – probably 40 miles from the nearest pavement – but we were able to limp home.

As an aside, that problem taught me a great lesson on a difference between Rustic and City Dweller Morality – or, at least, Guiding Principles –  that I think is part of the Red/Blue conflict. When the Alt light came on in Soldier Meadows, we immediately decided to try to get as close to help as possible. We got all the way to Bruno’s Texaco Station in Gerlach where we consulted with Bruno’s son-in-law, Cecil. Of course they did not have the parts to fix it, but they suggested giving the battery a very slow charge over night. They thought that would get us to Reno. We spent the night and, the next day, drove to Reno.  The Guiding Principle in Gerlach is to help a stranger (and, I suspect even more so, a neighbor). Just outside of Reno, we stopped at a shop that specialized in foreign cars but they didn’t have the parts either (no surprise). When I asked them for suggestions, they said that they couldn’t give us any because they didn’t want to be responsible if anything went wrong. I suggested recharging the battery and they said they would do that if that was what I wanted, but it was my responsibility. We charged it over a very long lunch and departed for the Bay Area, with no real idea of what our range would be. To be safe, the next stop was an open Amoco shop near Vacaville, California. They couldn’t fix it and, when I asked about a charge, they said that they wouldn’t touch the vehicle because of the liability. We were back in the City where not getting sued was the Guiding Principle. We limped home. End aside.

A year and a half ago, when the 92 Ranger Rover gave out, it was the first time since 1976 that I haven’t had a vehicle to go to the desert. Anything reliable would be in the 20 to 25,000 range and I began to think that the money would be better spent in restoring the Rover. My complicated theory was as follows: old car prices – and I am using the term car, very loosely – start going up again  when men, and it is overwhelmingly men, get enough money to buy the cars they lusted after when they were twelve. That means that old Range Rovers should start increasing in price as people who were twelve , or so, in 1988, reach their 40s. And prices are going up, especially in England.

There are so many things to like about the Range Rover, it has a super cachet, is rugged and will go almost anywhere, has heavy-duty leather seats, a nice bin sunk into the dash for an altar, great visibility and…well, there must be other things, too, but there are also some real problems.

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The Range Rover was designed for Royals to drive in Scotland or, maybe, a lance corporal in Northern Europe when it was a military vehicle. It does not do dust very well – about 99.999% of the dirt and gravel roads in the west are dusty although we did cross a creek once in Soldier Meadows so maybe it doesn’t like water either – and, at almost any speed on a dusty road, the dust seeps in through the back window. Well before the Rover croaked, the electric doors and power seats no longer worked because the contacts were clogged with dust.

The Range Rover was noisy, not noisy in a good way like a Ferrari, noisy because it was shaped like a brick and had a rain gutter – an actual rain gutter – around the roof, noisy. Oh, and the radio didn’t work, grounding out with a 90 dB squeal at random times. The biggest downside to the Range Rover, however, was its miserable gas mileage, 15 miles to the gallon. The Rover’s V8 engine was originally designed by Buick in the late 50s/early 60s, in terms of engine design, the late 50s were the late Pleistocene and everything done to this engine since has been pretty much makeshift resulting in the lousy gas mileage.

None of the problems were deal breakers though, until we rented a cheap Chevy to go to Oregon.

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The Chevy was ugly as sin – indeed, if sin be ugly, as my mother used to say – quiet, comfortable and had a great radio. Its power seats and door locks actually worked, and the Chevy got spectacular, by our low standards, gas mileage. At 60, on a dirt road, no dust came in as we rode in air-conditioned comfort. Intellectually, I know that a cheap 2014 car is a better transportation appliance than an expensive 1992 car, but – driving around Oregon – we became believers.

Now the question becomes what next. The Range Rover is at a repair shop in San Francisco and that is part of the problem. I asked the shop what it would cost to get the Rover restored and, clipboard in hand, the owner said my timing was perfect because he was just getting into that business. He said he would work up some numbers and get back to me, that was in April and I still haven’t heard from him. I called Landrover Ranch in New Mexico and left a message asking about restoration, they never called back. Meanwhile, Michele is starting to read reviews of VW Tiguans and I am starting to wonder about all the restored and updated  Toyota Bj61s I keep seeing.

As for the Rover, it occurs to me that my first off-road car described, again in the Car Log, as A 1948 Pontiac 4 door sedan: faded blue with chrome stripes on the hood and an Indianhead hood ornament that lit up; powered by a OHV straight 8. My maternal grandparents’ car I was asked to buy (for $300) when they got too old to drive. They had covered the seats with thick plastic seat covers so, when I got the car, it was a 8-year-old beater with new gray wool – derogatorily called mouse fur – seats. About this time I started camping and this car did many uncomplaining miles on dirt roads. had a good life. That car eventually died on a dirt road near Longs Peak, Colorado while being driven by the second owner after me. He, fittingly in my opinion, left it by the side of the road to exfoliate back into the earth.

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