Author: Arjan

[group photo by Geena Jackson]

Mile 7137 – Barstow, California, jumping off point towards Arizona tomorrow.  We’re in the desert.  When P.J. got out of our air conditioned car today, she said it felt like getting into a car that’s been sitting in the sun in the summer.  The reverse of what you expect.

We had a nice breakfast with Wayne Jackson and his family, then went to Mira Loma to spend the afternoon with Fay Champion.  The common thread here is Ruth Jackson, my friend from Cambridge, Mass, who later moved to California and married Wayne and befriended Fay, and who died four years ago this month.

~ posted by Arjan

I really enjoyed taking the time today to visit old friends before we got back in the car to continue our trip. The landscapes and cloudscapes continued to unfold throughout the afternoon as we turned north and then east. I am looking forward to new territory (for me) over the next couple of days as we drive through the desert.

The temperature hit 104 degrees today. In Alpine, California, where we had breakfast, it was not only hot, but also humid. The skies were a little threatening all day, and it even rained a little. Because of the weather, I had to give up on the idea of taking more vintage postcard pictures around San Diego (I only got one). I hope I can take the rest when we return to California in October. I took all my photographs today out of the car window at 70+ miles an hour.

~ posted by P.J.

[Scenery Photographs © 2012 P.J. Gardner. All Rights Reserved.]

Mile 6912 – Alpine, California.  After two days in Los Angeles, we drove down to the San Diego area to meet an old friend, Wayne Jackson.

At the point where I-5 and I-405 merge into 11 lanes (2 feeder lanes, 2 commuter lanes, and 7 regular lanes), we ran into traffic delays.  Apparently 11 lanes is not enough.

After driving over the Ortega Highway, we decended to Lake Elsinore, where the thermometer reached 102 F (39 C), the highest temperature of our trip so far. In San Diego, the temperature was comfy again.

We had dinner with Wayne, overlooking San Diego harbor and recounting old memories, and then bagged another postcard at the Hotel del Coronado at night.

This is the end of our trip down the west coast.  Tomorrow we’ll start heading back east on the return phase of our trip.

Vintage Postcard Project: September 8: San Diego, California

[Photographs © 2012 P.J. Gardner. All Rights Reserved.]

Mile 6597 – Los Angeles, California.  We drove from Carmel, along the beautiful California coast past Big Sur and Santa Barbara, with a lot of fog and gray skies.  Leave it to us to have mostly dry weather for five whole weeks, only to come to Southern California and see rain where you’re not supposed to.  It was only sprinkles, but still.

While we are in L.A., I need to give my car an oil change, do more laundry, handle my mail (which has been forwarded here), and spend time with my dad and stepmother.  I’ll take a two-day break from blogging and will resume posts on Saturday, the 8th.

Vintage Postcard Project: September 5: Near Santa Barbara, California

[Photographs © 2012 P.J. Gardner. All Rights Reserved.]

Mile 6257 – Carmel, California.  Woke up to fog in San Francisco, had breakfast with potatoes sauteed in red wine (where do you find that?), and then bailed out the car.  The combined cost of parking in Vancouver and San Francisco is about 50% of what we spent on gas so far.

Drove back into the sun to Stanford and San Jose to find more old postcard landmarks and to have lunch with former colleague Bill Eisenberg and his wife, Jen, and then drove back into the fog at Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Vintage Postcard Project: September 4: San Jose and Stanford, California/a>

[Photograph © 2012 P.J. Gardner. All Rights Reserved.]

Mile 6108. The car was parked all day and got a rest.  Parking the Prius for a day in San Francisco costs about the same as a tank of gas.

This morning, I was able to do what I often do at home: Walk to a coffee shop early in the morning and read the New York Times— the first news I’ve read since July.  After breakfast together in Union Square, we took public transportation (not the cable car— I like public transport better than a tourist bus or tour) to the Embarcadero, then to Fisherman’s Wharf, and finally to the Presidio to stare at the fog over the Golden Gate Bridge.  We walked back along the shore (on the San Francisco Bay Trail) from the Golden Gate park to the Palace of Fine Arts.  The bridge was still mostly in the fog, but at water level you are under it and the towers stick out of the fog at times.  The rest of the city was beautifully sunny.

When you walk out of the front door of our San Francisco hotel, there are more interesting restaurants within a block than in all of North Dakota.  Of course, you can also pay more for dinner in San Francisco than you might pay for dinner plus lodging in North Dakota.

Vintage Postcard Project: September 3: San Francisco, California

[Photographs © 2012 P.J. Gardner. All Rights Reserved.]

Mile 6108 – San Francisco. To San Francisco from Redding, in the North Central Valley of California, via wine country and Santa Rosa.  As we approached the Golden Gate, the temperature dropped from around 90 to 55 on the bridge, in dense fog.  In the city, it is sunny, with comfortable, clean, clear air after our spending most of the day traveling in heat and smoke.  I love this place.  Before going over the bridge, we stopped at the Golden Gate overlook in Marin County.  We were just above the fog there.  The fog swirled around below us, playing games with the tops of the bridge, accompanied by a fog horn concert.  Very impressive, but hard to convey.  In my opinion, the bridge is the most— or maybe only— scenic, man-made structure in America.

Earlier in the day, we went to Santa Rosa, tracking down another 1930s postcard, of the county court house.  To make a long story short, we could not find the building. After googling it on the net, we found that it was demolished in the sixties because it was considered “seismically unsafe”.  There was a commerative plaque, and P.J. took a picture of it as well as the park that replaced it.

Vintage Postcard Project: September 2: Santa Rosa, California

[Photographs © 2012 P.J. Gardner. All Rights Reserved.]

Mile 5848 – Redding, California.  Started off early for Lassen Volcanic Park.  On the way the sky turned brown with smoke and the sun became almost obscured.  We stopped at a ranger station and were told there were more fires in Lassen Park but they were contained and the roads were open.  We decided to go ahead.  Glad we did.  We drove out of the smoke and into the park under clear, sunny skies, due to a favorable wind direction.

Before the Mount St. Helens eruption, Lassen Peak was the only other volcanic event in the U.S. in the 20th century (1914/15).  We have not been to this park before and now I regret we did not allow more time.  The trail to the peak is closed most of the time, but they opened it for Labor Day weekend.  By the time we got there, though, it was too late in the day and we were already committed to our next destination (San Francisco), so we could not come back.  But we did take a short hike at Summit Lake and ran across a family of deer.

We drove through areas that were ablaze only weeks before.  Most blazes are contained now, but some are not.  We learned not only about volcanoes but also about forest fires.  We drove by blackened areas that still smelled.  Our hotel tonight has fire fighters staying in it. Tomorrow we expect to be in the clear, fresh city (!) air of San Francisco, courtesy of the Pacific Ocean.

[Photographs © 2012 P.J. Gardner. All Rights Reserved. Photograph of P.J. Gardner by Arjan Post.]

Mile 5507 – Prospect, Oregon, Day 2 (Round trip to Crater Lake).  P.J. and I have both been at Crater Lake before, and it can best be admired in clear weather because of its grand vistas and deep-blue lake.  This time, due to smoke from neighboring wild fires, it looked like a smoggy day in Los Angeles.  Nevertheless, the weather was perfect for hiking or walking around (sunny and upper sixties).  We got a nice walk in on a new trail to a waterfall and drove around the rim anyway, so P.J. could take hazy versions of her aunt’s old post cards.  We found out that what was called “Enchantment Bay” in the thirties, is now called “Danger Bay”.  Probably renamed by Homeland Security.

Vintage Postcard Project: August 31: Crater Lake National Park

[Photographs © 2012 P.J. Gardner. All Rights Reserved.]

Mile 5389 – Prospect, Oregon.  Started out in Gold Beach, on the Oregon South Coast.  It looked like it was going to be another sunny day, but as we started off, we soon got fogged in.  That spoiled P.J.’s intent to take an “Aunt Esther postcard picture” of Arch Rock and other South Coast monoliths.  We could not see a thing.

On to Redwood National Park, dipped into California.  Two of Aunt Esther’s postcards today were in a tacky park called the “The Trees of Mystery”, with a talking 45-foot-high Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox, “Babe”. Normally, we would not have paid to enter such a place, but Aunt Esther “made us do it”.  One of the post cards was of the “Cathedral Tree”, a half circle of nine redwoods grown together.  Today there are religious texts displayed and schmaltzy music playing.  You can now rent the tree for weddings.  I am convinced that those who do get married there will live happily after, because they would lack the discrimination to find enough fault with each other for the necessary divorce.

At the end of the day, we needed to drive back to Oregon and we decided to take a “shortcut” through the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.  It was a one-lane dirt road that snaked between giant redwood trees, but what a spectacle!  The highlight of the day and totally unexpected!

Once we crossed the Cascades on our way to Crater Lake, the weather changed from a foggy 57 (14 C) to a smokey 86 F (30 C).  We have not experienced heat in three weeks!  The sky turned smokey yellow because of forest fires.  ‘Tis the season.

Vintage Postcard Project: August 30: Redwoods, California

[Photographs © 2012 P.J. Gardner. All Rights Reserved.]