hrj

We interrupt this road-trip summation to note the death of a truly amazing woman, maestrateresa. I'm not sure exactly when I first met her ... it was way back when: back before the birth of her now-grown children. For a lot of that time we were on a "say hi in passing" basis, but lately we've been having some interesting in-depth conversations and finding some unexpected points of intersection. No one has any business having the things thrown at her that life pitched into her path -- and when life pitches stuff like that, the world has no business expecting the target to keep meeting each new thing with her level of gumption, ferocity, and humor. How can anyone dare to give up with her example before us? I wish I could knock off some good original poetry for the occasion, but I'll just steal from Gruffudd ab yr Ynad Coch's elegy for Llywelyn ap Gruffudd:

Poni welwch chwi hynt y gwynt a'r glaw?
Poni welwch chwi'r deri'n ymdaraw?
Poni welwch chwi'r mor yn merwinaw'r tir?
Poni welwch chwi'r gwir yn ymgyweiriaw?
Poni welwch chwi'r haul yn hwylaw'r awyr?
Poni welwch chwi'r syr wedi'r syrthiaw?

Don't you see the track of the wind and the rain?
Don't you see the oaks clashing?
Don't you see the waves lashing the shore?
Don't you see Truth impending?
Don't you see the sun coursing the sky?
Don't you see the stars have fallen?

Dateline: Albion CA; Current odometer: ca. 200,982; Miles travelled today: 584; Current location of writing: back home again

This was the serious drive-time day. Also a serious scenery day. Trees, trees, and more trees. Have I mentioned that trees and mountains was the intended theme of this road trip? I left Portland at 8am and shared the road south with a significant number of rabid Ducks fans. You could tell this by the decorations on their cars. At Grant's Pass I headed for the coast, coming out at Crescent City. I took the opportunity to call ahead with an ETA and to return a missed call from scotica that had come while I was on a twisty bit of road, which turned out to be the news about maestrateresa. There can be a down side to being quite so continuously connected while on vacation.

On the road out, I'd gone "beyond the fields I know" north of Redding. Coming south, I hit familiar roads just south of Eureka, thanks to a long, if irregular, history of SCA events up that way. When I got to the Avenue of the Giants, I figured I was ahead of schedule enough to take the scenic parallel route for a bit.

I was wrong, mind you, about being ahead of schedule. When I cut over to the coast again at Leggett, I just barely finished all the windy mountainy bits before dark. Gorgeous road. Don't want to drive it in the dark. I'd told loupnoir and albionwood to expect me around 8pm and I was fairly close to that schedule except that I hadn't counted on the time spent second-guessing the back roads once I'd turned off of Hwy 1. All the maps I'd looked at seemed to think that you didn't go more than a couple of miles on Albion Ridge Road before you got to the turnoff for Middle Ridge Road, so when I'd gone about 4 miles -- on narrow winding country back-roads -- I figured that I must have missed the turnoff somewhere and started backtracking more slowly. Still no luck. Got nearly back out to the main highway and turned around for another pass at it. The theory that I was going to phone in for landing-approach instructions was eliminated by the complete lack of cell reception. It turned out that the first time I'd turned back only a couple hundred feet short of the well-marked turn. After that, the supplied instructions (which began "drive on Middle Ridge Road forever ...") worked like a charm.