Pastry Vegas 2022

The first half of the day was brilliant, miles of good road through more valleys with another car going in the other direction about every ten minutes.

I hit Las Vegas about 2 p.m. and traffic wasn’t bad though the car GPS (which is hopeless and had me crossing the Fraser River near Maple Ridge for two years apparently swimming before it updated the existence of a new bridge) went wonky near Las Vegas strip and tried to direct me off some random exit. I surmise that sometime in the past few years some roadwork reconfigured the Flamingo Rd. exit and Ford hasn’t bothered to redo its mapping system…

Happily was able to check in early – temp about 32C so any grocery shopping before hand would have been at risk. No masks in sight, the parking is valet only and when I objected to unmasked individuals getting into my closed space I was offered pay parking across the street… a little persistance got me a spot in the next door building’s lot about 1/2 block away which is self-parking, much easier as well in terms of controlling time needed for the daily commute. The rest of the day was spent getting in provisions and unpacking, doing a dry run to the school and recoiling in horror at the masses of people cheek to jowl on the strip with no masking in sight (bar the three employees and one shopper at Trader Joe’s).

Another 800 km closer, now in Austin Nevada.

Easy driving today with little traffic and the interstate I got on briefly was newly paved! It never ceases to amaze me in America how many miles of roads there are with great surfaces, connecting nowhere to nowhere and with little traffic moving on them.

Pretty scenery through scrub grass and sagebrush, canyons and broad glacial carved wide flat bottomed valleys. Air quite hazy again – forest fires or pollution?

Austin looks like a ghost town with most of its main street shops and tourist services closed – ? covid victims. The “Cozy Mountain Motel” is cozy indeed – mignon – but does the job! Good to get off the road and climbed up the hill for a viewpoint of the long valley below, startling two deer. The grade of the hills must make for interesting driving when snowy and icy…

Finally heading out! Kasha handover to kind friend Annette – who is doing interim caregiver duties until Sunday – completed and I don’t think Kasha even noticed I was gone with her two buddies Rose and Koa and another favourite human there to divert her…

Quick breeze through the border with no hassle and no wait. The border guard looked surprised at my response to “what food are you taking for that long journey?” (oatcakes, cheese and boiled eggs – I guess not normal fare?) Sadly had to leave all the garden produce behind due to border restrictions. As I was congratulating myself for hitting fairly empty roads and having lots of time to stop at rest stops and stretch the knee, I hit what would be the worst traffic of the day – a crawl for miles in North Bellingham thanks to a road accident which blocked off one lane. 40 mins later, as I finally got by, the damage seemed unimpressive – and people complain about Delta police keeping the roads closed too long! Apart from a few accordions south of Tacoma and Olympia due to volume, the I5 was otherwise kind and I flew through Seattle though the folk going north sure weren’t moving fast.

Off the I5 just before Portland with a weird diversion through a part of the city to connect up with the Mt. Hood Highway. It was deadly slow at first, reminded me of going through Peachland but eventually headed into the Mt. Hood National Forest and was quite lovely with little traffic. Unlikely to be going back that way as it went up to the ski resorts and back down again so the roads in Dec. aren’t likely going to be easy there, but a pretty drive and some of that would make great cycling (wide shoulders, undulating, along a stream, not solid traffic). Suddenly though we were spit out into grasslands/prairie, all brown of course at this point and what a contrast. Crooked River Grasslands Park looks interesting and the road went up and down a couple of canyons before releasing us at Prineville, the first stop of this trip. Picked for its’ distance, it was surprisingly busy with bumper to bumper traffic along the main street for kilometers. The gas station attendant told me that deer hunting season has just opened, so these are mostly visiting hunters…. not much chance for the deer in this locale, no trees to hide in 🙁

Lots of good music to accompany the journey, and some stretching on a yoga matt in the hotel room (not a great place to walk around here) – hope to get an early start tomorrow, should be easy with my insomnia!

Did I hold the mail? Did I pull “x” in from the garden? Did I stop the auto-orders from Amazon? Is the outside water off?

and does the blog work? Testing….