[NOTE: This is the 3rd in a series of off-topic posts. I've just returned from a 10-day, 2,700-mile road trip through the US northwest. It was part-family oriented, part a visit to some of my best visual memories and in part a review of the new Ford Escape Hybrid, which Ford Motors loaned me for evaluation purposes.]
We began grumpy and came home exhausted. In between, Paula and I had one if the best experiences of our lives. We were gone 10 days, slept in nine different places and got to experience the bigness, the beauty and diversity of the American northwest.
The highlights of the trip were a two-day visit to Sunriver, Ore., a resort in Bend Ore., and visits to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. But the connecting points--the towns and back roads, the little spontaneous explorations were almost equal in interest and discovery.
For some reason our vacations are almost always preceded by about a week of tumult. This one was a record setter. Paula got sick. Her mother, Jean Berman, 91, had an infected leg, which doctors attached to a clumsy medical vacuum machine until a few days prior to our departure. Our younger daughter and her two small children visited us until the day before our departure. For the first time since my heart surgery, I was feeling some chest pains and worrying.
When the tires of the Escape rolled onto our street from our driveway, I was still waiting for Paula to shout out, "wait, I can't do this. I need a rest," but she didn't. We picked up Jean in Fremont and were on the road at 9 a.m. as scheduled.
It was 85 in Fremont at 9 am when we hit the road. By the time we stopped for lunch at the Vacaville In-N-Out Burger, it was 102. We did not yet know that our departure date would be the hottest day of the year in Northern California.
After lunch, we connected north onto the tedious stretch of I-5 to Redding. We bickered about unimportant things as we sat in traffic, looking at flat agribiz-owned farmland. The temperature kept rising. This was the most boring stretch we would experience. It was made more difficult by a few serious construction delays.
Redding turned out to be the geographic wormhole. Before it was redundant flatland. After were evergreen forests, pristine lakes and a surprising number of snow capped mountains--always a surprise in 100 degree weather.
The biggest and most breath-taking was Lassen stands tall and powerful
over everything else. We regretted not having time to visit Lassen National Park.
We turned off for the next point of interest. Lake Shasta was our first scheduled stop. We drove through the aging City of Lake Shasta onto Shasta Dam Road. As we drove through the small city, Paula and Jean wondered why there were no people on the streets in mid-afternoon.
Our dashboard said the outside temperature was 105 degrees.
We stopped for a moment to watch a few people swimming and boating and 
fishing and enjoying a cooler time than we felt in the parking lot. I caught site of a speckled eagle, the first I've ever seen. The fleet-flying, fierce-looking was far too fast for me to catch a photo.
At the dam, we spent a little time at the highly informative visitor center, where we caught our breath and felt our collective moods elevate. We were looking at incredible beauty.
We were on vacation.
[Note. Mount Lassen & the speckled eagles are file photos gleaned from Google images. I took the Shasta Lake & Dam shots.]
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