Light Shows

The last two nights I have seen interesting light shows in the skies. On Friday night, as Lisa and I were walking back to the trailer from her father's house around 10 PM, I saw a meteor streak across the sky and burn out; it was one of the more demonstrative shooting stars I've ever seen. Last night, while driving through Southern Oregon, I ran across thunderstorms. As I started the climb from Ashland up to Siskiyou Pass, I hit a wall of water coming out of the sky that thoroughly addled me. Good thing there wasn't much traffic! But anyway, from Grants Pass southward to Yreka the Cascades were lit up with spectacular lightning strikes. It was enough for me to lower the antennas on my van in order to present fewer targets for the strikes.

Upgrade Jackpot

On account for stopping to have the good lunch that Lisa had prepared before leaving, I left Mehama later than I expected yesterday. I thus didn't get to Yreka until 10 PM. When I got my room assignment, I figured that they'd upgraded me because I've stayed here before and know that certain ranges of room numbers are the mini-suites in this Holiday Inn Express. What I did not expect to find was this:

( Ah, luxury! )

Priority Club may not be the most spectacular of the frequent-traveler programs, but between my own travel and that which my company has seen fit to send me, I've done pretty well.

Now, if only I could get a time warp that allowed four extra hours of sleep as well.

Hot Time on the Road

On account of my not having checked ahead, my family didn't know I was going to be in Sutter today for certain, so when I stopped by, I found my mother was out for the day and my grandfather was asleep (and I did not want to wake him up), so rather than spending a couple of hours there, I dropped off something I've been meaning to bring them for a while and continued on my way.

I did stop at the Winco Foods and stocked up on things like Teddy's Root Beer that I can't easily get in the Bay Area. But I became increasingly reluctant to make stops when the main air conditioning fan wouldn't come on after one of my stops. It's that darn intermittent failure that can't be reproduced on demand. The fan will be running just fine when I stop the van, but when I restart it, there's nothing. Then, a random amount of time later, the fan will come back on again and work normally.

An AC fan that doesn't work is not something you want when the thermometer is making eyes at 40 degrees Celsius as it was on I-5 in the northern Sacramento Valley this afternoon. After the Winco Foods stop, I was nearly in Dobbins, twenty miles south, before the fan came back to life. At that point, I scrubbed plans to stop for dinner and resolved to try and drive straight home if I could.

I wish I'd known there were going to be multi-mile traffic slowdowns at Woodland, Vacaville, and north of the Benecia Bridge. I might have tried taking I-5 to I-205/580 through Altamont Pass instead, although I have no idea if it would have been faster. In any event, despite the slowdowns, I pulled into my parking space at 7 PM, about three hours earlier than I originally expected to arrive, which is pretty good because I'm very tired and need to have a little bit to eat and then get some sleep. Things like setting up my printer that I took to Oregon with me can wait.