Visiting my Father
Jan. 11th, 2025 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeNormally I do not cross the Sierra Nevada in the wintertime, save by train, due to the dicey weather conditions. However, we are having a long dry spell, and I arranged to go visit my father and stepmother at their home in the hills above Oroville, California today. It's just within range for me to do it as a day trip, albeit a long one.
I didn't set an alarm, and consequently didn't get on the road until 7:30 AM. The trip is about 170 mi / 275 km, and including a number of rest stops and the relatively slow drive through secondary roads in the Yuba/Butte County foothills, it took me just over four hours, which really isn't bad.
We spent the afternoon catching up on the past two years of my travels and of my father's medical treatments. He has been fighting cancer, which while it's in remission and he's lived much longer than the initial diagnosis had suggested, it has still been hard on him.
We had lunch and had a very good afternoon. Eventually, though, I did need to head for home. I probably should have left sooner. But leaving at twilight as I did not only reduced my sun exposure (I'm under medical instruction to avoid sun as much as possible, but also put me in a position to take a photo of the Sutter Buttes under lighting that I'd never seen before.
Coming through the foothill roads, I was able to take this picture of the Sutter Buttes. This is "the world's shortest mountain range," although it's actually the worn-down remnants of an ancient volcanic cone in the center of California's Sacramento Valley. Some have suggested that it's the southernmost volcano in the Cascade range, separated from the other, newer mountains like Lassen and Shasta. The town of Sutter, where I graduated from high school and lived with my grandparents for many years, is at the foot of these mountains.
Twilight gave way to fully darkness, and that led to the worst part of the drive: CA-20 through Grass Valley/Nevada City and up to I-80 at night. That stretch of highway is lovely an scenic on a bright sunny day like this morning, but to me is something of a terror at night. I took it pretty carefully because even with improvements that they've made to it, I find it intimidating. Once I was on I-80, the going was easier.
I'm very glad I got to visit my father. To be honest, I don't know how many more times I'm going to have a chance to do so, so I need to make the most of such visits when I can make them. He and I parted on very bad terms back in 1981, but we've long since reconciled to that and we get along pretty well now.
I didn't set an alarm, and consequently didn't get on the road until 7:30 AM. The trip is about 170 mi / 275 km, and including a number of rest stops and the relatively slow drive through secondary roads in the Yuba/Butte County foothills, it took me just over four hours, which really isn't bad.
We spent the afternoon catching up on the past two years of my travels and of my father's medical treatments. He has been fighting cancer, which while it's in remission and he's lived much longer than the initial diagnosis had suggested, it has still been hard on him.
We had lunch and had a very good afternoon. Eventually, though, I did need to head for home. I probably should have left sooner. But leaving at twilight as I did not only reduced my sun exposure (I'm under medical instruction to avoid sun as much as possible, but also put me in a position to take a photo of the Sutter Buttes under lighting that I'd never seen before.
Coming through the foothill roads, I was able to take this picture of the Sutter Buttes. This is "the world's shortest mountain range," although it's actually the worn-down remnants of an ancient volcanic cone in the center of California's Sacramento Valley. Some have suggested that it's the southernmost volcano in the Cascade range, separated from the other, newer mountains like Lassen and Shasta. The town of Sutter, where I graduated from high school and lived with my grandparents for many years, is at the foot of these mountains.
Twilight gave way to fully darkness, and that led to the worst part of the drive: CA-20 through Grass Valley/Nevada City and up to I-80 at night. That stretch of highway is lovely an scenic on a bright sunny day like this morning, but to me is something of a terror at night. I took it pretty carefully because even with improvements that they've made to it, I find it intimidating. Once I was on I-80, the going was easier.
I'm very glad I got to visit my father. To be honest, I don't know how many more times I'm going to have a chance to do so, so I need to make the most of such visits when I can make them. He and I parted on very bad terms back in 1981, but we've long since reconciled to that and we get along pretty well now.
