Virginia City, NV

One of the richest of the mining boom towns, Virginia City's population was about 25K at its peak in 1875. Nowadays it's less than 1K.  The first major silver discovery in the US, it hastened Nevada's statehood and helped finance the union side of the Civil War.

Above and below, the main drag is full of vintage structures now devoted to tourism.

 

Samuel Clemens was here for a couple years, working for one of the local newspapers, left town in a hurry to avoid a duel.  His first book, Roughing It, is set in the City, and it was also his first use of his pen name, Mark Twain.  George Hearst, father of William Randolph, made his fortune here. Many famous entertainers performed in the VC Opera House, including Lily Langtry.

The schoolhouse, below, built in 1876, had 1K students in the peak years.  It was closed for 50 years before being refurbished and reopened in 1986 as a museum.

This painting in the Silver Queen Hotel lobby is decorated with 3261 silver dollars minted in Carson City from silver mined in Virginia City. She's 15' tall and 8' wide, truly a woman with a lot to offer.

Who's that kid in the candy shop?

The Red Dog Saloon (above and below) helped usher in the rock and roll era in the 60's; Janis Joplin performed here as did many others.  The picture below displays some of the rock band posters.  Gotta love that 'loose women' notice in lower left in above picture.  They make a fine pizza.

Yellowjacket Soup

At Merrill Campground on Eagle Lake, CA there was a plague of yellowjackets.  They're carnivores and will swarm around anything that smells of meat or fish.  Barbie up some chicken, burgers, salmon, whatever, there they are, dozens of 'em .  They even swarm around the dead bugs plastered to the front of the RV.

Many years ago when I lived in Redmond, WA, I discovered how to nail the buggers.  Set out a bucket of soapy water, secure the bucket handle so its standing straight up in the carry position, and suspend some kind meat or fish from the top of the handle.  Something smelly like sardines works best.  The bees come from far and wide, bite off more than they can chew, drop into the soapy water and drown.

So, Trish applied the technique and scored, nailed about 100 of the little bastards.  The floaters are only the newest casualties; there's a whole bunch more that have sunk to the bottom.

Another Blowout!

Last summer we installed top of the line trailer tires after one of the originals shredded.  Yesterday, one of those new tires bit the dirt, impaled by a screw.  The good news is it happened just a couple miles from our destination so were able to limp along to our campsite.  Changing a tire on the shoulder of the freeway in the blazing sun (92 degrees) with cars whizzing by one foot behind your butt is no fun at all.

This is the 6th trailer tire event in 8 years, the 4th on the Cougar - including the loss of the spare tire and wheel when the spare tire carrier broke.  It appears the original tires on travel trailers are the cheapest money can buy.  Maybe the really high-end rigs have better rubber.

Funny thing is, never had a flat on any of the 3 pickups owned in the same time period.  And, on the Alaska Highway, notorious for flats, we had nary a one in either the trailer or the pickup.  Go figure.

A Wonderful Bird

This limerick, penned in 1910 by American humorist, Dixon Merritt, was popular in my youth.  No, Ogden Nash didn't write it.

A wonderful bird is the pelican,

His bill will hold more than his belican,

He can take in his beak

Enough food for a week

But I'm damned if I see how the helican!

It could have been designed by a congressional subcommittee with typical political-appointee qualifications: none had ever actually seen a real bird.  It's awkward on the ground, the large, ungainly body moving along as if it had a couple too many at the pub.  Aerodynamic it is not.  In fact, you wonder how it ever gets off the ground. 

But, when airborne they are indeed wonderful.  The perfectly coordinated movements of a string of pelicans on the wing, skimming along bare centimeters above the water, is a thing of beauty.  They put the Blue Angels to shame - although they look more like B-52 bombers.

Eagle Lake in northeastern CA is the second largest natural lake in the state.  We were here 4 years ago, liked it a lot, so we plugged it into this year's route.  There's a good sized population of white pelicans here, and that's what inspired this post. 

Oakridge, OR

Have uke, will travel.

The annual Oakridge ukulele festival was this weekend, and several players

 were staying in our RV park, Casey's Riverside, in nearby Westfir.

The longest covered bridge in OR is here, built in 1945.

It's called the Office Bridge because it led to the office of a logging company.

It certainly looks sturdy enough, lots of heavy timber.

Blackberries, the scourge of the Pacific NW, thrive at either end of the bridge.  I spent 1000s of hours fighting the damned things when  I lived in WA and OR.  Machetes, hedge trimmers and weed whackers were the weapons of choice; if you timed it just right, Roundup was effective.  For awhile.

A local tourism rag touts Salt Creek Falls, just off OR 58, as being the second highest waterfall (286') in OR.  Whoever wrote the article is full of crap; it's not even in the top 10.  Here's a list of OR waterfalls in height-order: http://www.worldwaterfalldatabase.com/region-tallest-waterfalls/United-States/Oregon/

Restaurant Review

Brewers Union Local 180, Tripadvisor ranked # 1 for eateries in Oakridge,  

We had fish and chips, and I had one of their brews.  The fish had enough grease to lube the axles of a medium-length freight train, and had a nasty aftertaste.  The ale was tepid.  Numerous flies added to the fine ambiance, obviously quite fond of the place and, I suspect, instrumental in Tripadvisor's high ranking of this dining disaster.

Evergreen Air Musem

The Sopwith Camel, Snoopy's favorite plane, shot down the Red Baron in WW-1.

The Museum started with one huge building that contained the Spruce Goose.  Now there are 3 more buildings: a space museum, an indoor water park and an IMAX-format theater.

B-17 bomber, below.

The  huge Spruce Goose, below, dwarfs dozens of smaller aircraft.

Blackbird spy plane engine, above; the plane itself, below.

Which reminds me of the recent movie Bridge of Spies, starring Tom Hanks.  It's about recovering Gary Powers, the pilot of an earlier spy plane (the U-2) that was shot down over Russia.  Great flick!   

The Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft, below, looks like a winged whale.

Moon stuff, below: unmanned research vehicle, lander and buggy.

The Museum is located in McMinnville, OR.

Big Red F

Dick and Jane.  Baby Sally.  Spot.  Those characters need no introduction to most folks my age.  For the benefit of younger blog readers: Dick and Jane books were written for grammar school kids who were just learning how to read.  They were simple texts that introduced new words and had illustrations showing the thing or activity associated with the word.  A typical page might have a picture of a boy running with these words below the picture: Dick.  See Dick.  See Dick run.  Challenging stuff!

Dick and Jane quickly became tiny specks in my rear view mirror.  A voracious reader from the get-go, I devoured the books in the grade school library.  My 5th grade teacher said I should write book reports.  The idea appealed to me: extra credit plus attractive milestone certificates for doing 50 reports, 100 reports, and so on.

My reports were written in cursive on a single sheet of wide-lined paper, with the name of the book and the author at the top.  Most of my story summaries were short and succinct: 3 sentences, main character, plot, ending, sign it, hand it in, read another book.

After several reports, my teacher said that I shouldn't tell the entire story. She said I should leave readers wondering about the ending, curious enough to want to read the book themselves.  Her advice was not well-received, I'm afraid.  It irritated me that my best efforts to retell the story in just a few words fell short of the mark.  My next report, in response to the teacher's advice, was the shortest I'd ever written.  It was one sentence long: "If you want to know what this book is about, read it."

You can probably guess what happened next.  The teacher returned my book report the next day, complete with a big red 'F' in the upper right corner.  It was my first F ever, also my last.

My ability to gracefully accept constructive criticism has improved in the interim, but honestly - not all that much.