Happy New Year from Home!

Deee-lighted to be here. A fine, noble 2009 to all! Abba thinks so, too.

New Years Eve in Redding

Such a possibility awaited us until a few minutes ago. But first yesterday's driving update: loaded up the car at my sister's place out in the Washington countryside. My windshield was glazed with ice. That meant Monday's rain-soaked roads were also icy. Heading out on two-lane blacktop past alpaca farms, Douglas Firs, and coated horses grazing in early morning fields, we kept the speed down to 30 mph. Even that caused the car to swerve on slick blacktop. A half-hour of tense driving got us on the interstate and a deep sigh of relief. 

Regular motoring down into Oregon, through now-cleared Portland and across the flats to Eugene. Past Eugene, the terrain rose toward Grant's Pass. MDW was driving when a high-pitched squeal sounded under the hood. She pulled over and I checked - nothing. I took over driving as the squeal came and went, usually above 2300 RPMS/63 mph. 

We passed through Medford and Ashland, climbing into the southern Cascades into California. Dusk arrived and the squealing worsened. I began paying attention to exit sign numbers and hoping the engine held up to Redding. We entered a prehistoric lava field, encircled by cone-shaped, extinct volcanoes, snowy slopes aglow in the fading light. Overhead, a crescent moon gleamed above a landscape that seemed as bleak and lifeless as an asteroid. Oh, God, not here, I thought. And we squealed on past.

Finally made it to Redding. This morning the garage checked it out and said a part holding on my fan belt assembly was expiring. They found an after-market item over in Andersen and managed to install it, ensuring New Year's Eve might indeed be spent in the bosom of our condo.  

Ah, but another full day of driving stands between us and home. Adventures abound on the western roads. Let us see what transpires. 

Moist Washington Notes

Down at my sister's house near Fort Lewis. We had a large family gathering last night, with the kids screaming and running around because we're out in the country and who is gonna hear? Today my sister and I drove to Tacoma to see a museum containing nifty glass artwork, but it was closed, so we discussed family business, stopped at a used book store with a cat curled up on the counter, then out for pizza. 

During last week's storm in Portland, cars were following snow plows on the freeway, driving at low speeds. Many ran out of gas as the off-ramps were unplowed and impassable. I passed several such vehicles last Wednesday, sealed in snow by subsequent plowings. Even if cars had managed to exit, fuel trucks couldn't reach many filling stations along the interstate. 

The Washington sky is in constant flux, as if under contract to display as many looks as possible: overcast, sunshine with light shafts so brilliant they make you squint, back to partially cloudy, dark and broiling, but always with rain, or rain mixed with snow. 

Tomorrow, MDW and I begin our thousand-mile drive back to Los Angeles. Lots of rain in the outlook, but hopefully very little snow. This has been a wonderful trip seeing family and the best, most adventurous, Christmas I've had in awhile. 

Red Right Return and Other Nautical Terms

Eleven McCanns took the ferry across Puget Sound to Bremerton on the Kittsap peninsula. My cousin Jim, an old Navy officer, pointed out red marker buoys that vessels entering port must keep to their right. Helmsmen are taught to remember that by this post's title. Land blocking the wind is known as a wind shadow. And green buoys direct returning helmsman to stay to their left, or port side. As a young man in officer training forty-four years ago this day, Jim married his wife Linda. To stay married that long requires some pretty nifty navigation of its own.

We wandered around the slushy Bremerton wharf, ate Belgian French Fries, then sailed back to Seattle for dinner at an Italian restaurant. At least I didn't have to drive today - car or boat.

Icy Road Trip and U R A BUS

Tuesday morning, after a tense drive in cold, mist and ice, I crossed the mountains into Oregon. Spent that night on my cousin's farm near Corvallis; quiet with rain falling on snow; rolling hills bristling with Douglas Firs rising out of the mist; Hereford cows, rich in placid bovine calm, munching behind wire cattle fences. On Christmas Eve, prior to driving up to Tacoma on Family Fest '08, I checked the interstate on the web. Smacked by two snow storms with another on the way, the I-5 around Portland appeared to be a mess of spun-out wrecks, ice sheets, and hour-long waits.

Sure enough, all the above lurked beyond Salem. As I learned, the cameras didn't really show ice composition: brown in scattered fields like very large charcoal briquettes. Driving across it was like traversing an extremely slick, treacherous washboard. On the roadside, cars were spun out into snow banks, some buried by subsequent plowings. Reaching the hour-long backup, I sat behind a Subaru long enough to realize the vehicle name was an anagram for the title of this post.

Driving across the Columbia River into Washington found me motoring through rain, snow rain and snow, and moisture in general. But it sure beat icy old Portland.

Christmas today was spent pleasantly at the home of cousins, surrounded by other cousins of many ages. Alas my sister had to work, a niece couldn't come out, and MDW was bushwhacked by the airlines' incompetence, missed her flight, got shuffled to Phoenix, and spat out finally in Seattle at 8:00 PM. But we're winding down now, on a busy Christmas night.

Merry Christmas to all.

Merry Christmas!

Interesting travel updates to follow.

U.N. Manny

Paul suggested this episode as a tribute to when the Animaniacs writers were in New York and took a U.N. tour. Mr. Lighter-Than-Air is Marc Drotman, another member of our old Acme Comedy Theatre improv group and the voice of Fatman from Freakazoid.