Day 20: Battle Mountain, NV

Humblest and most grovelling apologies for the late arrival of the previous instalment of thee Automatic Diary.  I could make excuses, such as the lame requirement I seem to have developed for some of life's little luxuries such as food and the fact that the staff of the Ming Dynasty were not screeching around their restaurant on roller blades while on crystal meth.  Or the fact that teh Intarwebs in the Super 8 are slower than Uncle Marvo's pipe when "Thick Cambridge Herberts™" are downloading his The Product.  I should abdicate my position as the hardest-working man in show-business forthwith and

(six hours later)

Morning weather was quieter than yesterday and the qualifying sessions and 5 mile morning runs went off on schedule.  Which is nice.  Alan Grace finally got a complete run, in spite of having been blown clean off the road while practising yesterday afternoon, clocking 30.33 mph.  Orin Peters was delighted with his 40.9 and is actively seeking a bigger chainring.  Alexey Kiristayev and Vadim Dunayev both ran successfully, if a little slowly, in Tetiva 2.

Slippery Slug / Alan Grace

The wind was uncooperative for the five mile runs, though Barbara did a fine and legal 72.3 mph.  Alexey qualified for a Hat with a 52.3, but Christien Veelenturf crashed with about two miles to run.  She was unhurt and the bike seems only to have cosmetic damage.  It later transpired that a big blob of grease, probably from a truck axle, may have been the cause.

Velox IV / Christien Veelenturf - still upright at this point

Peter Borenstadt does not, this afternoon, look best pleased at having had an hour-long work-related phone call about Stuffs He's Already Explained. Ironically the car that parked up right by where he was sitting at the time bore the licence plate "GRUMPEY".

By the time we return to 305 for the evening runs, some Banksy wannabe has added the phrase or saying "TRES SALE" to the Mudstang's passenger door. This in addition to the Heavy Metal Umlaut added by John Jackson to yesterday's effort.  The French language of the former is clearly a feeble attempt by the Base Netherlanders to foist the blame on the innocent Julius and Barbara.

Today I am to be a Chase Vehicle Official, which means I am unable to take many pictures.  We only ran nine machines in total tonight as Alexey crashed at ~55 mph, Eta digested a spoke on its first run and Christien elected not to run at all.  Quickest of all was Rik Houwers at 75 and some change, with Jan-Marcel improving to 72 and Gareth Hanks to 70+.  Barbara complained of Noises Off, while Jan-Marcel had his chain fall off no fewer than three times; each time he managed to sort it out while still moving.  In a camera bike. The Mgt has been negotiating with the Nevada Department of Transportation with a view to the provision of a "chain-up area" handily placed in just the right spot to allow a dust and cack-free place to prepare at the start of the short course.  Jan-Marcel retorted that we would need three.

Thomas supports a knackered Jan-Marcel back to thee Rug ov Recovery

Some clever tactical nous displayed by J-M, though, to get a place in the last session when Eta b0rked down.

I am tired and need Proper Tea.  And sleep.  Bis morgen.

On things falling apart and the Failure to hold of the Centre: Light-fingered locals had already robbed us of a Several of bales of hay, which we got cheap because they were mouldy.  I hope you have to stay up half the night nursing your cow, you thieving little toerag.  The remaining bales have been marked with unappetising spray paint. We suspect that the pikeys cut the zip-ties holding up half the distance marker signs in revenge. The legs for the road closure signs are also falling to bits and need Twig Technology to help them stay upright and the tripod supporting the timing station's anemometer has had to be mended using a G-clamp borrowed from the Toronto PSOs.  Dere Santa, plz can we haz a new 1 kthxbai.

We have found a Scotsman.  Has anyone lost one?

Day 19: Battle Mountain, NV

Who are these creatures scratching at the windows and mumbling about BRANES?  Are they, perchance, the vanguard of the Zombocalypse?  Or merely the volunteers staying somewhere other than the Super 8?  The latter, I fear. It wasn't as cold as yesterday, but it was windy enough to make up for it. Still, it could be worse; southern Arizona, Nevada and Stullifornia have been lashed by the tail-end of a Pacific hurricane causing flash floods and at least two fatalities.  Right smack where I was a little over a week ago.  If you want hurricane avoidance, I'm your man.

There were supposed to be six bike/rider combos to qualify this morning but Barbara Buatois, yet to run her preferred Varna Tempest, preferred to stay in bed.  Adam Ince dropped Adam's Folly at launch yet again, and then there were four.  Al Grace had relocated his main camera somewhat inelegantly to the top of the body and got away OK, only to be visited by She Who Must Not Be Named in the front tyre.  And then there were three.

Orin Peters waits for the green light

Orin Peters had an entirely undramatic run in his home-brewed velomobile - a correx body on a stock Trice. Teagan Patterson had a couple of starting wobbles but got away successfully and clocked 42 mph in Beluga, while Jan-Marcel van Dijken finally got a run in, having borrowed Mats the sk8ter d00d from Delft to help with the launch and reaching 64 mph.

Thomas van Schaik and Mats the sk8ter d00d get Cygnus Chronos off the line

Time off while riders and officialdom moved camp to the five mile start and waited for the wind to drop.  Which it didn't.  When Damjan Zabovnik said "I am afraid" that was it.  Damjan is the Nutters' Nutter, and if he has Teh FEAR then it really is neither big nor clever to run.  Back to town instead for some scurrilous stories about TV's Burt Ward¹ courtesy of Start Bossman Dave Kennedy, prior to decamping to the Civic Center for the morning debrief, the Free Lunch and the Show'n'Shine on behalf of the Tinies.  It was also Bram Wielermaker's birthday:

CAIK!

After nomming as much as I could in the time available I wandering around the room snapping photos and dodging autograph-hungry Smalls until my feet cried Havoc! Enough! and demanded I return to the Super 8 to Do Webby SCIENCE.  Here is the outcome.  Of some.  Of it.

Tetiva 2

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Officer Aten (in hat) is clearly the Good...

Larry Lem's truck; touched by His Noodly Appendage

By the time we had to return to 305 for the evening runs the wind had almost, but not quite, totally failed to die away.  Plus it was very hazy, or so it seemed, which kept the temperature uncharacteristically low.  It later transpired that the "haze" was a by-product of distant wildfires, but whatever the cause it was not conducive to high speeds.

I had given myself the evening off driving sweep after last night's motor-spirit excitement and thus, after helping erect the distance marker signs, went to mill around the start area for the first set of runs.

Gareth Hanks tapes on his bionic legs

Jan-Marcel van Dijken's magenta pink trainer

Subsequently I decamped to the divers ranch roads for the second and third sessions, with a view to getting some snaps of the bikes actually moving.  I thought I had mastered the art of taking a rapid sequence of pictures when Le Tour visited That London, but I hadn't, hence the only action picture from Ranch Road 1 was this lucky one.

Damjan Zabovnik in Eivie 4 approaching Ranch Road 1

At Ranch Road 2 for the last group, but while I now really had persuaded the camera to take a rapid sequence of pictures, it was too dark for anything to come out save one snap of Ellen van Vugt too blurred to be worth keeping. Soz.

At least I could do 70 mph all the way back to town, after helping take the signs back down and slicing a chunk out of a finger chiz.  Ten bikes had been scheduled to run but Christien Veelenturf elected to sit it out.  All runs had wind speeds well in excess of the permitted maximum and speeds generally appeared to err on the side of caution.  Calvin Moes crashed Eta with about 500 metres to go - he's OK, state of the bike unknown but no news of catastrophe so probably OK too.  Barbara ran a 66 and Jan-Marcel a 64; other runs were quite quick for the conditions too but at the time of writing Dr No hasn't got the results up yet.  Probably because a large party of us went to the Chinese nosh-house afterwards and had to wait a while to be fed.  Scott Wilson finished his before mine had even appeared; I think they're a pretty small operation.  So that was Tuesday.  Please can we have some not wind tomorrow?

On the Nether Lands, home of degenerate dope fiends and tulip-eating Bennies on the Loose alike:  Even if they hadn't gleefully confessed to their crimes, there can only have been one team at the event who might have been even suspected of this foul misdeed:

Achtung!  Half-crazed Visigoths in da 'hood

Menaces '2' Society

I do not for one second believe that either the van Vugts or the Delft / Hamsterjam PSOs would be responsible, nor Bas the Camera or Mr & Mrs Wielermaker the Elder.  No, these crims are taller...

Hello to David Verbroekken and Frans Suijkerbuijk, who wouldn't dream of such degeneracy.

1. Robin to Adam West's Batman, that's who.

Day 18: Battle Mountain, NV

Hello, my name is Zombie Dave and I'm an addict.  What else would explain the alarm going off at 05:30 and me actually getting up? The first item on the agenda apart, of course, for the obligatory moaning about the time of day and lack of coffee, was to hold qualifying runs over a shortened course; the run-up being just over two miles. These are mostly to ensure that the machine / rider combination can be controlled without endangering anyone, and also to provide some measure of seeding according to an arcane formula known only to Boss Timer Jun "Dr No¹" Nogami, that some sort of start order for Monday evening and Tuesday morning might be worked out.

This being the first day of the event, HPV time was much evidenced and things didn't get underway properly until after 08:00.  Projected start time was 07:30.  Bah! The Mudstang and I did sweep - checking the course for stray motons, cows, alien spacecraft etc. after the road was closed.  Some people were more successful than others: Adam Ince dropped Adam's Folly twice on starting, in spite of their radical use of String Technology on their launch dolly, and elected to practice starting some more before doing it in anger again.

Most people just hold the non-bike end of their String Technology

The Varna Tempest had a flat tyre, which meant a rapid dash back to town to fetch its Battle Mountain sibling; further starting mishaps occurred to Christien Veelenturf / Velox 4, Jan-Marcel van Dijken / Cygnus Chronos and Al Grace / Slippery Slug.  It shouldn't be possible to bin a trike at the start, but Al's primary video display is a tablet, which inconveniently decided to flip its image umop-ap!sdn just after starting.  Al went off into the brush and rolled over but both he and the machine are fundamentally unharmed.

Dutch PSOs attend to Christien and Velox 4.  I believe that's David Wielermaker's wife with the camera...

Add to this some issues with the timing system (resolved for the evening) and the debrief meeting also running in HPV time.  Loud rumbling of stomachs ensured a quick-ish getaway to the Colt Diner for a very late breakfast / not that early lunch.  Al says he's trying to avoid the Wol Club whenever possible. I don't know why.  FTD was Rik Houwers / Velox 4 at 65.74 mph with a handful of other outfits besting 60.  Lots of photos on my flickr site and full results on Jun's blog - links at top right.  Teagan Patterson opted to miss qualifying in favour of further practice away from the terminally nosy and says she's now got the hang of starting Beluga with the full fairing in place.  We shall see tomorrow, young lady.

Rocky gives his considered opinion on how to fettle Slippery Slug's drivetrain

Most of the afternoon was spent Doing Webby SCIENCE as there's not much happening in the Super 8 car park these days with the Civic Center being open to the teams 24/7.  Provided, that is, the predominantly PSO users refrain from leaving the building unlocked when they're all out at the course and making a general mess of the place.  Bloody students.  In the meantime the We Hear department has learned that Officer Aten of $ROZZERS_Я_US has a mate who is a keen cyclist and would like to Have A Go.  There are two factory Varnas present, and only one rider.  Do The Math, as they say hereabouts.

Mike Sova and I are on our way out to the course, but dive into the supermarket across the street; me for fags and Mikey for potato-based salty snackettes which, incidentally, were foul.  I am waiting for Mikey to pay for his habanero 'n' lime flavoured Things when another customer notes that "It" has started.  Exit Mr Larrington at a dead run to raise the Mudstang's roof ere it turns into a hot tub.

Radio issues and general rustiness ensure that HPV time is once again the Order of Things.  We overran our permitted road closure period by the thick end of ten minutes, but at least everyone appeared to adhere to the 15 metre start rule which caused so much argument last year.  Speeds for the early runners were hampered by too strong a wind, plus the rain had dropped the ambient temperature a fair whack, but things settled later on.  And culminated in Rik and Velox 4 being the third person evvah to clock over 80 mph, after decking the bike at his first attempt to launch.  The timers initially thought that Christien was the rider, and there was Great Rejoicing, but the lady was, alas, sitting in the chase vehicle and not in the bike.

Nu-tech filming #1: the Todd-Cam

Nu-tech filming #2: the Black Helichopter

The debrief was quick and to the point, especially as Mr Larrington contrived to miss a chunk of it.  Because the Mudstang required an urgent infusion of motor-spirit.  Because the readout said "10 miles to empty" on leaving the course.  14.5 miles from town.  I did not run dry.  During the meeting the Russians invaded; no Sergei Dashevski this year but Tetiva designer Veniamin Ulyanovskiy is back with a new machine and two youngsters to power it. They're sitting it out tomorrow but should be in action on Wednesday.

On why Al Krause is a Bad Man:  Alice had already drawn some flames in the dirt behind the Mudstang's front wheel.  Al had to go one better:

The legs were added by Mr Larrington lest he be required to surrender his copy of "The God Delusion".

1. I've actually heard some of the Toronto PSO²s refer to Jun as "Professor Nogami" this year!
2. PSO = Penniless Student Oaf.

Day 17: Battle Mountain, NV

Al'n'Alice Krause got here on Friday and co-opted many of the Dutch PSOs to help out with all the heavy lifting and so forth; consequently there has been naff all to do here today except loaf around and take a few photos.

I posted yesterday's Diary entry fairly early and a bit went on afterwards. The first person I met on arrival, fittingly enough, was Georgi Georgiev, busy polishing the Varna Battle Mountain round the back.  Once again no Sam Whittingham this year; he has banged himself up quite badly crashing upright bikes of late, but I understand he probably wouldn't have been in attendance anyway.  The Dutch PSOs have been around for a day or two; the team from the University of Toronto have also set up shop in the Civic Center.  Team Cygnus is here, with new faces Sjaak Bloemberg and Erika (Mrs Jan-Marcel) doing their utmost to keep Thomas and Jan-Marcel in check.  A forlorn hope, I fear.

Georgi Georgiev polishing the Varna Battle Mountain

Hans & Ellen van Vugt arrived about the same time as I did, and who is that familiar shape getting out of a Chevy Tahoe over there?  'tis Mr Woolrich, travelling with BRITISH competitor Al Grace, who is to be riding the Slippery Slug handcycle.  Jonathan, Al and I had dinner together at the Wol¹ Club, following which I spent a pleasant time not drinking with the Krauses, Greg Thomas and Peter Borenstadt (sharing the ex-Gareth Hanks trike Completely Overzealous) and John Jackson.  Well, I was on the tea.  What the rest of them were on I wot not.

Late up - 09:00 - so I only managed to blag a couple of the Super 8's specialty addictive cinnamon sticky things before it was coffee only.  I spent the ensuing period watching Larry Lem, Eric Ware and John Jackson fettling Larry's old machine Beluga, last in action in 2007, for local lass Teagan Patterson to ride.  Teagan is small and powerful, a track racer and college student in Grand Junction, CO.  Update: she has managed to ride the bike without the top on and will be heading out again for more practice in the morning with a view to qualifying on Tuesday.

Teagan Patterson gives Larry Lem the Evil Eye; Eric Ware (F) and John Jackson look on.

Following which I took a stroll over to the Civic Center to poke around and watch the tool-wielding apes at work.

Eta, from the University of Toronto, gets painted on the first day of the event.  Unlike Bluenose last year...

Greg Thomas inspects the various bits of Shiny and Clever on Velox 4

Nothing much happening in the afternoon.  Everyone has vanished to practice or something.  I think Teagan wanted to get to grips with her first experience of a streamliner away from prying eyes and marauding cameras.  I had lunch instead.  Then it was time to watch some more fettling, as Jonathan and Al started to put the Slippery Slug together enough to pass the technical inspection:

Jonathan Woolrich and designer/builder/rider Al Grace winning the fight with Slippery Slug's front wheel.

Slippery Slug ready(ish) to roll.  Cameras are hidden in the nose.

And finally the main event briefing.  These have frequently had an annoying habit of going on until forever, or certainly until well after El Aguila Real - the Mexican restaurant - closes.  This leaves the choice of the Wol Club or the Scottish Restaurant.  Or tea and biscuits.  A Stupid O'clock start tomorrow so I will get an early night.

On dogs: There are dignified dogs.  And then there's Rocky:

1. If you're reading this, Basil, be advised that this Wol business is almost entirely your fault

Day 16: Klamath Falls, OR - Battle Mountain, NV

Cold this morning!  Not by the standards of La Poudre Pass, perhaps, but still nippy enough to keep the roof up until the first set of roadworks on Highway 140.  The first part of this was much the same as yesterday afternoon - a bit treey and a bit farmy, but pleasant enough.

Not far from Klamath Falls

It's always nice when you see signs at the roadside saying "Chain-Up Area", "SNO-PARK" or "Skiing Area".  These mean SNO (in the winter), SNO means hills and hills mean corners.  We like corners.

This state of affairs continues until well after Lakeview, where I am obliged to top up with motor-spirit.  The quantity remaining is insufficient to take me as far as Winnemucca, the location of the next "gas" station badged to a company I might actually have heard of.  This being Oregon, a Polite Youth does all the difficult stuff for you.  Self-service "gas" stations are illegal in Oregon.  I stayed in Lakeview in 2008 and met a man from the Oregon Fish & Wildlife outfit who counted among his cow-orkers a former mechanic from the McLaren F1 team.

More twiddly woody bits for a while and then things turn all deserty instead.  At least the builders of this road have sought to keep tedium at bay by permitting many changes of direction and elevation.  One elevation change is particularly noteworthy:

The road is the diagonal line across the cliff face and leads to the Doherty Hang Glider Launch Site, a spot where loonhouses like Ben Goodall voluntarily throw themselves into space for shits'n'giggles.  After this it becomes the Bad Sort of Deserty with added drowsiness.  At one point I am stopped at the roadside smoking a fag when a Nice Man pulls over to check that all is well.  Hurrah!

About the only excitement hereabouts was the sudden appearance of a strange black silhouette on the horizon, looking for all the world like a large pickup truck parked across the carriageway.  Here come Mr Obambi's Arrest-O-Bots, I thought, to throw me in gaol for stealing my own rental car and being politically motivated west of the Rockies.

It was a combine harvester.  So I finally rocked up to Battle Mountain unarrested.

Home for the next week and a bit...  No, not in the water tower, buffoons!

And all I have to show for it is a very mucky Mudstang, a big credit card bill and a nose that frightens small children; in addition to the expected sunburn it is also being worn away at the side by my poncy sunglasses bought from a poncy shop in the exceedingly poncy town of Breckenridge, CO in 2011.  This in turn is due to the said nose not being straight as a result of an accident on the dodgems in Brighton about thirty years ago.  If you should happen to read this, Mr Cottle, this is your fault...

Additional: My room at the Super 8 overlooks the car park and I-80 chiz.

On lakes: Emily seems to have developed a Thing about lakes recently.  After showing us driving across a lake near Sacramento the other day, she has twice more produced lakes on her display where none exist in RL.  This all goes to show something, but I'm sure I don't know what.

Day 15: Chico, CA - Klamath Falls, OR

Welcome to Chico.  Last night we had the emergency ambulances with their woo-woos on, police helichopters and the four-minute warning¹.  It's just like E17.

You may recall my fulminating on the subject of Spoons in Diary entries passim.  It was therefore with deep and lasting joy that I found myself obliged to nom this morning's Rice Krispies with this:

Spork Menace!!!1!11!

To the woods!  The first bit of today's route ran up through what appears to be the Lassen National Forest and although sunny back in Chico it was bloody freezing under the trees.  A corollary of the trees is that they beget logging trucks.  Loaded logging trucks creep around at 30 mph.  Divested of trees, the trailer is then loaded onto the back of the tractor, at which point they are transformed into fire-breathing monsters which are almost as fast as the Astramax van.  Beware!

These woods are also the haunt of the Bigfoot, or Sasquatch.  Disappointed not to spot one;

[mode old_joak=on]
The only big hairy thing I saw today was in the mirror.
[off]

And creeks.  Every river in USAnia not called a river is a creek.  There are three types of creek:

1. Deer Creek
2. Mill Creek
3. All other creeks - a minority

This hypothesis has been subjected to rigorous scrutiny by Experts and has recently been elevated to the level of Trufax.

And so to Lassen Volcanic National Park.  If I'd heard of this at all before, I'd probably confused it with that place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they drink Um-Bongo and watch gorillas.  It's all centred on Lassen Peak, which did its own mini version of Mount St. Helens back in May 1915.

The side of Lassen Peak which fell off...

I don't know what the place in like in high summer, but today it reminded me of a sort of mini-Yellowstone, only with far fewer idiots driving under the influence of President Eisenhower and trying to stroke the bison.  Lassen Volcanic NP doesn't have any bison, which doubtless helps, but it did have this character:

You may make a sort of "Squeeeee!" noise.  Just this once...

And lakes and trees and rocks and things and (cont. "Horse With No Name" by America).  Go and look at the pictures.  And motor-spirit was available for fewer than four dollars per gallon, delivered through a pump at normal "gas"-station speed rather than in the manner of the one at Crater Lake which took 15 minutes to fill up a Mustang back in 2009.  And I don't think it attracted the attention of this ["Thank you" - Ed.]

who, while waiting at some road works on CA-44 near the park, went walkabout.  Leaving his engine running.  His 6.7 litre V8 diesel engine.  For twenty minutes.  Berk.

Mostly downhill or level after the National Park; the morning's "gas" consumption was slightly better than 18 of the USAnian's midget gallons.  This afternoon it was almost 31.  A mixture of trees and farms, with the latter far more likely to send me to sleep.  A shedpoint for Emily, though, who found a route that knocked off about forty miles at the expense of a fair amount of boredom.

And so to Klamath Falls, for no readily apparent reason.  There is, in the fridge, a tumbler half-full of baking soda.  Given that I also found baking soda in the fridge in Wenatchee, WA, in 2009.  I therefore subjected this to the rigours of a Famous Web Search Engine and found that baking soda eliminates nasty niffs from your fridge.  And also that this is an urban myth propagated by baking soda manufacturers Arm & Hammer.  I leave you with the thought that in Lassen Volcanic NP there are mountains named "Brokeoff" and "Bumpass".

To the east Brokeback Mountain, to the west Benny Hill...

Edit: I've just got back from dinner.  The Mudstang says it's 24° C out there.  I felt cold...

1. OK, it was actually a fire engine...

Day 14: Sonora, CA - Chico, CA

Apart from being able to nip out for a fag without having to worry about whether your room key is in your pocket, another advantage of having a balcony is that one can brush one's Flowing Locks out there and discard the tangled mess (and if you have been driving with the top down all day, you will have a tangled mess) over the side and into the edge of the woods.  The woods do not look to be large enough to support a colony of Woozles but if I am wrong on this, they will no doubt appreciate the bonanza when making Nests for their Young.

Outside the hotel many of the parking spaces are marked "COMPACT".  "Compact" as a description of a motor-car is a holdover from the time when the only fundamental difference between the standard sized USAnian family motor-car and the USS New Jersey is the lack of sixteen-inch guns on the former.  Today they hold everything from a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle (which, to be fair, is only slightly smaller than, say, a Smart For-Two) to a Chevrolet Suburban (so-called because of its resemblance to a bungalow).  I think they need to invest in some new paint.

Where were we?  Sonora lies on the east side of the Sierra Nevada.  So does Chico.  Therefore the only sensible way to get from the former to the latter is to cross the mountains twice.  This was harder than it sounds as the section of CA-108 near the hotel must have been built since Emily left school.  She got all confused and ended up thinking Markleeville was about a hundred miles further away than was actually the case.  Getting there required crossing the Sonora and Monitor Passes (lizard conspiracists take note), which was all good clean fun.

View from most of the way up Lizard Monitor Pass

To add to her growing discomfiture, Emily thinks we can buy "gas" in Markleeville.  We cannot.  Nor can we buy it in Woodfords.  Eventually we have to go all the way to Gardnerville to get some, which is in another frikkin' state!  It's worth the detour coz Nevada is much cheaper, but I had to pay cash for it as the cashier's card terminal wouldn't recognise either of my cards.  I expect that kind of behaviour from pumps, but this is simply beyond the pale...

Then over the Carson Pass.  There is much Carsonage in these parts; you cross the Carson Pass and the Carson Spur, having followed the valley of the Carson River (which flows into the Carson Sink) and through the town of Kit Carson.  The nearby-ish state capital of Nevada is Carson City.  It's as bad as John Day up in Oregon (see 2009 Automatic Diary).  Enough to give you a Carsonoma.  CA-88 is quite busy and while one might reasonably expect to be stuck behind the odd horse trailer, I went one better by encountering a trailer hauling pianos.  No, really!  Somewhere near here, it was:

Emily fell into another state of new-road-induced sulks while skirting Sacramento and at one point had us driving across a lake, which is one better than last year's river malarkey in Pennsylvania.  The reason I came here was to have a shufti at the Oroville Dam.  At 230 metres, it is the tallest dam, and possibly the biggest pile of muck too, in USAnia, being an earth dam and a fair bit higher than the Hoover Dam.

It's difficult to see the size of it from anywhere other than a helichopter, and I left mine in my other trousers.  In fact, it's so well-concealed that you might just mistake it for a hillside if you didn't know it was there.

And so to Chico.  The Leo Kottke / Mike Gordon song "From Pizza Towers To Defeat" speaks of robbing the train to Chico.  A machine from California State University in Chico won the Seattle-Vancouver race during the first International Human Powered Speed Championships to be held outside USAnia, hist. fans.  Anyway, it's full of Penniless Student Oaves and the median age of those one might see on the streets is about twenty-two.  Which is why your indescribably ancients Diarist has stayed in tonight and is about to unwind in the in-room jacuzzi!

On yarts:

Teacher: Why weren't you in school yesterday, Johnny?
Johnny: I had yarts, miss!

YARTS is actually short for "Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System" or, put another way, buses.  A much better acronym than "BART" in the San Francisco area if you ask me.

Day 13: Lone Pine, CA - Sonora, CA

Bad Thing about this morning: I had hoped to use the remaining milk from last night to wash down my Pills, but the stuff had frozen solid.
Good Thing about this morning: There was one of these next to the ice bucket:

Sometimes known as a "church-key".  I aten't seen one for about forty years; Young People might like to know that the pointy end was used for punching holes in for e.g. cans of BEER back in the days before ring-pulls were commonplace.

So today I decided to go to Sonora, for reasons which may become clearer in the next episode of the Automatic Diary.  Lone Pine lies on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, while Sonora is on the west.  You can guess the rest.  A Sierra Nevada can look very much like this, provided the weather is nice:

Last time I was in this neighbourhood, in 2011, I nearly got a terrific picture of the moon setting over the mountains but by the time I'd rescued my camera from my room it had clouded over chiz.

Turn right out of the car park and north up US-395.  This takes you all the way to the foot of Tioga Pass, but I made a couple of detours.  First to Mammoth and further up the mountain to Minaret Summit.  Here be Scenery.

The Minarets

The town has a sculpture of a mammoth.  In it.  Frankly the stuffed one in the museum in Ipswich is more impressive.  Ipswich 1 x 0 California.

A few miles up 395 is the June Lake Loop, which takes one off the main road and past June, Gull and Silver Lakes.  I've visited these parts enough times before but have never had the time to visit such places, which shameful omission has now been rectified.

Silver Lake.  Just add water...

Thence to Tioga Pass, which is the eastern entrance to Yosemite National Park.  There are two things one needs to know about National Parks:

1. They make lousy through routes, and
2. Post-Labor Day, men in hi-vis take over the roads, which can lead to long waits at road works.

There are worse places to be sat waiting half an hour for the single lane to open than 7,000 feet up in a pine forest with the roof down, warm sunshine and bangin' choons available courtesy of DJ Random.  2010's long wait up one of Colorado's grimmer passes in the pouring rain, for starters.

Tenaya Lake.  In between two sets of road works...

On escaping from the park all I then had to do was find Sonora, which was exactly where I left it on the first day of the 2008 trip.  But that time I didn't have to follow huge logging trucks down the New Priest Grade.  Those in the know take the Old Priest Grade instead; with an average gradient of 17% the big rigs don't go near it.  And so to Sonora.  My room has a balcony, the view from which is not bad:

Street light artfully omitted from picture

I do not know what that grey thing is attached to the tree on the right.  I hope it is not a nesting box; if it is then the wols in these parts would look more at home landing on an aircraft carrier than perching in a tree.  Anyway, it's better than the view from the Super 8 in Battle Mountain, where you get:

1. The vacant lot behind the firework store, or
2. The motel car park and I-80.

On ladders: Many a camper, motorhome, RV or other outsize piece of glamping equipment has storage for Stuffs on its roof.  This real estate is accessed by a ladder attached to the outside of the vehicle.  I noticed this morning, however, that the ladders all seem to start about a metre off the ground.  How does one reach the bottom of the ladder?  One cunning chap had solved this problem by strapping an ordinary aluminium set of steps, such s one might purchase from Messrs. B and Q, to the existing ladder, thereby avoiding any undignified standing-on-a-box behaviour.

Day 12: Lindsay, CA - Lone Pine, CA

But soft!  What is this b0rked Black Thing outside the door of my room?  It looks like the mortal remains of a suitcase wheel, but it aten't fallen off The Luggage.  Strangely, there was an almost identical b0rked Black Thing outside my room in Hemet.  Wah and, moreover, Spook!

In spite of what I may have written about deserts recently, there is one desert that simply has to be visited if one is within a day's march drive and that is, natch, DETH Valley.  That DETH Valley lies to the east of the Sierra Nevada mountains while Lindsay is to the west is just one of life's little setbacks; we were taught how to deal with setbacks in the Gulag¹, though, so all will be well.

Oh Noes!  Mountains!

The route is at least as entertainingly twiddly as yesterday afternoon's little divertissiment.  I have been in multi-storey car parks requiring less steering input.

One of approximately one million of the morning's corners

Emily did not like it at all, and soon started pleading for U-turns and inventing non-existent junctions before ending up cowering in the passenger footwell.  Organic nervous passengers are one thing but I think it's simply too much that Garmin's boffins have invented an electronic one.

Eventually I ran out of mountains chiz and found myself back in the desert.  Ridgecrest sold me "gas" at well over four dollars a gallon, the robbers, and also a USAnian plug, which has subsequently been fitted to my travel kettle, Proper Tea for the making of.  Now I can have Proper Tea without using any of the four available BRITISH sockets at one end of the tangle of Anbaric String I have brought with me.  And it works, or at least the motel has not yet burned down.

Through Trona, where I stopped for "gas" on my first visit to these parts back in 2003.  Trona is a hub of the borax mining industry and as a result smells funny.  And not in a good way either.  Somewhere off to the east from the road in these parts is where Charles Manson was eventually run to earth, mass murderer fans.

I tried to find the back way into DETH Valley over Emigrant Pass but either it was the firmly closed road signposted "Wildrose" or I missed the turning altogether.  Towne Pass made a reasonably acceptable substitute though once again the Idiots With Cameras were out in force.  Lying down on the centreline of CA-190 while the Mudstang is approaching at seventy-five miles per hour is no way to ensure you live to a ripe old age, which is why I made rude gestures in your general direction.

DETH Valley is, among other things, used for hot-weather testing by motor vehicle manufacturers.  These two trucks were lurking at Stovepipe Wells:

Given the three or four identical ones I saw on the road and the fact that Paccar is the parent company of truck marques Kenworth and Peterbilt, it may be assumed that they were Up To Something.  Definitely Up To Something was this:

SEEKRIT testing near Badwater Basin

If you want to remain inconspicuous though, laddie, driving closer to the 65 mph speed limit than your thirty might be an idea.  Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America.  It was the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere too, until the Beastly Argies discovered the Laguna del Carbón, some sixty feet further below sea level.

Legs at top left are mostly German, FOREIGN leg-spotting fans...

You have to pay twenty dollars to get into DETH Valley, but these days you either feed your plastic into a Machine or cross someone's palm with silver at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center.  The Machine at Stovepipe Wells appeared to like my card, but wouldn't give me any proof of purchase.  Just like 2010.  I'll not bother even trying to pay if I ever come back.

Retrace from Badwater back over Towne Pass into the Panamint Valley², then over the next set of GBFO mountains into Owens Valley to Lone Pine.  Lone Pine hav a very interesting history if you are interested in hist. which few boys are.  Many pre-WW2 Westerns were shot here as it's nearer to Hollywood than Monument Valley, plus John Ford had already bagsied the latter.  Apparently they're still using it today.  Normally when in these parts I stay in Bishop but that's an extra sixty-odd miles up the road and I'd already done 420 when I got here.  Mr Woolrich has stayed in Lone Pine, though.  The other notable thing about Lone Pine is that this motel boasts a network connection so slow it's like going back to the genesis of the Automatic Diary in 2009.

On convertibles: I must have encountered thirty-odd convertibles (most of them Mustangs) this afternoon.  Only one, apart from the Mudstang, had the roof down.  Yes, it was hot (T > 49° C at Badwater) but I can't see the logic in paying extra for a folding roof, whether it's your car or a hired one, and then driving around with the top up, which is just like driving the hardtop version only harder to see out of because the rear window is the size of a fucking letterbox..

1. This statement may contain traces of Lie...
2. At Panamint Springs they were charging over six dollars for a gallon of "gas", the robbers...