Trip Home

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Our trip home (June 25-30) from the San Francisco area, driving across the country, was much more hurried than our trip out where we were crossing a state a day and stopping for an adventure or two in each state. There are far fewer pictures and only a few stories to relate.

Our route takes us a little north of our trip out. We head east on I80 and followed it all the way to Chicago. 

Our first path is through Sacramento and Reno where we had been on our trip out. Just outside of Sacramento we stopped in Auburn for a bit of "Gold Rush" touristing. This side of the mountains is green and forested. Past Reno you get into the dry Great Basin and big empty country.

Crossing Nevada on the I-80 has many more stops and lots more services than "Highway 50, the Loneliest Road in America" that we had taken driving west at the beginning of the month. It's an impressive highway all the way with lots of service stops. We needn't worry about a break down on any empty road. It's dry land, with modest mountains, and modest sized towns. There are some interesting towns along the way, if only for their names. Winnemucca, Wells and Oasis stand out as we cross this big empty country. 

We recall staying overnight in the casino town of West Wendover, Nevada on the border with Wendover, Utah. This was perhaps even weirder than Reno. The town is right against the Nevada border with bright lights, lots of casinos (e.g., "The Red Garter"), lots of gambling, drinking and general whoring around. Salt Lake City, where such goings on are very much frowned upon, is the largest nearby city and two hours away across very empty country — the Bonneville Salt Flats and the Great Salt Lake. We suspect the clientele at these casinos will be doing their penance at the Mormon Temple on another day. We arrived late, took a motel room and got our rest for the next days adventures.

We crossed the Bonneville Salt flats on a very long, very straight stretch of road. We stopped to expore the flats and later saw a bit of the Great Salt Lake. This is what the Great Basin is all about. Ringed by mountain ranges it really is a basin. Water to the east of the Continental Divide flows out through the Mississippi. To the west it flows out to the Pacific. Here it collects in this basin with nowhere to go. The Salt Flats, and the Salt Lake (it really is a Salt Lake), are the remains of the water that has collected here over the years. There's recreational boating on the lake. Oddly, we stopped at a tourist trap water slide kind of place on the lake which showed clear evidence that the water happened to be very high this year; a large Byzantine styled building was submerged in several feet of water!

We visited the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City. I had a girlfriend in high school who lived with a Mormon family so I knew a little bit about the religion and customs. I recall going to a very long Sunday service with them one time and I remember the family doing a "pilgrimage" one summer to visit the Temple here in Salt Lake City. I also knew that you couldn't go into the Temple unless you are a Mormon. But I wonder how they test that? I never learned a secret handshake so we didn't even try to enter. The Mormon rules against intoxicants like coffee and alcohol meant I was never fond of the religion and we didn't stay long in the city. And please don't get me started on the Golden Plates!

From there it's up over a mountain range into the cowboy/cattle country of Wyoming. I recall seeing some cowboys on horseback tending their herds. The land as you descend quickly becomes dry desert country and we cross the Green River again with a stop in Cheyenne.  The country around Green River is impressive dry canyon country. Not as impressive as further south in Utah but quite pretty. Kate has an interesting story about Cheyenne.

We stopped to visit the university in Cheyenne. While visiting the student centre Kate used the ladies room. In the ladies room there were a row of cubicles, a row of sinks and, near the door, a large couch/bench. When Kate was washing up at the sinks a student arrived, tossed her purse/bag on the couch and went off to one of the rest room cubicles. She just left her bag on the couch! It's a very trusting environment. We wouldn't do that at home.

On through Nebraska where we follow the North Platte River with stops in Lincoln (for a statue of Lincoln) and Omaha (for the Joslyn Art Museum).

A jaunt across Iowa has us crossing the mighty Mississippi River at Davenport. Then we're near Chicago, across Michigan and on to home.

Photos scanned and blog notes created during the BadAss.II Covid-19 variant and the Russian invasion of Ukraine April & May 2022.

Usenix/San Francisco

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We returned to San Francisco from Pacific Grove for the week of June 20-25 for the Usenix conference which was held in the Hilton Union Square. It's a huge luxury hotel just on the edge of the Tenderloin District. The accommodations were much better than the UCB student residence earlier on our visit and much nicer, of course, than the Caribbean Motor Hotel of Pacific Grove.

The conference hotel has a restaurant near the top where we had lunch one day and enjoyed the views of the city. The conference itself was quite large with workshops the first few days and technical papers on the last few. Those days I was quite the "Unix Bigot" having worked several years on BSD Unix (from Berkeley), Ultrix (from Digital), and at Western we had an ETA computer from CDC which promised to run Unix System V some day. The conference took pictures of all participants. Somehow I got a "Groucho Marx" disguise (glasses, furry eye-brows and a big nose) and wore it for my picture shown at left. The photographer got a laugh out of that. Unix guys, at that time, were a crazy bunch of nerdy geeks. I wonder if that's changed.

The Tenderloin District leaves a lot to be desired with strip clubs, nude girls and "all male live nude sex shows" at the nearby Nob Hill Theatre. But you're a short walk to Nob Hill and the Mark Hopkins at the top where we again visited the "Top of the Mark" for, on this visit, night-time views of the city.

One evening, we went to see the "Greater Tuna" play at the Mason Street Theatre not too far from our hotel. The story is set in a mythical Texas town  — "Tuna" the third smallest town in Texas. We went entirely on speculation, this looks like it might be fun. One of the authors, Jaston Williams, we saw several times in Austin in later years.

We went to a couple of concerts while in the area. 

We saw the Pixies fronting for Throwing Muses at the I-Beam in the Haight Ashbury district. I was really impressed by the Pixies, their music was uniquely jarring and there was nothing like it at the time (apparently there would never have been a Nirvana if it weren't for the Pixies). I collected the Pixies and Francis Black (their lead) music as their career continued. Many years later, on a visit to Melbourne Australia, I caught the Pixies on tour. Our friend Paul Dietz got the tickets for us. At that concert they wouldn't let me bring in my camera! So these pictures of the Pixies are what I have. The Throwing Muses didn't impress me as much but they are still releasing music (1986-2020). See the Pixies and Throwing Muses on Wikipedia.

At the I-Beam South, we saw Sister Double Happiness fronting for the Butthole Surfers. Again, this was entirely on speculation — it looked interesting. The Butthole Surfers, it turns out, were an outrageous somewhat psychedelic Texas band from San Antonio/Austin area. I recall one of them setting fire to lighter fluid on his hands. There was also a young woman with them who stripped naked and danced on the stage during the show. For all of that they weren't a band we ever followed.

Sister Double Happiness was more traditional punk, and we enjoyed them much more. We recognized the chunky intense fellow singing and fronting for the band. Isn't that guy "The Big Dick" (Gary Floyd) from "The Dicks" show we saw when we were in Cincinnati 1984? Well it turns out it was! And there's another Texas connection — The Dicks and Gary Floyd were also from Austin! No wonder they were touring with the Butthole Surfers. See The Dicks (Band), Sister Double Happiness and Butthole Surfers on Wikipedia.

The I-Beam South was quite a large venue, in a warehouse area, and we were far from the stage so I have no pictures of the bands at that event. I do have a poster from the event in the photo album.

While not at the conference, and not out with the punks, we did our fair share of touring about in the city. We climbed the Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill for views of North Beach, the Financial District and bay. North Beach just down the hill from the tower is oddly named as there is no water nearby — apparently much of San Francisco is reclaimed land. Chinatown and the Financial District with the iconic Trans America Pyramid are nearby. While tramping around Chinatown we bumped into the bronze plaque for Sam Spade (Kate is fan of those mysteries).

Another day we crossed the Golden Gate bridge (we must have taken a bus) and ended up in the pretty town of Sausilito. We took a ferry back to the city; there are some pictures of Alcatraz taken from the ferry. As a prison it had been closed for quite some time (1963); there was a period where natives had occupied the island (1969-71); these days it's a tourist day-trip.

There's a couple of car stories I should tell. I've already mentioned our fuel filter problem that had us laid up briefly in Green River Idaho. There's more to tell...

Our little 1984 Hyundai Pony struggled to get up and over some of the mountains on our trip west. Within San Francisco navigating some of the very steep hills with a manual transmission was quite the challenge. I recall trying to "feather the clutch" on a steep hill intersection in the Haight-Ashbury area — the clutch was all the way out and we weren't going anywhere! I thought, damn that's going to be a problem but fortunately I dumped the clutch, tried again, and away we went. Fortunately I hadn't burned out the clutch, that would have been difficult to repair.

The poor little car also over heated when fighting mountains, strong headwinds and when we were pushing it hard to make time. While in San Francisco I got an oil change and had the mechanic remove the thermostat so the coolant would circulate at full force all the time. That helped.

After the conference, we hurried back home. There's another blog on that.

Photos scanned and blog created April 2022 during the BadAss.II Covid wave and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Pacific Grove

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In May/June of 1988 Kate and I did a cross country trip to San Francisco. She had her KBS conference in Berkeley and I had a Usenix conference in San Francisco. In between we had week long holiday in Pacific Grove (which at the south end of Monterey Bay; Santa Cruz is at the north end). The picture at left shows Kate on the rocks at the bay.

Monterey Bay is the site for Steinbeck's "Cannery Row" and the remains of the Cannery Row are still there in city of Monterey. The fishing industry is no longer, although you still see lots of pleasure craft in the harbors along the bay.

We were really surprised at how cold the water is here, and all along the coast. Kate had hoped to go swimming in the ocean but soon discovered that would not work very well, if at all! There is a current that brings very cold water to the surface. There are beaches, of course, where people enjoy the sun, but dips in the water are brief teeth chattering adventures. We did see some people surfing but they were in full wet suits to stay warm. I recall seeing sea otters in the water and there are a ton of seals. The cold up swell current means the bay is very much alive with kelp forests rising to the surface. Lots of fish there with the otters and seals feeding on them. That sea life explains why there had been a "Cannery Row".

The area we stayed at is called "Lover's Beach" — there was an outdoor wedding one day with a mariachi band. There's a small sheltered bay, lots of rocky shoreline, and a lot of succulents along the shore road where these cute gophers hang out. If you follow the Ocean View Blvd, which becomes Sunset Drive, you'll pass a lighthouse at Point Pinos, and the "Lone Cypress" viewpoint, on your way south around the point to Pebble Beach and Carmel by the Sea. 

Carmel is a mucky-muck rich-folk kind of place. I recall that Clint Eastwood was the mayor then — there's a picture of Kate with a "Law, Order and Ice Cream" poster showing Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western role. Around Pacific Grove it is very nice, lots of beautiful Victorian homes, but more affordable than Carmel and less hurried than further north. The north end of the bay, Santa Cruz, seemed to be more of a "Grand Bend"/"Coney Island" kind of place with a big sandy beach and lots of carnival kind of rides and tourist traps.

However, we didn't spend all our time in Monterey Bay. One day we drove south along Highway 1, the coastal road, to the Big Sur area. There are lovely views and quiet sheltered bays to explore.

The "Roaring Camp" is an old steam-train adventure in the hillside/mountains just north of Santa Cruz that we visited. This was once a logging area, now it's preserved as a tourist adventure. There remain some big red wood trees. The old train is especially nice if you're into steam locomotives.

The "Winchester Mystery House", over the mountains further to the north of Santa Cruz in San Jose (you're really getting into the south end of San Francisco Bay), is a bit of drive but an interesting adventure. Apparently Sarah Winchester inherited the fortune of the Winchester Rifle company and began a life-long renovation (1886-1922) of this home. Many of the renovations are entirely pointless and absurd — stairs that go nowhere, doors and windows to blank walls. The mystery is what compelled her to do this? There are some lovely Victorian elements to the home: fine wood work and leaded glass.

We did a wine tasting at a shop in Monterey but didn't really "get it". It was early in our career learning about wines. We understood there were some good ones in the area but didn't find them and didn't visit any of the nearby wineries.

One night, near the end of our visit, we went to a folk club/coffee shop in Monterey and saw Carloyn Hester performing. Kate knew of her music (she's one of those early 1960's folkies from Greenwich Village in New York), I did not know her. It was a low key adventure — later in the trip we saw the Pixies and the Butthole Surfers in San Francisco! That was more to my liking.

The area around Monterey Bay is quite interesting. There's lots of beautiful scenery to explore. It was a very pleasant diversion from our time in San Francisco. We had fun.

Photos scanned and blog created April 2022 during the BadAss.II Covid wave and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Berkeley & San Francisco

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Sunday June 5 through to Friday June 10 was Kate's KBS conference at the University of California at Berkeley (UCB). We arrived Sunday having been in Reno and the Lake Tahoe area the night before. Berkeley is just across the bay from the city of San Francisco connected by a long bridge on the I80 which hops across via Treasure Island. We spent quite a bit of time exploring San Francisco — the photo at left is from a large peace march we attended in the city.

Kate had been to San Francisco before, this was my first visit.

We stayed on the edge of the UCB campus in a high rise student residence. This was the conference accommodation. There were two single beds in our room, both in rather ratty condition, but we pushed them together to make a double bed and made the best of it. There are some views from our room of the campus in the album. Many of Kate's conference friends stayed in the residence as well.

This was Kate's first KBS conference and we learned how fun loving (i.e., crazy) some of the KBS folk, and especially our Scandinavian friends, can be. Kate got invited to play poker with the boys one night and we shared several dinners together with new KBS friends. The Scandinavians would party really hard and yet make it to the morning sessions the next day. On our last night a friend from Norway, who had been partying all night with like minded folk, woke us about 4:00am to give us a drunken good bye — he was catching an airplane back home in a few hours but had stayed up all night!

While there were occasions where we drove over to the city, mostly we rode the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and public transit. The BART is pretty comprehensive and, at the time, fairly unique in that there were no drivers on the cars! They are completely automated. For someone with an IT background this is interesting and a little unnerving ... do we really trust computers to get us there safely?

We'd ride the BART over to the Powell and Market subway station where you could queue up and catch the old cable cars at an end of the line turntable. These cable cars are a signature element of any visit to the city and there are several lines to explore. They're very old, quite small, open cars, with limited seating, and many people will stand to hang off the side of them. They're pulled around the city on various cable lines which run just under the street that the driver latches onto. This mechanism requires a fair amount of effort from the "driver" who is in the middle of the car operating huge levers to catch and grip onto the cable. There must be a fair number of accidents over the years — people falling off and vehicular traffic getting in the way of the cable cars which aren't as nimble at starting and stopping with drivers who really don't have a good view of the road ahead. They're fun to ride but definitely not for the disabled!

From the Powell & Market Station we rode the cable cars over to Fisherman's Wharf for views of the harbor and Alcatraz island out in the bay. The path taken by the cable car takes you up a very steep rise on Powell, past Union Square, and up to Nob Hill (we visited the "Top of the Mark" on Nob Hill, where we stayed years later for a Club Health conference, for the view another day) then a few turns, past Lombard Street (the scenic twisty street with 8 switch backs that descends from Russian Hill), before heading down to Fisherman's Wharf.

At Fisherman's Wharf there's fresh hot crabs and other treats to buy. There boats in the harbor and seals sunning themselves. We wandered our way back along Columbus Ave with views of the iconic Transamerica Pyramid building to find our way into China Town where we had a meal with our friend Chris who explored the city with us. This is a huge China Town, much larger than any I've ever been to. There are lots of great restaurants with affordable, and authentic, meals to enjoy. Lots of shops too. We discovered that they even have Chinese versions of Playboy and Penthouse magazines! I'm not sure if that's only for the local market or they're imports, from China, using these well known titles.

Another day Kate and I wandered along the Presidio and Marine Greens to the immediate west of Fisherman's Wharf for views of the Golden Gate bridge which crosses over the San Francisco Bay to Sausalito on the north shore. The "Palace of Fine Arts" is a lovely spot to visit just at the edge of the Presidio. It was part of the Panama Pacific International Exposition held in 1915 and has been maintained as a beautiful garden space.

Another day we visited "Golden Gate Park". It's a huge parkland extended for a great distance to the shores of the Pacific. We visited the Green House and Japanese Gardens.

We did get out to Alamo Square for some pictures of the "Painted Ladies". This is a group of lovely free-standing Victorian homes, immaculately maintained, and prettily posed with the city behind them. It's another iconic location. But these homes are fairly representative of what you find as you wander the many hills of the city. There are lots of lovely Victorian homes. They're pretty much all wooden construction, in pastel colors, with fancy details. In the city itself, these tend to be more row-house with little by way of garden space.

There are quite a few characters to see on the street. Especially around Haight-Ashbury which still vibrates from the music scene of decades ago. Late in our trip we went to a Pixies concert in the area. The album has photos of some of the characters spotted on the street.

While visiting there was a bit of an earthquake centered over San Jose (there's a clipping in the photo album). We were laying in bed and I asked Kate, "Did the earth move for you?". It's really no laughing matter; a devastating earthquake hit the next year:

"On October 17, 1989, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay Area, killing 67 people and causing more than $5 billion in damages." ... from the History Channel

Photos scanned and blog created April 2022 during the BadAss.II Covid wave and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Reno

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Today it's a bit of a drive through the last of Nevada on the "Loneliest Road in America" to arrive in Reno where we stay overnight.

This is Reg's first visit to a state where gambling is legal, even encouraged. In Nevada, even on the loneliest of roads, and even in the smallest of towns, there's slot machines/one armed bandits in all the bars and restaurants.  In Reno, "The Biggest Little City in the World", there's a ton of them. Casinos of all sorts, Fitzgeralds, Hurrahs, and more, with flashing neon lights, the clinking and blinking of the slots and lots of interesting characters. Some bowling league/conference is in town. We meet a character on the street who has a nice friendly dog wearing sunglasses. The casinos are filled with lots of aged tourists, and bowlers, happy to lose their money.

For our dinner, we have a table side Caesar Salad made by the server at a very nice white table cloth restaurant overlooking the Truckee River. Reg observes carefully and this becomes the important lesson on how to make the salad which becomes a regular feature in our diet for the years to come.

Kate and I do play some blackjack and feed some of the slots in the casinos but mostly we marvel at the bright lights on "The Strip". We take a $20 "grub stake" each, leave our wallets behind, and promise that when that's gone we'll not spend any more. At most casinos, they'll serve you free drinks hoping that you'll play until your grub stake is gone and you're deep in debt. Many people come to town with a wad they expect to leave behind hoping that they might strike it rich but at least have a few free drinks.

Kate tells me that she's been here years ago with her former partner Steve, when they lived in Vancouver. He like gambling, cards, and such. It's a fair drive from Vancouver (a full long day) but one of the closer places where gambling is legal. It's also just a short distance from California to the west where gambling, and casinos like these, are not legal. Likewise on the other side of the state, gambling in Nevada appeals to tourists from Utah (the Mormon state) where gambling and drinking are either illegal or frowned upon.

I find the gambling culture very strange, but interesting nonetheless, and I'm not keen to lose money so honor Kate's $20 grub stake rule. We would hate to have to hock the car to pay off a big losing streak. In years to come we return to Nevada many times, often to Las Vegas where the gambling is at a whole other level, for access to the desert country we've come to admire on this trip. 

Casinos are interesting, especially those that have big shows, but gambling has never appealed to either of us. Certainly not as much as the beauty of the desert country we've spent the last few days exploring.

Photos scanned and blog created April 2022 during the BadAss.II Covid wave and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Loneliest Road

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On our drive across the USA to California our day begins in Green River, Utah where our trusty 1984 Hyundai Pony fails as we start our day. It just sputters and quits as we try to get back onto the interstate. Not a good start to our day.

Fortunately our CAA (Canadian Automobile Association) membership is honored by the AAA (American version of the same club) and we are towed to a nearby garage. They've never seen a car like this before and, if parts are required, we could be here for a while. Fortunately the car is pretty simple and the mechanic MacGyver fixes some problem with the fuel filter and we're on our way. The rusted ruins of vehicles that could not be repaired litter the yard at "S&S Garage and Towing". It's a lonely town and we'd not want to be stuck here.

At this point there's a decision to be made. Should we follow the Interstate Highway System (heading north towards Salt Lake City or south towards Las Vegas) or should we take US Route 50, the "Loneliest Road in America", across Nevada to Reno? Brave souls, we take the road less travelled. In spite of our recent car problems!

On this loneliest road, and it truly is a very lonely road, we have a couple of adventures. Lehman Caves and Wheeler Peak are a little ways off the road in the Great Basin National Park (1986). The caves are fun to explore on a guided tour with a ranger — it's cool underground and there's lots of stalactites, stalagmites and other underground features. Wheeler Peak is a long steep road up to 10,000' where there's still snow on the mountain tops. 

Our little car struggles on the steep incline and we decide to not push on to the top. Our little car is like the "Little Engine that Could" in the childhood story: "I think I can, I think I can, ...". It's been a struggle to get up some of the steep peaks on this trip. Sometimes the little Pony's appropriate response is: "No I can't, No I can't! Stop pushing me!".

The road through Nevada is indeed very pretty lonely with not much traffic. There's very few cars on the road and a very few small towns: Ely, Eureka and Austin are gas/rest stops along the way before Reno. We see free range cattle wandering the road side as we drive and one bloated corpse of a poor beast that met it's maker. But the air is clean with the fragrant smell of spring flowers and small juniper trees. We enjoy the vistas and are happy to explore this part of the world. We fall in love with the desert country and promise to return to see more in years to come.

As evening settles the road side glistens with reflections from broken glass — beer and soda bottles tossed by others on this road less travelled.

Photos scanned and blog created April 2022 during the BadAss.II Covid wave and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Colorado National Monument

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Today, on our cross country drive to California, we're in the high and dry desert country of Colorado on the west side of the Continental Divide.

We visit another train station in Glenwood Springs and the nearby Colorado National Monument.  This is an amazing bit of canyon country. We explore the park and drive along a tourist route on the top of the canyon lands. We are impressed by the views, the steep cliffs and the weathered stone.

Along the way there's some wild life — we spot a deer and there are small lizards basking in the sun. This looks a bit like the Grand Canyon we visit in later years but nothing near as large or as steep. Nevertheless, it's impressive and our first experience with the beauty and majesty of the American west.

In the picture at left you can see a bit of river in the distance. That is actually the Colorado River which flows through the American West through the Canyon Lands, to Lake Powell, the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead and on to the Gulf of California and Mexico. On this side of the Continental Divide rivers flow to the west and drain into the Pacific Ocean. The Colorado River drains a huge part of the country — mostly dry country but an impressive river in parts.

We drive on through Colorado and into Utah where we stay overnight in Green River. Along the way there's lots more impressive country side to see.

Photos scanned and blog created April 2022 during the BadAss.II Covid wave and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Hanging Lake

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On our cross country drive to California today is our first day "in the mountains". We're following I70 to the west having left Denver and the plains behind us to the east. We cross over the continental divide at the Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnels (1973 & 1979) which are very high at nearly 11,000' — it would appear there's no nearby mountain pass. This is an impressive bit of engineering: two tunnels each with two lanes of traffic that bore nearly 2 miles through the mountain! It's one of the highest vehicle tunnels in the world.

There are lots of ski slopes and chair lifts visible as we enter the tunnels (this is the Loveland Ski Area). There's more skiing on the other side.

Descending the other side we visit the city of Vail, another skiing destination, but neither of us ski. This is an expensive tourist place, nothing like Idaho Springs. It's more like the land of very posh ski-bunnies. But we can say, we've been there. Didn't stay long, but were there.

In the mountains, on parts of the I70, there are runaway truck ramps on the steeper descents — should brakes fail the trucks can go into these ramps which go back up the hill and safely come to a stop in the loose gravel. Reg's dad has a trucking company and he is interested in the many big rigs we see on the road.

The I70 follows some very narrow passes through the mountains and road work is pretty constant with repairs and road enhancements. There are opportunities to get out of the car and stretch your legs while awaiting your turn to go through the construction.

Along the way Kate has spotted "Hanging Lake" on "Dead Horse Canyon" in our AAA travel guide and we stop to explore. It's a bit of hike off the road up to this "Hanging Lake" (no, not that kind of hanging but probably that kind of dead horse) and along the way there's yet another "Bridal Veil Falls". 

The day is sunny and bright, the air is so clear and clean. The mountains are lovely.

Photos scanned and blog created April 2022 during the BadAss.II Covid wave and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.