Just back from our winter vacation road trip. As a child I was subjected to a good many such, albeit more usually in the range of 4000 miles than 400. For this first such jaunt my little family decided to take it easy: 400 up, 400 back, and we split that first 400 right about in the middle. Our itinerary is shown here. In a nutshell, we drove through the hills of Marin into the flat farmland (rice, among other things, and not a terrace to be seen) up the Central Valley, stopped in Redding where the mountains start, then through the high (5000 feet+) country to Klamath Falls, Oregon, there to visit our good friend Shanna. A few photos from the drive:
As amazing as was the natural beauty (actually the second photo above is as artificial as it comes), I was at least as impressed by this man made wonder:
I couldn't resist asking the tour guide if the Shasta Dam as a project completed on time. No, she replied, it was finished ahead of schedule. The second largest dam in the US, 6,270,000 cu yd of poured concrete, seven years: almost restores my faith in project planning. Felix, incidentally, was very impressed, and has repeatedly expressed his desire to work on raising the dam's height, a project currently under consideration and one which, I can't help but suspect, will run over schedule should it ever even begin.
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