This morning I woke up semi gung-ho and did a bunch of articles for pay. After that I took a deep breath and started another round of insurance-company chasing. Our phone line was acting up yesterday with too much traffic on the connection, so I had a poor experience trying to get quotes. But when one came by email and was over $400 less than we’d been paying, I figured it was worth the trouble and tried again.

For the last two years we’d gone through GMAC, the insurer used by Good Sam Club. They are specialists, but I always had a problem with them because they took five if not six attempts to get the spelling of my name and our address right.

I called up Progressive and after some slight confusion regarding what constitutes “commercial use” (believe me, freelance writing and programming is not commercial use), I paid up. The new insurance was $460 less; less for a year, in fact, than GMAC was for half a year.

Since $460 for an hour’s work wasn’t bad going, I knocked off work early and went for a walk to get pictures of the pretty Fall colors, then we threw some hot dogs on the grill Kerry loaned us, and called it good.

Don has been putting protective boards beneath the wheels with a view to starting Transmission Redux, and has discovered that our fridge’s control board is poorly, hence the fridge’s recent random behavior. He can fix it. More money saved.

The hot dogs, by the way, are Hebrew National, and were also half-price. ;)

All the glute-nursing worked yesterday and while I’m not quite right I noted that a motorcycle ride would be very nice. And so we looped round into town and took a road we never had before, Trinity Dam Boulevard, which as the name suggests skirts the reservoir, passes the dam, and affords rather pretty views. See?

There’s a tiny bit of snow on top of those mountains. Ruh-roh.

The fall colors are amazing. We lack the reds, mostly, of the east coast, but there were some pink trees. Most of them are a really sweet, golden yellow and when they catch the sun they seem to go. If we have a sunny day—today was overcast—I’ll have to do out and see what I can find. It’s nice to live in the general vicinity of lots of mixed forest.

I feel much better now.

This is my old battery. Because I’m quite experienced at getting the battery out, I even remembered to put in a stack of wood blocks so that it wouldn’t drop right out onto the ground and explode. Suzuki was not thinking when they designed my motorcycle. It’s pretty, and powerful, and I still like it, but it wasn’t designed to be worked on.

While inserting the new battery on Thursday I twisted wrong, and somehow yanked a muscle in my glute, right up to about midway through my left back. So, yesterday was an uncomfortable day, physically. Hobble, hobble, wince, hobble, so that’s what it’s like to be 90.

And yet…the bike starts right up. :)

3 June 2009: Beyond Honey Lake, the straight road of US-395 stretched out towards the mountains. It was already starting to “feel” like Nevada, even though we weren’t there yet. The desert has its own aura. I have missed it.

We passed a motorcycle recreation area, worn into the hillside. There didn’t seem to be many people around.

We looked in on Milton for a registered point of historical interest, but didn’t see anything that might be a plaque. A few miles later we pulled in at a gas station and Don made some changes to the transmission. We ended up being last in a convoy, since everyone decided to leave all at once.

We drove to the left of fingerling mountains, with their toes in bright green, irrigated land. The juxtaposition of dry browns and vivid greens never cease to impress.

There’s a lot of geology around here, with deep glacial grooves cut into the hillsides. As we traveled further and further south, the scenery became ever more exciting.

A few miles north of the state line, hundreds of train cars were parked. At first I thought they were traveling, but then I realized they were simply stored there.

What’s this we see? Border Town?

Finally! We’d made it to Nevada, and Harvey crossed his first state line. With a nod to Kristin…they grow up so fast! ;)

We wandered on down into Reno, quickly finding a Wal-Mart. A guard tootled up and told us we’d be good to stay for one night if we wanted, so we partook of that offer, gladly, especially since within half an hour of arrival the thunderstorm finally caught up with us and the skies, quite literally, opened.

We sat inside Harvey and enjoyed technical difficulties: my phone balance was low; I couldn’t reach my contact in Reno, and we couldn’t get online. My laptop disk was full. There were no snarfs, no casino, nothing but a big parking lot and, later, a burger from Wendy’s. It wasn’t quite the night in Reno I was hoping for, but you can’t win them all. ;)

After weeks (months, really) of obnoxiously hot weather, it looks like Fall is finally here. The leaves are starting to turn, and every time a puff of wind blows a shower of pine needles lands on the RV roof, sounding like rain. In fact, as a I write, a cold wind is making Harvey rock.

Today’s weather forecast is for the first snows at the top of the mountains, and frost overnight. There’s a steady wind blowing and the sky is overcast. They’re saying this is the first wintry storm; I’m rather glad.

Yesterday in Weaverville I noticed how hard the bunting on our drugstore, CVS, was blowing, and liked the way the shadows and colors played together. More than anything they seemed to be saying, “The seasons are changing.”

I snapped a photo, and this is the result.

03 June 2009: Coming down from Susanville with the sun rapidly vanishing, we still attempted to find a state historical marker in the dark near Milton, with no luck. We found our way to Honey Lake rest area, and spent the night.

It was already warm at eight in the morning as I got up to expore a brand new rest area (such adventures!). I discovered that it was pretty.

I couldn’t see the lake from the rest area, but a historical marker cluster told me that it was part of ancient Lake Lahontan. Pyramid Lake in Nevada is also part of that, and when I went to Grimes Point in Nevada, that also used to be on the shores of the huge ancient lake.

Things are interconnected.

The rest area had wonderful views of a dry expanse, swathed in mist. The road, highway 395, was flanked by a marching band of dark green, wooded mountains.

There were gulls waiting around as I left the RV, and the air was full of birdsong. As rest areas go, this is one of the prettier ones. It’s always good to wake up to misty mountains.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I found myself stuck by the freeway with the rear end (tail light, license plate) of my motorcycle firmly crammed in the wheel arch. It took around two hours of digging to unjam everything, but at least I stayed upright. It was all very annoying.

When our old mobile home was delivered to our old trailer park, it had tail lights in much the same way as any vehicle must. One of these lights was tossed under the mobile home and my DH rewired my bike and attached it. I’ve since had a very large, very reflective and very unusual tail light.

The other day when we got home DH frowned. The red tail light cover had gone. I was sad.

So he went to look for it and, as luck would have it, the light was lying by the driveway (which is rough and bouncy) in the direction of going home, which is to say, I probably didn’t just ride 40 miles without a tail light.

We switched onto highway 36 and plummeted down the steep road with impressive views down into the valley. A gray sky threatened rain, and I wasn’t disappointed.

It had been a long day, and my energy for landmark-hunting was much depleted. I decided to search for the two state historical markers in Susanville. The first was for the Noble’s Trail, a pioneer route which came this way. The second was for Roop’s Fort, which had given Susanville its original name of Rooptown.

I found both easily, though later I discovered that there’d been a Noble’s Trail marker at Roop’s Fort. No worries. I get to go back some day. ;)

Susanville was a sweet little town and I’d like to spend more time there. However, as the rain started to fall and dusk approached, I decided to call it a day.

On the way out of town, DH spotted a transmission place and went in to chat. He came out smiling, fairly sure he knew what the issue was now. The guy had been an ex-tech from Silicon Valley. Just a few things in common, then!

I shopped for food; there was a AAA but it was closed. Shoppers might want to note that not only is there a regular Safeway-clone supermarket, there’s also a discount store (like FoodMaxx or similar) and a Wal-Mart. Coming from the west, that’s also the order in which you see them.

Guess who shopped at the more expensive store?