Excuse me while I snort coffee through my nose.

I’ve been reading a book about the Chicago World’s Fair and enjoying it immensely. I finally got around to dinking around online, only to discover that the official World’s Fair website is Flash-only (and I won’t go into why I think that’s a stupid design choice right now).

So I try to click their map to see which countries are involved, because I find events that include hundreds of different countries quite moving overall, and get the error message depicted above.

And, given that the book is The Devil in the White City…

So it’s true! The world really has gone to hell in a handbasket!

Winter, apparently, has landed with a thud. The other day we realized that we simply are not getting out of here anytime soon. And it’s ok. Kerry loaned us a vast tarp and we hooked it over the top of Harvey. There. It’s a few degrees warmer, and we can stay now.

Last year moisture from snow and rain settled into our roof and the constant freeze and thaw got into the woodwork, causing damage. Our transmission is not fixed, we did the math, and it looks like staying is the lesser of several evils.

It is cold, yes. And winter has arrived, with the sun often not making it through the fog which comes up with dawn every day. But it is familiar here, safe, and there is a support system. We will do fine as the mountains slowly become snow-spotted and the golden leaves fall from the trees. It is a relief, in many ways, to just let go and make the decision.

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.