The morning after wondering what the dogs were thinking we roll out at 5:30, walk the ponds and close the curtains but it ‘s still after seven before we’re on the road..
At pavement the “check engine” light comes on for reasons undiscernible, so clear out the beginnings of a rat’s nest to no effect and drive the remaining hundred miles to Alturas Tire fretting to find that, in addition to finally coming up with the flatbed spare [which Rusty gives me after all this time], it’s just some smog control oxygen sensor in the depths of the exhaust, though what the thing does and whether it will hurt the engine remains a mystery.
Reset, the light vanishes, at least until I’ve run around town and made it back over Cedar Pass for gas, learning that the secret bug-dissolving ingredient in Rabbit Trax’ windshield-cleaning fluid is Dove Dishwashing Soap. At the Surprise! Cafe I get coffee and an absolutely perfect description of the road down the east side of Lower Lake from Adrien so head south, hazy country, first cuttings…
No surprises; cross the valley at Eagleville then halfway down the potholed airstrip locate a vague track stage left, follow same through boulder fields, washouts and alluvium to the sodden remains of Murphy Spring.
Abandoned ranch buildings and an indifferent bull ranging about the muck are what remain;
After Murphy’s the ‘track’ becomes ‘road’, a considerable improvement, reaching 447 at the valley’s south end before noon [a movie]…
Home before one; a hundred and four in the shade of the porch…flat light up the desert from California fires [in Alturas they say the fires are in Oregon].
Nice little trip, food for thought and paintings.
M
lone bull? searching his far west
Plenty of cows around there…he just seemed indifferent.
yes, I was curious about poor Ferdinand as well, wonder what HE was thinking….
That east-side road enroute to Murphy’s below Lower Lake certainly became less of a road and more of a nuance (just like Lower Lake this time of year) . Summer haze, yes. Of course in Oregon they may be saying it’s coming from China; but Google reports there’s a 5,000 acre burn near John Day Fossil Beds (north of, uh, Burns, Oregon). Hopefully some lakes in Oregon still have water now or that fire may just go unchecked; like that indifferent bull…wandering around the West.
Doubtful about those Oregon lakes, and Lower has barely had water at all for several years now…not good.
Incidentally, the lady at the Surprise! [Adrien, owner of the cafe] who gave such a good description of the road was the same person we got those coffees from back in rainy November with Tom before our mudslinging adventures out east. She was pretty right about those conditions, too.
Ha, ha…busted Moore….glowing article about the area around Alturas in the NYTimes Travel section yesterday!!!!! Somehow your descriptions and images more interesting, but way less enticing! That bull may have been lone, but someone was cooking for him…fat and healthy!