Every so often in our travels,we stumble across some fascinating little factoid to squirrel away like some tasty hazelnut – in the case of Sequoia, it was finding out that the General Sherman Tree, largest tree in the world, etc., etc., had once been christened the "Karl Marx Tree" – and thereby hangs a tale about the founding of Sequoia as the nation's second National Park.
In the late 1850's, the dying currents and eddies of the gold rush found their way into the remote Sierra. Individual white explorers, generally guided by natives, found the giant trees in what is now the park in 1858. (Almost all the natives would be gone by 1865, having emigrated or been killed by disease.)
After the end of the Civil War, settlers came west in large numbers; they seem to have brought with them the idea of naming the trees after people, specifically Union Army generals[1]. The General Grant tree was the first to get a name attached to it, in 1867; the General Sherman tree, in 1879.
In addition to naming the trees, there was a great deal of interest in cutting them down. Logging of the trees increased through the 1870's, eventually spurring people like John Muir to action. Muir began publicizing the threat the trees were under after a visit in 1875; George Stewart, editor of the Visalia local newspaper, began editorializing for preservation of the giant trees in the late 1870's. So, by 1880, the near-default reaction of the settling population – how do we extract something of value from this land? – began to be opposed by a new and novel reaction – we must preserve it for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. This new idea had already inspired the creation of Yellowstone, the first national park in the world, in 1872.
Into the conflict between these two attitudes came a San Franciscan lawyer, socialist, and newspaper publisher named Burnette Haskell. Haskell was strongly influenced by the utopian socialist ideas of Laurence Gronlund, and began trying to put Gronlund's ideas into effect. Under the Federal Timber and Stone Act of 1878, land deemed "unfit for farming" could be sold to U.S. citizens in 160-acre parcels, with the caveat that the land was for individual use only. The area that is now the western and central portions of the Park fell under the Act, and in 1885 Haskell and his associates were able to get 53 adjacent parcels in the Giant Forest. Once legal title was granted, the plan was for the individuals to manage the combined parcels as a cooperative unit. Abuse of the Act in this way was common, so not surprisingly the suspicions of editor George Stewart were aroused. He alerted the authorities about the potential for fraudulent use of the Act, and all the land claims in the Giant Forest area were suspended pending investigation.
Despite the legal uncertainty, in 1886 members of Haskell's group moved to the foothills west of the Giant Forest and set up the Kaweah Co-Operative Commonwealth, generally known as the "Kaweah Colony". The settlement established a sawmill and began building a logging road into the Giant Forest. They set up a school, organized musical and cultural events, established a non-monetary means of exchange, and farmed on land outside of the disputed tract. The logging road to the Giant Forest was a herculean labor, climbing 4000 feet in 18 miles, and maintaining a steady 8 percent grade throughout. At some point during this period, the Colony renamed the General Sherman Tree as the Karl Marx Tree. (It doesn't appear to be recorded anywhere if there was an Engels tree.) The road was complete by 1890, and a portable sawmill was pulled up to the edge of the Giant Forest in preparation for logging.
The activity of the colonists was a stark contrast to the languishing governmental investigation into the status of the land claims. However, George Stewart had been quite active – he had convinced his congressman to introduce legislation that would preserve a portion of the trees (but not the Giant Forest) within a park. The legislation sailed through the House and Senate, and on September 25 1890, Sequoia became the second National Park[2].
One week later, legislation creating Yosemite National Park passed and was signed into law. The Yosemite bill also, just happened, by the way, to triple the size of Sequoia National Park, and create a fourth park, "General Grant National Park", surrounding the General Grant grove northwest of the Giant Forest[3]. All the Kaweah Co-Operative Commonwealth's pending timber claims were suddenly within a national park, and the organizers facing legal action. The Cavalry was sent to patrol the new parks, as it did at Yellowstone, and the colony folded up and disappeared; the sawmills and buildings dismantled, the members drifting away. The Park Service reasserted the "General Sherman" name for the biggest tree in the Giant Forest[4][5]. Haskell apparently "died alone and embittered, addled by drink and drug, in a ramshackle cabin by the ocean on the outskirts of San Francisco."[6] The road to the Giant Forest persisted, for many years the only vehicle-accessible way into the grove, but eventually it was abandoned, and persists only as a little-used trail.
Notes:
[1]Eventually, Robert E. Lee would get one named after him, too.
[2]For the dyed-in-the-wool pedant, you could argue that it was the third National Park; see Mackinac National Park.
[3]The Southern Pacific Railroad is alleged to have helped grease the skids here; the idea being that the SPRR would not look kindly on competing timber interests.
[4]That the General Sherman tree was bigger than the General Grant, and therefore the biggest known sequoia, period, was apparently not established until the 1930's.
[5]There seems to be a persistent idea that the Kaweah Colony named the tree first, and the Park Service, in a 19th century burst of memory-holing, renamed it after General Sherman. The timing doesn't work, though; the colony didn't move into the area until the late 1880's, at least 6 years after Wolverton had already named the tree for Sherman. I think the idea had its genesis in Co-Operative Dreams: A History of the Kaweah Colony by a Mr. Jay O'Connell, probably the only book-length treatment of the whole affair. I haven't read it, though, so I'm not sure.
[6]From The Kaweah Colony: Utopia and Sequoia National Park.
References:
- The History of Kaweah Colony
- The Kaweah Colony: Utopia and Sequoia National Park
- Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks: A Chronology
- Sequoia: History
Looking back, it seems that it has been a little while since the matter of Thanksgiving dinner came up here. Today, the big meal has already been eaten, following the customs of our people; now we sit back, pick at scraps, nibble pumpkin pie, toss off remnants of sparkling wine.
As the household member who used to be "a scientist about birds" (as the daughter used to put it) it falls to me to prepare the turkey and all its related parts. I am pleased to report that all parts came off excellently this year – the turkey moist and flavorful, the stuffing savory and delicious, the gravy thick and rich. I pause from my journey to the pie merely to heap scorn upon those wrongheaded food scolds[1] (who obviously haven't cooked a decent T-day dinner in their lives) who rail ignorantly against cooking stuffing inside the turkey.
Why must people freak out about this? The secret (my secret, at least) is simplicity; a few basic steps, more or less adhered to, almost never fail.
- The Stuffing:
- Take about 1.5 loaves of french or italian bread, cut or tear into about 3/4" cubes. Toast in the oven.
Chop 4 or 5 celery stalks into quarter-inch long bits. Shred 2 or 3 carrots. Chop one onion into little bits. Melt half a stick of butter and mix with half a cup of chicken stock. Saute the onion bits in the butter/stock mixture. Or not. Either way.
Add 1 teaspoon each of sage, tarragon, basil, marjoram, parsley. You could probably leave out the marjoram. I just put it in because it's been sitting in the cupboard for a long time, gotta use it for something, right? I also would have added paprika just for color, but I forgot.
Find a bowl big enough to hold all these ingredients, or use multiple bowls. Mix everything thoroughly.
Set the stuffing aside.
- The Turkey:
- We used a 14-lb. Butterball this year, and it turned out very well. Tossed the giblets in the trash, of course; crammed the neck and abdomen full of stuffing (they say stuff it loosely; I say, pack it in, as much as the bird will hold – it is stuffing, right? So, stuff!).
Stick the bird in a big roasting pan, and give it one pre-roast basting with olive oil. Keep the wings close to the body to prevent burning – we lash them down with string. Cook at 325° for about 4 hours. About half-way through, pour about half a cup of boiling water into the roasting pan; I don't know if this does anything at all, but it seems to help with gravy volume, and the bird stays moist. After four hours, test with a meat thermometer: thigh temp. 180°, stuffing temp. 160°, and it's done.
- The Gravy:
- Once the bird's out of the oven for a few minutes, transfer it to a serving platter and put the roasting pan on the stove top. Turn the heat up enough to make the drippings boil. Put a couple of tablespoons of all-purpose flour into a small glass, add a few inches of cold water, mix it up thoroughly with a fork. Slowly dribble this mixture into the bubbling drippings, while stirring rapidly to disperse the cold drops as quickly as possible. Add salt, pepper, thyme, sage to taste. Or not – I forgot to add anything at all this year, and it turned out fine. Cook at a low boil for at least 5 minutes. Strain the big chunks out. A gravy separator works wonders for getting the grease layer off the top.
Anyhow, we hope your thanksgiving was as pleasant as ours. Now please excuse me while I get some pie.
[1]Mr. "Alton Brown"'s first seven words prove that he should never be within ten miles of anybody's thanksgiving dinner (or any dinner, for that matter): "I'm a big fan of Brussels sprouts." 'Nuff said.
From Moro Rock we went in search of big trees. After two days of low desert driving, driving, driving, it was a wonderful sensation to be able to walk through an immense cool dappled woodland. Moro Rock is adjacent to the Giant Forest, a large grove growing out of a relatively flattish region at about 7000 feet on the north side of the canyon. I think this is the largest single concentration of sequoias in the park; there's a larger grove on Redwood Mountain in Kings Canyon National Park.
According to the Park Service, these are 2 out of a grand total of 75 groves, almost all of which are confined to the southern end of the Sierra, at altitudes between 5000 and 8000 feet. This region has the most rainfall, relatively mild winters, and an intermediate rate of naturally-occurring fire, which appears to be what the sequoias need. Unfortunately for the sequoias, conditions for them seem to have been deteriorating over the past million years or so, and they do not appear to be reproducing at a rate that will sustain the existing groves. Of course, given the lifespan of the sequoias, the existing groves may not see any noticable change for a very long time (in human terms).
Our hit-and-run approach to the parks didn't allow us as much time as we would have liked, but we were able to take some short hikes through the trees. We went to the General Sherman tree, and were faced with what I refer to as the Big Tree Photo Problem. I gave up on taking a picture. (The Problem: I've never been happy with how my pictures of sequoias and redwoods have turned out, and I think I've finally figured out why. The problem is that I've been trying to take pictures of big trees qua big trees; to document, in effect, "hey, look at this really big tree!". For the most part, though, this doesn't work – the tree is obscured by other trees; it's so large that to get it all in you end up with weird, up-the-trunk photos; it's in amongst other really big trees, so that its essential bigness gets lost, and it just looks like you took a picture of a forest, with some pretty big trees in it, losing the whoa-that's-a-big-tree effect.
Looking at images of the trees that I find appealing, I think the message is: stop trying to take pictures of trees, and take pictures of colors and shapes instead. You'll rarely get the full tree anyway, so don't even try.)
After some brief hikes in the Giant Forest area, we ate whatever spartan lunch we could throw together from the pickings at the previous day's market in Visalia, and drove back to the General Grant Grove for our last bit of tree-hiking. The parking lot photo provides a sense of scale.
On the way to the General Grant tree, we passed one of the saddest things we ran across in a National Park; the Centennial Stump, a sequoia that had been cut down so that a cross-section of the trunk could be sent to the 1876 World Exposition in Philadelphia. The entire rest of the tree, unused and decaying, stretches away along the forest floor. The crowning irony:
This "Centennial Tree" was cut for the 1876 centenary of the United States and was exhibited in Philadelphia. It was roundly derided as a "California Hoax," but, of course, was the remains of yet another sacrificed titan. The fact that its reconstruction for exhibit was so poorly done is the likely reason it could not be accepted by a curious public as having come from a single tree. Even though the end of the Civil War had brought many disillusioned soldiers west in the later 1860s and would see these selfsame veterans name many individual Giant Sequoias for their favorites generals, presidents and others, those men represented too small a segment of the American populace to convince their fellows of the reality of trees of such giant proportions.
Though the climb is only 300 feet, the vertical rise from the canyon floor to the summit is far greater, about 4000 to 4200 feet. This is the view looking southwest, down the Kaweah River canyon towards the Central Valley:
Don't know about you, but our first thought was "Oh my God, look at all that smog." We had no idea that the Central Valley was so polluted, or that the pollution would extend so far into the mountains. (Well, ok, we're only about sixteen miles from the Central Valley here.) I'm pretty sure that in the old days, you would be able to see all the way to the Coast Range from this point.
Most of the vegetation visible in the picture is the chaparral and oak associated with the Sierra foothills, though at the height of Moro Rock we are firmly within the montane forest.
Turning the opposite direction doesn't improve the view much:
Though in this case the smoke obscuring the horizon is from forest fires. They seemed pretty big, but I've been unable to find any news stories for the time period (mid-August) that might identify what fires they were.
The peaks on the horizon are part of the Great Western Divide, a grandiose name for a not-particularly-important ridgeline that separates Kings Canyon and the Kaweah River drainage from the knifeslash of Kern Canyon. Not that the peaks are slouches in any sense – they are all in the 12,000 to 13,000 foot range, high enough to block the view of Mt. Whitney, which would otherwise be near the center of the image (where it would be obscured by smoke anyway).
[1]"The Sierra Nevada is renowned throughout the world for its relatively young and absolutely beautiful granite. There is precious little granite in the Sierra. Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, El Capitan – for the most part the "granite" of the Sierra is granodiorite... [geologists] say granodiorite when they are in church and granite the rest of the week." – John McPhee, Basin and Range.
So anyway, in the morning light, we found ourselves in this place:
This gives an idea of the size of the cabin vs. the size of the expedition vehicle. Inside, the cabin had 2 double beds (with sheets), a desk, a mirror, a closet, an old and scary looking heater, and an old black and white framed photo of something or other of regional interest. The back of the door had the first bear warning, telling us to get all food and strongly-scented items out of the car and into the cabin. The cabin itself seemed pretty flimsy, but I guess the Sequoia bears just aren't that ambitious. Overall, in terms of National Park accomodations on this trip, this place gets the silver medal.
There's another cabin off in the distance on the right side of the picture, to give an idea of how the cabins are spaced. The cabins all share a communal bathroom/showerhouse, which was a lot like the cabins; quite rustic, but clean and well-maintained. All told, this was a nice place, as such things go; the other visitors were quiet and well-behaved (i.e., they kept out of our way).
The previous night, after we had eaten our cold dinner, we laid our sleeping bags on top of the made beds and crawled in without bothering to get out of our travelling clothes. The showers gave us an opportunity to get cleaned up a little.
After cleaning up and breaking camp, we headed back to the heart of Grant Grove Village to try to find some sort of breakfast and coffee.
At the "village", we were faced with what seems to be the universal and ubiquitous breakfast everywhere in Western touristy areas, the all-you-can-eat buffet. This was rarely a good deal for us, because we generally don't want a whole lot of food first thing in the morning – a good pastry and some real coffee is just fine, thank you, no scrambled eggs and bacon in a giant serving trough for us. Some places we stayed allowed us to circumvent the buffet line, but sometimes there was no other choice. Here, there was no other choice. It looked less appealing than usual, because the staff appeared to be in the process of slowly tearing the whole thing down, and by the time we got there the buffet seemed to consist entirely of a few sausage links bathed in their own grease. Nope, not gonna do it. We had enough yogurt and granola bars in the cooler to count as breakfast, but no caffeine (except for two bottles of Starbucks' Frappucino, picked up in the grocery store in Visalia for emergencies). I beseeched one bored-looking kid waiter - could we just have two coffees, pleeeease? "Sure. Whatever." M. and I sat and drank our coffees while we planned the day. The daughter looked on in arch, silent disapproval of her caffeine-addict parents.
Looking at the map in calmer and better-lit circumstances, the whole "Sequoia Natl. Park vs. Sequoia Natl. Forest" issue became clearer. Unbeknownst to me, the trip accomodation planner, the cabins we stayed in aren't in Sequoia anything, they're actually in a tiny sliver of Kings Canyon National Park. Had we been thinking, or had proper maps, we would have taken a different route into the mountains entirely (well, maybe).
Regardless, at the end of the day, we needed to be in Yosemite. That was only about 170 miles away, so we could spend the morning and early afternoon at Sequoia. We plotted, planned, inveigled more coffee. Finally, plans firm, we set off, driving back south towards the main groves of big trees.
About ten miles down the road, it suddenly occurred to us we hadn't checked out, turned in the keys, or paid the bill. Oops! Backtrack time.
We traveled on, through heat and blinding sun, past closed rest areas (Closed? Why?), the slow rise and fall of the road as we crossed one crumbling range of hills after another. Past joshua trees. Past the turnoff to Death Valley, a place we considered adding to the itinerary, but decided mid-August is not the time to go. It's a place I've always wanted to see in person, to stand in the bottom of an active rift valley that is slowly pulling the continent apart.
"Of course, all the valleys in the Great Basin are to a greater or lesser extent competing," he says. "But I'd put it where I said – right here." With a pencil he begins to rough in a double line, a swath, about fifteen miles wide. He sketches it through the axis of Death Valley and up into Nevada, and then north by northwest through Basalt and Coaldale before bending due north through Walker Lake, Fallon, and Lovelock.... The Garlock Fault runs east-west just above Los Angeles, and that could become a side of the new plate; or the spreading center could continue south through the Mojave Desert and the Salton Sea to meet the Pacific Plate in the Gulf of California.... "The Mojave sits in there with discontinued basin-and-range faulting... there has to be a transform fault at the south end of the live, expanding rift. The sea has got to get through somewhere."
– John McPhee, "Basin and Range"
The stretching and spreading of the crust in the Great Basin will eventually split the North American Plate to the extent that the ocean will come in, just as is currently happening in the Great Rift.
Eventually, we came to Barstow, CA., about in time for lunch. We went into a food-court like building that was jam-packed full of people, ordered some chinese food, and then sat at a tiny table, eating, while trying to make sense of the map. How do we get to Sequoia National Park? Our map is nearly useless, treating with disdain conventions such as, say, identifying most roads or towns. We think we have two choices: a thin red line labelled '58' that would be the most direct route, or the thicker red line of 'I-15', which would be much less direct – in fact, it would take us considerably out of our way – but has two advantages; (1) it's the Interstate, and will be well-travelled; (2) it seems to go through towns, which route 58 seems not to do. The whole Episode of the Gas Gauge had us mildly rattled, so we wanted to stay on a populated, well travelled route. This was not a particularly logical desire, but there you go.
(Little did we know, because of the crappiness of the map, that route 58 is in fact the main road to Edwards AFB, with development along much of its length.)
So we headed southwest, towards the thickening smog and the San Gabriel mountains. We figure, once we get to Victorville, we can find a road westward – somewhere – that will let us hook up with Rte. 14, so that we can travel even further out of the way and eventually find I-5 northbound into the Central Valley. This plan works, but is not particularly speedy. After wandering around the suburban strip-mall desolation of Palmdale, we found our road, crossed the San Andreas fault (without realizing it), and began the climb over the San Gabriels. My main memory of this stretch – the road was packed, and people drove like maniacs.
Eventually, we reached I-5, and headed north, past Santa Clarita, the southernmost point on the trip, almost within sight of the Los Angeles Basin. We drive and drive, and drive some more; we cross Tejon Pass – sitting atop the jumbled terrain above the intersection of the San Andreas and Garlock faults – and drop down a long canyon that dumps us out in the south end of the Central Valley.
Two things immediately struck us about the Valley; after all the topography we'd been going through, it's really, really flat. Also, even compared to the air of southern California, the air was filthy. We could barely make out the Sierra foothills to our east. We drove and drove, heading up Rte. 99 through Bakersfield, Delano, Tulare... the sun dropped to the horizon. We stop at a food store in Visalia to cobble together something we can eat as dinner, stuff it all into the cooler for later, and drive on. Eastward now, approaching the Sierra foothills. Finally, up into the hills as the sun sinks away. Not that much further to the Park entrance. We might still have a trace of light in the sky by the time we get to the cabins... I start to relax, for the first time all day. The drive to the Park entrance is peaceful, and starting to cool. We climb the winding road in silence.
Finally, in deepening twilight, we pull up to the Park entrance station. I flash our pass, explain where we're supposed to be staying, and ask the ranger about how far and how long, expecting something like, "Oh, it's just twenty minutes or so! You're almost there!". (Remember, we have no worthwhile map.)
"It's 47 miles to the cabins. It will take you about two hours." Oh. Damn. (Actually, my thoughts were a bit more emphatic than that. But you get the idea.) Nothing for it, we drive on. How can 47 miles take two hours? Ha. I'll show them! At first, I think I will show them; the road, while curvy, is nothing that is 45 mph can't handle, following the Kaweah Middle Fork upstream. But then, the road changes its mind – it's not enough to follow the river upstream, we must climb straight up the canyon wall, in switchback after switchback after switchback. The sharp curves and steep grade mean that I can never get above third gear, and that only for brief intervals. Our progress slows to a crawl, as the night deepens around us. We climb over 4000 feet up the canyon wall, now in complete darkness other than our headlights. I discover a new fact about driving – you can use up a lot of gasoline driving long distances in second gear. The gauge drops, more slowly, but for real.
Finally, the road levels (mostly) and straightens (somewhat). We drive on through the night, the headlights periodically illuminating immense tree trunks. We pass a sign: "Sequoia National Forest". Uhhhh.... weren't we just in Sequoia National Park? And aren't our cabins in the National Park? So why have we now left the Park, and ended up driving through the National Forest? Visions of aimless nocturnal wandering through the Sierra pop into my head, culminating in running out of gas on some gravel service road... and then the bears come. We pass what looks like a lodge – not our lodge, but a lodge nonetheless, with lights on and people inside. We pull in, I get out to find out where the hell we are. It's cold now. I poke my head into the big main room, where guests are gathered around a crackling fire. They – a bunch of Aussies and Germans, judging by accents – assure me that we're on the right track. I'm still dubious – Park, not Forest, etc.; they're foreigners.... how would they know? – but we plow on.
Another 15 minutes (it's about 10:20 pm by now), and we come to road signs, saying the things we want them to say. Finally. We pull into Grant Grove Village, and I walk up to the office... are they still open? Will I be forced to break in so that we can get our keys? No. They are still open. They have our keys. Everything is in order. We find the cabin, and unpack the necessities in the chill, terpene-scented darkness. Tomorrow, exploration; tonight, eating our extremely delayed, cold dinners, and sleep.
- City Council.
- Jami Larson:
- Well, the local paper published an interview with her, and she seemed like a pretty good candidate. Don't let gov't expand beyond the tax base, make sure growth can be paid for, etc. Sounds good... wait a minute, "Jami" is a guy. What kind of Norweigian names their son "Jami"? And why hasn't he legally changed it? This raises grave questions... let's see about 'his' opponent.
- Erv Klaas:
- "In 10 years, I would like to see us have a light rail system between Nevada, Ames and Boone." Oh, God. It's Larson. Next!
- County Attorney. Hmmm. Do I really care?
- Dan Gonnerman:
- "[My opponent's] advertising alludes to the fact my criminal history is more than what it is." Oooooo-kay then. Next!
- State Senate.
- Herman Quirmbach:
- The incumbent, seems like a nice guy. Record is unremarkable, a lot of the usual tough-on-crime, for-the-Children! type stuff.
- Linda Livingston:
- I got nothin'; no background, no platform. Sorry, Linda. Sticking with the known quantity here.
- State House. Three candidates here.
- Eric Cooper:
- Even without knowing his affiliation, you can just tell this guy's the Libertarian candidate, just by looking at his picture. Not sure what it is... that mysterious Libertarian je ne sais quoi. I've got nothin' on this guy, either; I'm not even sure he knows he's running, as he seems to have done absolutely nothing to spread his word.
- Lisa Heddens:
- The incumbent. She's a mixed bag, as far as positions go, some I like, some ring alarm bells.
- John Griswold:
- Hey, he's got a blog! With a grand total of 3 posts, none since September, and one with the title misspelled. Double-edged sword, that Internet. He graciously links to Lisa Hedden's web site as well (she's "my opponent"; Mr. Cooper isn't even worth mentioning, apparently). Griswold's a mixed bag too. Not sure, but I'm leaning towards the incumbent.
- Secretary of Agriculture. Don't laugh, we're talkin' Iowa here.
Basically, a choice between big-corporate-farming-as-usual and some granola chick with bovine skeletons in her closet. Don't know what to do on this one.
- A bunch of people running unopposed. Guess it doesn't matter what I do here.
- Governor. Hmmm, five candidates!
- Diana Newberry:
- Hey, a real live Socialist Workers Party candidate! "Nationalize the energy industry... Immediate and total withdrawal of U.S troops..." Many positions stated emphatically! With exclamation points!! Thanks, I'll pass.
- Wendy Barth:
- Green Party. I just realized that while I've never met Ms. Barth, we have acquaintances in common. In fact, I'll see some tomorrow. I think I'll see what their opinions of her candidacy are... her website isn't loading, not a good sign for a software developer.
- Kevin Litten
- Libertarian. Hey, he's got a penguin on his website! Is he sending coded messages to us Linux users? Most of the site is devoted to defending the proposition, "You should vote for me, even though you and I both know I'm going to lose." Not necessarily a bad option.
- Jim Nussle:
- Republican. His running mate's already pressed one of my automatic reject buttons, as far as I'm concerned. I'd go third-party before I'd vote for these guys.
- Chet Culver:
- Democrat. Sounds like a run of the mill D. – raise minimum wage, new health insurance mandates, criticizes Nussle for pork spending while in Congress, but says he'll "aggressively pursu[e] more federal funds [for] Iowa". Culver seems to go more for the big-gov't.-project-to-promote-business approach, while Nussle seems to be more of a just-stop-taxing-them kind of guy. Really not sure what to do here. Ahh, maybe I'll just vote for "Penguin-man" Litten. It's not like he's going to win, or anything.
(Why is it these minor parties generally field candidates for Governor, President, etc., but never seem to do so for little positions, city council and the like, where we, the voters, could, you know, test them out? It might make a nice little experiment in democracy, as well as provide some entertainment, if we had Greens or Libs. or Socialists at the local governmental level, so that we could actually see what they'd do if in power, while in a position where they couldn't do too much damage[1]. But no, always going for the whole cookie jar.) - Congress.
- Tom Latham:
- I've been favorably disposed towards Latham, but he's made a couple of votes that have really cheesed me off. This would tend to dispose me favorably towards
- Selden Spencer:
- ...but I do have concerns about Spencer's lack of experience and the naiveté that seems to inform his worldview. On the other hand, Latham really cheesed me off. But if the D.'s retake the house, I suspect they will spend most of the next 2 years firing up the Big Impeachment Machine, and I think that would be a very bad thing. Might just have to flip a coin on this one. Oh, for a third party protest candidate!
[1]Ok, the Socialists could do a lot of damage.
Because we dallied at poolside, it's now fairly late in the morning and pretty hot. We've prepared for this crossing as best we could, topping off all fluids, getting static-adhesive tinted film to cover the side windows, stocking up on water. Because, all that frivolous talk of our ancestors aside, now we're crossing the real desert - not shortgrass prairie, or steppe, or a fairyland covered with big pink rocks, but the most desolate, most Godforsaken bit of land in the lower 48. And when I look down at the instrument cluster twenty miles or so down the road, I notice that the gas tank gauge is dropping at a rate about ten times faster than normal. Hmmmm. What the hell? Had I, distracted by foamy gas and stringy-haired panhandlers, forgotten to put on the gas cap after filling the tank? We had just passed the wide spot in the road that is Jean, NV., without any easy way to get back... well, at this rate, we should be able to make it to Primm, the next town. We drove on into the desert, watching the gas gauge fall and discussing the likelihood of finding a fitting gas cap in Primm.
Pull off at Primm, stop in the parking lot of some massive outlet mall, and check – the gas cap is intact, and correctly attached. WTF? We scratch our collective heads for a minute, then drive to a huge, extremely busy gas station/truck stop. Somewhere about here we also discover that we've left our detailed AAA map of California at home, and we didn't quite have the route memorized yet. The place is packed. (Ever since we approached Las Vegas, we've been aware of the feeling that we're surrounded by too... damn... many... people.) We top off the gas tank, go inside amid the throngs of people, and buy what turns out to be the most worthless California road map ever published.
We eventually decided that what happened with the gas was that with all the foaming and sloshing, the tank registered as fuller than it really was, and we never really filled the tank to begin with. I probably would have noticed that, had I not been distracted by the panhandler. As the foam dissipated, the gauge dropped quickly to the actual gas level. Satisfied that we understood the forces at play here – the universe wasn't just arbitrarily jerking us around, or anything – we drove on into the desert, into California, with only a vague sense of where we were supposed to be going.
