And where are you now?

Well, Crescent City, which is more like half way to Portland, but I'll take it easier tomorrow and Friday. Most of the coast is exposed to the highway from here on out. Highway 101, although more interesting than Highway 5, doesn't follow the coast until just south of here. For that you need to take Highway 1 and I'm not up for Highway 1 unless I allow another day for travel. Been a while since I've driven Highway 1, not sure why.

I have, of course, managed to not pack my CF camera card reader for the laptop, so I'll have to pick up one tomorrow on the road and add any links to photographs here I think necessary. I obviously don't travel enough or use the laptop enough, why would I not have the CF card reader in the carrying case, why would I not think to check? Particularly since I have more than one.

But things happen, otherwise everything looks OK. I brought a single strobe in case I for some reason needed one, but no light stands and tripods and such. A monopod for the big 200mm f 2.0, but really only to show my sister how the weight of the thing can be handled with a monopod, not so much to use it. My poor 200mm f 2.0. Hasn't gotten much use in its life, I need to fix that somehow.

So, it's six in the evening, I'm in Crescent City in a motel. I forgot to ask about their wireless setup (they all have them by now, right?) and notice, yes, they have an unsecured connection, but it won't connect me to the Internet. But I suspect there's a way, just look at the welcoming brochure, ask the lady at the desk, go into withdrawal.

Otherwise, as I said, an easy enough drive in that I felt pretty sharp after a decent night's sleep, although the back was starting to hurt as the day was ending. I pulled over at a number of rest stops to walk it out. We'll see. I need to look at my map, check out what to target tomorrow as I should be able to reach Portland travelling at no more than a hundred and fifty or so miles each day, three hours on the road. Plenty of time for sightseeing. Yes, I know I'm treading on thin ice here, how many times have I said this before, but we'll find a way. I want some pictures that don't look like every other picture I've taken on this particular road.

Later Nothing about wireless in their brochure, but walking around the area briefly I noticed they had “high speed internet” prominently displayed in big letters on their motel sign. I was able to connect, of course, the problem as I suspected was the setup on my laptop. I know XP backwards and forwards, but the laptop is running Vista and it takes me longer to find the same menus and make corrections. I hate to think how much trouble I'll have getting it to work with the network in my apartment when I get back.

Bullshit.

True, true, but I'm tired and more than a little blitzed from the driving. We're lucky any of this is intelligible.

Enough. Tonight television. We'll see what cable has to offer here up north. The PBS News Hour is available, couldn't believe it wouldn't be, having been through here before, although I noticed Fox was channel number 1 on their cable list. Makes sense. Isn't it the most popular channel? I'd put it there too, if I were running a cable distribution network. I wouldn't watch it, of course, but I'd do what business required.

We'll see how easy it is to get to sleep later, how early I wake up. There's an open twenty-four hour restaurant next door. Breakfast there in the morning. I wonder what they have in the way of newspapers on sale.