Days 183, 184: Travel and Chains...

Cash coffers getting low, I picked up an extra shift last night. Drove to the Napa Valley, with the intention of working the shift last night, and then catching a talk by Jeffrey St. Clair and Josh Frank at the Socialism Conference 2010 in Oakland today. Sponsored by the Socialist Worker Newspaper, the people speaking at the conference are an eclectic mix of anarchists, socialists and other malcontents. An interesting bunch.

Got up this morning and overslept the Ferry to Oakland, so I drove home; skipped the conference.

I commute 165 miles to work. One way. Soon I will be doing this weekly. I'm not happy about the carbon impact of such long distance commuting. Thus far, I haven't found a way to avoid it. Gotta work where the work is.

The drive would make me nuts if it wasn't so gosh darned beautiful! And rural. I take the back roads across California. No cities to hazard through. Just the Northern Sacramento Valley and the Coastal Mountain Range.

My three hours plus on the road often corresponds to overlapping a meal time. All too often I've given in to the Burger Whop, Jack in the Jail sorts of places. Lately, I've decided to frequent the local diners instead.

The one below I stopped at today. I got an overpriced Tri Tip sandwich (which actually was quite good). This place (The Oasis) is on Highway 20 in the middle of nowhere.

It's a tourist trap.

But the fireplace is nice.

And the long deserted bar, a good place to relax...

Tonight we shall take a walk on the ridge. The mountain lion have been at it again. A visitor just told us some turkeys were snatched away the other night from a nearby property (once again I awoke to the pop of a pistol). I'm not sure livestock, poultry and wilderness mix.

As far as I'm concerned, we are guests on the mountain lion's property. Such losses are to be expected.