California For Usenix 99

It's a two day drive from here to central California, which is where the conference was located. My stoppping place seems to be Medford, which is in southern Oregon, the state between Washington and California. It's 450 miles, and takes about 7 hours to drive, as it is freeway all the way. There's nothing too spectacular on this part of the journey. There is a fair bit of traffic to negotiate from home to the southern end of Olympia, the state capitol. And from there it is just a drive through the (pleasant but not spectacular) country to Portland, Oregon (more congestion) then more ordinary country scenery until southern Oregon, where the road starts to travel through the mountains. Medford itself is nothing to write home about - just a pleasant, somewhat overgrown country town, with a large number of hotels/motels.

I had no reservations on the way down, as it is not yet quite peak travel season. So I picked a motel, and checked in. As part of the banter, the clerk said something along the lines of "The rooms all have a microwave and a fridge". (Fridges are uncommon in US motels). "And also a bed and all the other things - you don't need to sleep on the floor". Ha, Ha. However, I'm not sure I could tell the difference between the bed and the floor - it was hard! And the motel was just across the parking lot from a Fred Meyer store, and adjacent to Denny's (the super-salad place :). So after eating at Denny's, I wandered to Freddy's to buy the things I left behind - pyjamas, basically. And I bought a couple of books, in case the 2.5 I had were not enough. (Which they weren't, although I could have stretched them).

Next day's journey was to Mountain View, which is a little south of San Francisco. It's actually part of the surburban sprawl which starts in downtown and seems to run on forever. Mountain View is a central part of "Silicon Valley". And housing prices are sick. Houses are twice the price of mine, and half the size. Yuck!

After leaving Medford, the freeway travels through Ashland, which is a small community famous for its annual Shakespeare Festival. It's a very popular place in summer, and I expect accomodation is unobtainable. Then the road climbs through the Siskiyou (pronounced "sis queue") mountains. The road climbs to 5000 feet (about 1600 metres). This time of year it is not a problem, but the first time I drove down was in January 1996, and chains were required without 4 wheel drive. The scenery is quite pleasant. Coming down the other side lands you in California, and the fruit inspection station. Then a view of Mt. Shasta.

It's only slightly lower than Mt. Rainier, and almost as nice looking. But being in a warmer part of the world, has a little less snow on it at this time of year. I stopped to take a couple of photos. It was a nice clear day, and was the first time I think I have seen the entire mountain at one time.

From there the freeway travels down the Sacramento Valley, to Sacramento the state capital, where I turn off and head to San Francisco. Sacramento is the capital of California. This whole valley, which runs much of the length of California, is irrigated, and a vast producer of agricultural products. Even rice, which is a silly crop to grow in the desert climate of California. The road itself is not interesting, as it is basically flat and straight. Nothing especially interesting to see, except for the various types of crops growing beside the road. And, of course, the temperature increases the further south you go.

There is a bypass road around Sacramento, but I have never been able to find it. Maybe next time. I reached the eastern edge of San Francisco about 3:30 on Friday afternoon. Already the traffic is banked up, although fortunately not in the direction I am travelling. I decide to take the route down the east side of the bay, then turn around the bottom and travel up the west side. It's against traffic flow, but there is also not far to travel from the bottom to Mountain View. I reached my destination before 5PM. I stayed the night with Peter Mason and his significant other/fiancee Cindy Williams. They are currently in the throes of moving Cindy to Peter's house in Brooklyn (the northern extremity of Sydney).

Monterey or Bust