Another fair day in Northern Oregon,
hoping for improved conditions as we head south from Troutdale into the
Willamette
Valley,
with the windshield wipers
mostly fully engaged into the
Umpqua River
country
near
Canyonville, then upsy-downsy in the roller coaster of the south as
Canyon Creek Pass,
Glendale, Stage Road Summit,
Wolf Creek, Smith Hill,
Sunny Valley (where? where?), Sexton Mountain, and
Merlin / Hugo. Gotta love these names.
From here, it's the Oregonian Endgame of Grants,
Table Mountains,
and
the
straightaway to
Ashland.
Up, up, to the Siskiyous,
the rain does not stop,
but it also doesn't turn into snow, even at the Summit (4310'),
and all improves (in this case, i.e. no more precip), as usual, in California --
down to the Klamath,
up and over Anderson Grade, and into
Shasta Valley and
Yreka.
The Mountain beckons like a
shrouded dream, as does its consorts
Black Butte,
Freeway Lake (more prizewinning nomenclature), and the
fog bank ominously rising from the Sacramento River Canyon. Beyond
Weed,
there's another
pausa in
Shasta City.
Will we make it? Sure, listening to an almost-all-Bela-Bartok repertoire -- chronological order, but some fragments, and quite loud, as Harriet and I seem to like -- down into the Central Valley:
Violin Concerto No. 1 (1908)
Four Pieces for Orchestra (1912)
Romanian Dances (1917)
The Miraculous Mandarin (1924)
Piano Concerto No. 1 (1926)
Violin Concerto No. 2 (1938)
with Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms (1930) somehow shoehorned in between the latter two, and serendipiduously cadencing in the driveway upon our return.
