Cziltang's Ratlands

Notes from the Road
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My family and I spent the past week going to Oregon for my wife's grandfather's funeral. For a variety of reasons we drove out, which is about a 3600 mile round trip. I wrote a bit during the first half of the trip and am posting the notes below. After the funeral, we spent a lot of time with (new) friends and (adopted) family which I enjoyed in the moment, rather than writing about (which is not always the case with me).

May 28, 2004

Participated in the (hopefully) Last Annual Overpowering Stink Festival somewhere in Nebraska. I-80 goes by one of the most offensively aromatic feedlots I've ever been around. Both the Head Rat and I have spent our share of time in rural environments, but both of us were stunned by how truly horrible the stench was. 5 minutes down the road, when we had finally gotten the truck aired out we came across a dead skunk in the road.

Update: 6/5/04: The festival continues as powerfully as ever. I don't know what they are doing at this feedlot, but there has to be science involved in creating a stink like this. You can't get cows to make smells like this by just giving them food.

May 29, 2004

We saw dozens of antelope in Wyoming. In one day I saw more antelope than I've seen deer in the last 10 years in Kansas. I see deer roadkill routinely in Kansas, but I've never once seen an antelope roadkill. I'm not sure why I think that is significant, but the fact did catch my attention. Another thing I thought was interesting is that the only deer we saw on the way out was standing by the side of the road near the John Day Dam in Oregon.

There is a restaurant in Rawlings, Wyoming that serves a pretty tasty breakfast burrito smothered in chili. In retrospect, however, I would have to say I cannot recommend it to other travelers, unless you are planning to be travelling with the windows open. I was going to make a note of the the name of the place, but we left in rather a hurry. The natives were giving us the evil eye. It may have had something to do with the Head Rat backing into their flagpole.

It occurs to me that I should mention that there was no damage to either the Ratmobile or the flagpole. Apparently they sink flagpoles in quite a bit of concrete in Wyoming.

May 30, 2004

I sometimes bring one of the old junk laptops from work with me when I'm travelling. It lets me keep in touch with my staff via e-mail and I occasionally get some work done on policy updates and other projects. The up side, for me, is that I also get to keep up with my regular reading from the internet and check out the web sites from local establishments. I deliberately left the laptop at home this time. I figured a funeral trip just wasn't the time for work-related computing (or internet surfing, for that matter).

So, I'm sitting in a motel room sort of watching TV with a crappy picture and a poor cable selection, thinking there are about 9 blogs I wish I were reading about now and I saw billboards for three local businesses I could be checking out and I was thinking about researching the Columbia River National Historic Highway (or whatever it is called) to see when it was laid out and when the bridges along the route were contructed and if it pre-dates the dams along the Columbia.

It is amazing to me how dependent I've become on access to instantaneous gratification of my impulse to satisfy my curiosity. I hadn't really thought about it until confronted by its absence. I'm not really jonesing for an internet fix. I'm still capable of entertaining myself without electronic assistance. It just gives me pause to consider how much computers are integrated into my daily life, now that my daily life has been disrupted temporarily.

This is not one of those neo-luddite, barking moonbat rants about a return to a simpler, low-tech life. I like my current life just fine. I wouldn't mind a simpler life, but it better have internet access and 900 or so channels on cable.

May 31, 2004

Because I've spent a lot of time waiting in such places lately, I've been collecting the apartment and real estate literature from the lobbies of restaurants and other businesses. I even picked up the pamphlets on how to play KENO and the other games sponsored by the Oregon Lottery. I have no intention of playing KENO, but know I know how, in case I ever change my mind.

One of the things I like about Oregon is the lack of a sales tax. It's kind of cool not have to figure the extra 6% or so on every purchase. I guess the lack of sales tax would be an example of progressive taxation. I haven't really studied tax theory, but it seems to me that no sales tax would be of more benefit to lower income families, since they have to spend a greater portion of their income (nearly 100%) routinely. Those who have discretionary income for investing, etc. wouldn't be hurt as badly by a sales tax.

Unfortunately this seems to be a part of a general tendency here toward minding everyone else's business. I'm staying in the greater metropolitan Portland area. Nearly all major streets have an extra lane on the outside of both sides of the road for a bicycle lane. This is probably a great benefit for the few thousand bicyclists who ride the major streets regularly. I just wonder how many millions of dollars have been spent on making the major streets an extra two lanes wide; from the increased costs of the land acquisition to the increased construction costs. But bicycles are environmentally friendly, so the millions of Portland area residents who don't ride bicycles on major streets get to pay millions of dollars so that the few who do can ride in at least marginally increased safety.

Another well-meaning gesture: There are, by law, no self-service gas stations in Oregon. I was told this was an effort to retain jobs that would have disappeared if self-service had been allowed. I guess maybe there are a lot of gas-pumpers in Oregon who wouldn't otherwise be employed pumping gas, but at what cost? It's not like this is a value-added service. It isn't like I remember full service gas stations from my childhood. In fact, most of the stations I've been to have the credit card readers on the pump just like everywhere else. In essence, the attendant takes your card puts it in the pump, puts the hose in your vehicle and walks away. And for this you get to pay extra.

Cross the border into Oregon and you immediately get to spend an extra 15 to 20 cents per gallon for gas, for every gallon, forever. I have to wonder if people wouldn't spend that extra money on something else anyway, in such a way as to provide some other low-end equivalent jobs for the displaced gas station attendants. (Not that I'm advocating low-end jobs, but most of the gas station attendants I've met in Oregon are not unemployed rocket scientists.) This is just a thought, but it seems Oregon is a marvelous example to the outside observer of the fact that all such attempts to regulate jobs and the marketplace have economic consequences.

June 6, 2004

Instead of going straight up I-84, I took the scenic drive up the old highway in the Columbia Gorge, thinking that stopping at the waterfalls might cheer up my wife, at least temporarily. At an overlook over the river, she fell off a rock wall while taking pictures. In addition to banging her head on a concrete bench and numerous cuts, scrapes and bruises she managed to tear ligaments in her ankle.

I've heard it said that no good deed goes unpunished.

by Cziltang
Posted: Tuesday, June 08 2004 08:20:39 PM