Captain’s Entry:
The captain
is busy in the galley convecting a cinnamon crunch coffee cake.
End Captain’s Entry
First Officer’s Entry:
We
accidentally drove through Lassen Volcanic National Park yesterday. We were following Rt. 89 north to intersect
with Rt. 44 East to Redding when we found ourselves entering LVNP.
Apparently we had missed a “go around” turn
off. The good news is we have a National
Parks Senior Pass so entrance was free instead of $20.00. The Senior Pass is the best deal we’ve ever
seen. If you are 62 it costs $10.00 and
is good for LIFE and covers all National Parks and everyone in the vehicle! It don’t get no better than that, Bubba!
The road
thru the park is 33 miles long for cars, 15 miles long for motorcycles, and 75
miles long for RV’s towing toads. And it’s the same road!
Yeah, the
road is twisty, turny, and steep with absolutely NO guard rails. It is very much like the million Dollar
Highway between Durango and Silverton, Colorado. I’d like to think that the “no guard rails”
idea is that having no guard rails makes drivers slow down and be more
careful. On the other hand, maybe the
NPS is just too cheap to pay for them.
But the park
is beautiful, the road goes up to 8511 feet, and there are huge areas of snow,
and several beautiful mountain lakes.
The captain went nutso, getting both a water fix and snow fix all in one
day. The puppies on the other hand kept
wondering, “Why are my paws cold?”
OK, now a
few philosophical observations:
- If I am limited to 55 mph and am doing 55 mph should I be considered to be a slower vehicle? After all, I’m doing MY speed limit. Do I HAVE to move over into the slow lane?
- If I am doing whatever the posted speed limit is, and have 5 or 6 cars stacked up behind me, do I HAVE to us the “Slower vehicle turn-outs”? After all I AM doing the speed limit and if I pull over so the other vehicles can exceed the speed limit could a shyster lawyer say that I enabled any resulting accident?
- Same question for “Passing Lanes”. If I’m doing the posted speed limit for all vehicles do I HAVE to move over into the passing lane?
In all the
cases above, believe me, I DO MOVE OVER so I don’t
block traffic any more than I have to, but the above questions are high mileages,
long roads, boring, odd thoughts that flit through my head.
One last
question:
- If I stood in court and ask these questions do you think I’d be hit with a contempt charge? (Heck, with my attitude that would probably happen the moment I walked thru the door.)
One second
last question:
- Do you think the people who “flip me off” for doing MY 55 mph in THEIR 65 mph areas even think about it not being my fault and that they should really be mad at California for its stupid $#@%^*! law?
Other than
the above tirade I am my usual happy self.
Have a nice day.
End First Officer’s Entry
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