Out with Harriet by 11am into the blazing Central Valley, north, parallel to the ever-beckoning Coast Ranges,
in
and
out of the Dunigan Hills, with the mirage of
Sutter Buttes to the east,
as, eventually,
oppositely, Snow and St. John Mountains loom,
with Shasta a northerly distant dream,
until the Valley undulates and
narrows at Mountain Gate,
into the high country, where I-5 snakes past the
half-bathtub-of-a-reservoir that is the Lake,
North Gray Rocks,
Castle Crags,
and Shastina's mate.
Beyond Black Butte, the mountains recede from the high
Valley, past
sunny-
desertic
hillocks,
forlorn cows (real and sculpted -- but which?),
the heroic setting and
modest bustle of Yreka,
up the Anderson Grade,
down into
Klamath Canyon,
to mount the (eventually) snow-clad Siskiyous.
Lights out in Oregon's Rogue River fog, and the miles unfold to a Troutdale overnight by the Columbia River.
