Back to the Tahoe Again

Back to the Tahoe Again

Tomorrow is the last day of our trip to Northern California and Oregon. If you look at the map, our route has taken us up along the coast from Sonoma all the way up the Oregon Coast to the southern border of Washington, just over the Columbia River. From there up the Columbia most of the length of the Columbia River Gorge and then down through the volcanic forests of central Oregon. Oregon is wider West to East than it is tall South to North. Central Oregon sits right above the Eastern edge of California, which is obviously the reverse of Oregon with far greater height than width. Therefore our loop up and down through Oregon (slicing across a sliver of lower Washington) has taken us up the Western Coast of California and now the far Eastern edge of the state. While the Northern Coast is pretty remote, I think its safe to say that few tourists visit the Northeast corner of the state with its arid landscape. I feel very happy to be covering the state this way. In fact, on our return trip home on Thursday, we will continue the path along the Eastern side of the country. There is, of course, a Central Valley (the San Joaquin in the north and the Imperial to the south) which actually has the best and quickest Freeway (the #5), but I have driven that and it is unremarkable for scenery. Both the Coast and the mountains/deserts of the East are spectacular in the extreme.

Most of our trip has been spent in remote countryside, but tomorrow we re-enter the glitzy world of Lake Tahoe. It represents the beauty of the great alpine lake with all the sizzle imported from Las Vegas with its casinos and fancy hotels. I’m curious to see what South Lake Tahoe looks and feels like in the era of COVID. It’s hard to imagine a socially distant casino and since we are mostly choosing to dine outside, I’m hoping that we will de dining overlooking the lake, wrapping up our woodsy trip with a woodsy lake view.

Along the way tomorrow, Frank has convinced us that we should stay as much away from old Rt. 395 as possible. Therefore, we will take the longer route past Mt. Lessen Volcanic National Park and Susanville for lunch, then down the Western side of the lake. This makes for a seven hour driving day versus what could be a four hour drive. I’m expecting it to be well worth the added time.

While I have been keeping up with the news while we have been away, this morning I am digging in deeper to some of the stories coming out of Washington and I find myself getting concerned again about the state of our political reality. The things I particularly note are these:

1. Upon the recognition that their anti-mail-in-voting efforts had caused Florida Republican voters to dramatically reduce their application for mail-in ballots (something Democrats have been saying made mail-in voting equally important to Republicans as Democrats), Trump has tweeted that mail-in voting in FLorida is a good thing. The hypocrisy is out there now for all to see and hear.

2. The Trump Administration is stopping the 2020 census a month early so that it can get a report to Trump by yearend. This is an arbitrary and capricious manipulation of a critical long-term demographic metric which is clearly and obviously an attempt by Republicans to undercount minorities and unregistered aliens to help their political and funding agenda contrary to the needs of the real American population.

3. Congress had now received troubling special briefings about the state of foreign interference (heavily driven by Russia) in the 2020 election, but the new mandatory congressional oaths forbid the public from hearing about the blatant and abusive threats to our democracy. In other words the Trump Administration doesn’t want us to know how the election is once again being rigged in its favor. This is as close to a stripping of democratic ideals from the American people as any yet perpetrated on it.

4. Meanwhile, Trump has shown his mental incapacity to handle the simplest of details in his Axios interview. He is clearly unfit to lead the country through the COVID crisis or any other issue confronting the nation. His inability to recognize and pronounce the word Yosemite during a press conference for the signing of a National Park support bill will give fodder to comedians for months to come. The fact that he disinvited any Democrats to the signing of a bill they had initiated speaks to the extreme partisanship of the Trump Administration. It has now officially spun out of control in the extreme.

I am glad to be heading back home after a ten day road trip. Road trips are great and they are especially great during this time of sheltering-in-place for so long. But the downside of this sort of break is that it lulls one into thinking that the beauty of nature abounds while the reality is that the natural instincts of man (in this case Trump and his despicable toadies in his administration and in the Republican Party overall) are becoming more and more base and unethical. Some will say that it has always been so. Some will say that the Democrats are no better. Even if those two statements are correct, the only hope for mankind is that we call ourselves out on our frailties and sins and take corrective action on what is here and now before us. Nothing done in the past justifies misdeeds in the present. In the absence of corrective action and reprisal, we will simply sink lower and lower and more and more people will be harmed in the process.

So, after a wonderful ten days we are back to the reality of the world under siege. Is it really worse now than ever? I think so. Is there a path back? I know so. Will that path come this November? I suspect so. Will the opposition of the old yield to the new? I have my doubts, but I surely hope so. As Daniel Day Lewis might say, if it does not, it is likely that There Will Be Blood. That may sound like a threat to some, but I feel it is a mere observation and the blood will flow at the hands of either or both or the radical left or the reactionary right. Either way, it will not be good for the country, and as we have seen repeatedly over the past four years, it may even be worse for the world at large as we in America are spending too much of our time and effort protecting ourselves against ourselves and leaving the rest of the troubled world to its own devices. The one common theme of most post-apocalyptic movies is that nature endures and will reclaim its ownership of the planet if man cannot get out of his own way to solve his problems amicably. So, any way you want to consider it, we are all going back to the Tahoe again.