We're marking timber again in the Sierra this week. For these tours, I have been renting a car in southern Utah and driving it to the Glen Meadow Work Center near Shaver Lake, CA. The first time I did it, the rental company "upgraded" me to a Hyundai Sonata. Knowing nothing about the car, I didn't consider it much of a benefit. I was wrong. That was a very nice car. Being something of a ludite, I had no idea that all that was possible in a car. I called my brother-in-law to tell him about this thing called satellite radio: "You can hear Waylon, and Willie, and Johnny Cash, and Hank Jr. all at the same time." My brother-in-law just laughed. I guess I wasn't the first person to tell him about Sirius XM.
Anyway, for this trip I got the economy car that I requested. It is a Mazda 2. (I'd hate to see the Mazda 1.) The car has a motor the size of my laptop. It has no leg room, no cruise control, and no tilt wheel. It does, however, have air conditioning, which was just barely adequate for me as I crossed the Mojave. By the time I limped into Tehachapi nursing an empty tank and a worried mind, I was feeling worse than Tom Joad after his nocturnal run from Needles. Unfortunately for Tom, things didn't get any better for him after he reached Bakersfield. Fortunately for me, I've gone to work in the woods every day in a 1 ton Chev.
I probably should know the answer to this, but why is the moss and lichens absent from the lower 4 feet of those pines? It doesn't appear that you have scraped it off. Have deer browsed it off? Also are you carrying your fire shelter, there appears to be an abundance of fuel on the forest floor.
ReplyDeleteSeems like all the new FS rigs have XM. Everyone's pretty pumped about it until the 1 month trial ends. Haven't gotten mine yet, 'll probably come in february when I'm not driving anywhere.
ReplyDeleteHey Keith, I don't know the answer either. Deer browse is a good guess. I've also wondered if the moss grows only above the snow. In other words, the moss line starts where the average snow line ends.
ReplyDeleteHey Kass, my brother-in-law said that his company car came with XM, too . . . until the trial period ended. So, now he drives in silence.