Layers of landscape stacked on the side of the road, the mountains sporting their billowy cotton-cloud-topped effusion, preceded by the barren slighted desert floor sandwiched between the tawny mountains and the tree dotted fields of golden grasses. The blur of the road smears the beauty of the region, the chaparral shrublands, open oak savannas and woodlands, smattering of pine forest, among the California buckeye, manzanita, redbud, chamise and scrub oak.
The vistas are heavenly golden blankets of downy cover, resting the blue of the sky, but for the serpentine wend of the wire fences, the blare of bill boards for fast food fare and home cooked rest stops miles upon miles of scarred two-lane highways, truck lined and road sign adorned.
We will be leaving the Cottonwood historic sections, headed to the border, through Redding to Ashland, Oregon, where we intend to dine like the gourmandisers we cultivated lo these many moons. The Sacramento River tags us “it” now and again along our straight and narrow, sometimes three-lane highway, connecting the trailers and cows and tomatoes with the rest of the world. Shasta approached.
In the gaze of the other 