We’d been talking lately about taking some day trips during the summer, nothing stressful or too much driving (since we did all the driving we want just last month) but a nice getaway for a day. Sort-of spontaneous. Since we had a nice trip to Hood River last October (chronicled here) to pick apples, we figured, why not Hood River again?

Right now the fruits in season in Hood River—it’s actually near the end of the current seasonals—are cherries, blueberries, and raspberries. So, once again consulting the Hood River Fruit Loop, we picked out some likely places to visit and set off. We had to drop the dog off at the kennel, and we were on the road by roughly 8:30.

Last time, we drove up Highways 97 and 197 to The Dalles, and then followed Interstate 84 into Hood River. Going that route takes just about three hours—perhaps a bit under—but just for grins, we set the GPS to show us both the "fastest" and "shortest" routes. Turns out, coming from Bend—according to the GPS—taking Highway 26 through Warm Springs and then turning off onto Highway 35 at Mt. Hood is both the shortest and fastest route.

What’s amusing, though, is even after we were well on our way up the Highway 97 route, the GPS was adamant about directing us back to Highway 26—apparently even detouring back is shorter up to a certain point. That’s technology for you.

I like the 97/197 drive up through the middle of Oregon. Lots of rolling hills, dry Eastern Oregon, and wheat fields, a nice change from driving through the mountains or the Willamette Valley. Probably the most interesting town on the route—one of the only ones between Madras and The Dalles—is Maupin.

This tiny little town (population: 408) is nestled down against the lower Deschutes River, in the river canyon carved out by the Deschutes. It’s sole purpose seems to be to provide a tourist base for river recreation; it’s a major destination for rafters and kayakers and that seems to be the trade of half the businesses in town.

Of course, you don’t just pass on by, you have to drive through the town. What that means is you descend the river canyon, cross the old stone bridge over the river, and ascend the other side: lots hard corners and a few 15MP hairpin switchback turns. To get an idea, Google Maps actually has Street View running the route through town.

We pulled in to Hood River right about 11:30, just in time for lunch: at Double Mountain Brewery, which also opened at 11:30. We parked right in front and were the first customers of the day.

(As a side note, Hood River downtown streets all have parking meters. Seems odd to me for a town of only 6500 or so to have parking meters—but then, Bend as a city of 80,000 has none, so that’s what I’m used to.)

After a nice lunch and a taster tray of good beer later (I’ll review Double Mountain in more detail over on The Brew Site), we were off in search of fruit. Our first stop was Wilinda Blueberry Patch: an acre or so of blueberry picking (only several rows of which were ripe for picking—the different varieties apparently ripen at different times). The day was already hot, but we managed to pick something like three pounds of berries.

Our next stop (after picking up ice and Gatorade) was a winery (actually, we visited two): Hood River Vineyards, followed by Marchesi Vineyards. Hood River produces some fantastic and delicious ports and dessert wines—both with grapes and other seasonal fruits—and Marchesi specializes in Italian varietals.

The hostesses at both tasting rooms were very friendly and knowledgeable, and we left with a couple of bottles of wine from each.

Our next stop was Lavender Valley Lavender Farm. Most types of lavender products you can images, and immense fields of "U-cut" lavender that we were interested in. Like the fruit, different varieties of lavender bloom and can be cut at different times; we were directed to specific rows and cut ourselves three nice bunches of lavender. The kids stayed back, out of the field directly: too many honey bees (no kidding, there were hundreds) were making them nervous.

After cutting lavender, we had an ice cream break before visiting Alice’s Orchard. We visited this orchard last October with good results, and had good luck again this time around. Cherries were available here for picking, and were practically falling off the trees. In no time at all we had filled two small buckets for about 12 pounds worth of cherries. We could have easily doubled that amount with little effort.

I have to say, as someone raised in Central Oregon on the edge of a desert, I’m always amazed at the sheer amount of fruit these orchards and berry patches produce. It’s almost appalling, really, and it’s really easy to get greedy: I could have kept right on picking and filling buckets just because there’s so much fruit.

After a couple more stops, we found ourselves on the road to Parkdale, heading more-or-less for home (along the Highway 35 Mt. Hood route), and stopping at the Draper Girls Country Farm, only because they advertised U-pick raspberries—the other berry we were keeping an eye out for that nobody else seemed to have.

It’s the very tail end of raspberry season, though, so we only managed to pick a pint of raspberries. The Farm itself is also a fruit stand, and they offered a number of other seasonal produce: apricots, cucumbers, more cherries, beans, and I think I saw an eggplant or two. There are also a number of antiques and rustic knick-knacks for sale, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Thus ended our fruit picking excursion to Hood River, except for a quick stop at the Mt. Hood Country Store in Parkdale. I wouldn’t even mention this except for the fact that they have an amazingly well-stocked cooler full of craft beer—many of which you won’t find in Bend—and had six beers on tap—also well-chosen craft beer that you won’t likely find in Bend. Literally, a country store and deli where you’d expect to find a jar full of pickled eggs and a cooler full of Bud and Coors Light and maybe an ancient six-pack of Lucky Lager, instead is a damn impressive beer oasis. That’s Oregon for you.

Final tally from the trip: three pounds of blueberries, 12 pounds of cherries, three nice bundles of fresh lavender, four bottles of wine, and a pint of raspberries.

We pulled back into the garage around 7:45 in the evening, and I do indeed think the Mt. Hood route along Highway 35 is a bit quicker.

A few weeks ago we had a free preview weekend of HBO and Cinemax from our cable company, and while I was flipping around to see what was on (probably Saturday afternoon), I caught the end of Star Trek: Generations. (Actually, probably the last quarter of the movie or so.) And of course, being the Star Trek nerd that I am, I watched the rest of it.

And, well, I had to write about it too. Feel free to completely skip this post if you have no interest in Star Trek whatsoever. Yeah, it’s like that.

Now, Generations is problematic, there’s no doubt. While I was watching, I was mentally tallying up the various problems and hence, this post.

Their intentions were in the right place: it was the first Star Trek movie featuring the cast from The Next Generation, whose series had just wrapped, so they wanted to go big. How big? Well let’s see… they gave Data emotions, explained the origin of Guinan, destroyed the Enterprise, and oh yeah, had Captain Picard meet Captain Kirk. And killed Kirk.

In order to do this latter bit, the writers contrived a thin plot around a supposed "Nexus" in Time that looked like a big sparkling ribbon flying through space. People can enter this Nexus where Time stands still and they are granted whatever they wish (while inside of it). Kind of like the ultimate virtual reality where you never age and you can have anything you want.

The token villain (played by Malcolm McDowell) was in the Nexus once before and wants to go back. So he’s blowing up stars to change the gravitational influence on the Nexus as it travels through space, just so he can direct it to a planet that he’ll be standing on at a pre-arranged time—all so the Nexus will suck him back into it when it gets to the planet.

While the movie had some good bits, there are so many things wrong with this plot, it’s embarrassing. And then, they went and got the science behind it utterly wrong.

Point: Soran (the villain) didn’t need to blow up stars or anything remotely cosmic to re-enter the Nexus. He could have just flown a shuttlecraft into it. Or barring that, open the airlock and launch himself physically into it from the back of said shuttlecraft—he could survive the vacuum of space for the three seconds it would take to accomplish this. Kirk did, after all.

In other words, shitty plotting and unimaginative writing.

Point: During the battle between the Enterprise and the Klingon ship that results in the Enterprise‘s destruction, we see that the Klingons are spying on the ship’s shield frequency modulation via LaForge’s visor—thus enabling them to shoot photon torpedoes that pass through the shields as if they weren’t there.

However, the Enterprise crew makes no effort to alter the shield modulation—something they did repeatedly during the TV series (especially versus the Borg)! How could something so fundamental get by them?

It would have been an easy fix, too: just show the Klingons (who were spying on them, remember) getting the new shield frequency every time it was changed. Would it really have cost that much more to film?

Point: When the Enterprise finally is able to fire back, Riker tells Worf to have a "full spread" of torpedoes ready to fire. When they get their moment, only one torpedo launches.

What the hell?

Point: In what is probably the worst production/science gaffe they could possibly make, Soran launches his missile from the planet towards the sun (to blow it up, remember) just as the Nexus is nearing. Immediately the sun darkens and explodes. Do you see what’s wrong with this picture?

The sun should not have appeared to change for at least 8 full minutes. Not even counting the time it would take for the missile to reach the sun—let’s suppose it has warp capabilities, to get around that issue—the light (and gravity) from the sun can only travel at the speed of light. And since they were on an Earth-looking planet, which is 8 light-minutes away from the sun, then that means there’s no possible way the sun would appear to darken immediately—and the gravitational effect on the Nexus would be similarly delayed.

Huge, huge blunder. Somebody (preferably the writers) should have been fired for that one.

Point: Picard is now in the Nexus. The planet (and the remains of the Enterprise and its crew) all blew up. Picard (with the help of Kirk) escapes the Nexus, jumps back in time to just before the missile is launched (the Nexus can let you go to any place and time, apparently), and saves the day, altering the events that already transpired. Time travel.

Thus, an alternate timeline was created, in which Soran succeeds and the Enterprise is lost with all hands.

(For that matter, why didn’t Picard return hours earlier and destroy Soran’s base and missile before any of that happened? Or any other convenient time to stop Soran?)

Point: Picard is now in the Nexus. He has been told (as have we, the viewers) that the Nexus grants your fondest desire; it gives you whatever you want. The ultimate virtual reality, remember. Well, once Picard figured out what was going on, his fondest desire was to leave the Nexus. But wouldn’t the Nexus grant that desire and give Picard a (virtual) reality where he left the Nexus and stopped Soran?

In other words, Picard never left the Nexus—he just thinks he did, the Nexus granted that wish inside its virtual reality. If he never left, then that alternate timeline I mentioned is in fact the "correct" and current timeline—and all the subsequent Next Generation movies never "happened." (Maybe a bunch of the subsequent TV series, either.)

Actually this last point isn’t really so much of a problem, more of an observation. But it makes for an interesting plot device… once that actually forms the basis for the on-again, off-again dabbling I’ve been doing in Star Trek fan fiction over the years.

(My fan fiction "series" is set in the future—yet another generation—and in the "alternate" timeline in which Picard is still in the Nexus.)

Overall, Generations wasn’t a bad movie, just flawed (severely flawed in some cases) and the weakest of the Next Generation movies.

But then again, I only caught the last half or third of it, after having not seen it for a long time… maybe I’d find a lot more to rant about if I saw it from the beginning…

Last week, we went down to San Diego for a quick(ish) trip to visit my brother and his wife. We left Tuesday afternoon after I was off work, drove all day Wednesday, and then returned on Monday—doing the full San Diego to Bend drive in one day. I won’t recount the full blow-by-blow here (and I’m blogging my beer notes of the trip on The Brew Site, of course), but just a series of notes, observations, and tidbits.

(A big reason for the visit was because my brother and sister-in-law are expecting their first child this August, and the baby shower was on Saturday. So we couldn’t pass up the opportunity.)

At about three and a half hours from Bend, Weed is a town you can’t ignore: it’s the junction of Highway 97 and Interstate 5, and is the first "real" town you hit in California when traveling down 97. (I’d count Dorris, but that seems more like a truck stop/border crossing than a town.) I find the town fascinating: its population is exactly 3000, it sits in the shadow of Mt. Shasta, and in many ways it’s the gateway to Northern California.

And it’s like Bend in several ways: it had its start as a lumber town, has a similar climate and the same elevation, and now derives a good portion of its economy from (mountain) tourism. What little I’ve seen of it—besides the fast food restaurants and gas stations marking it as an Interstate connector—seems charming and picturesque.

Tuesday night we stayed in Anderson, California (just south of Redding) at the Gaia Anderson hotel. Even though it was just a waypoint on the trip, it was actually quite a nice place for a really good price. It’s new and built to "green" specs—energy efficient, with water conservation in mind, and organic and health-conscious. And it’s just off the freeway, which was convenient.

The drive that first afternoon—Bend to Anderson/Redding—took us about 4 hours and 45 minutes. The next day, we drove about 11 hours through to San Diego, hitting rush hour Los Angeles traffic and losing about an hour and half to it.

I completely hate Los Angeles traffic. And that pretty much mars the whole city for me.

Driving through central California, south of Sacramento on that long, lonely stretch of I-5, is long, tedious, and a bit depressing. Desert and failed agriculture, with communities that only seem to have sprung up to service the Interstate. How people can live there is beyond me.

And it’s crazy hot, from Redding on down; on our return trip, it was 105 degrees in Redding! At one point the kids wanted to open the windows so I let them briefly. It was like opening an oven door.

After Wednesday, we were in San Diego four full days before returning on Monday. It was a great trip, and the weather—which had been forecasted to be 70 and overcast the entire time—actually turned out sunny, clear, and nicely hot (but not too hot).

Which was a good thing, because Friday we hit the beach and had a great day—the water is cool but much warmer than the Oregon Coast, so we were able to actually, you know, go in it. My brother and I spent most of the time out in the surf, while I kept an eye on the kids and the women stayed on the beach. At one point I was far enough out so that when a wave crashed over me—intentionally—I couldn’t touch bottom. That was a bit spooky.

Sunday we all went to the San Diego Zoo. Something like 16 of us total. It was a bit chaotic, but a good day. And it was hot—the hottest day in San Diego since we arrived. There were several sunburned people to show for it.

Interesting fact I learned (but didn’t personally verify): apparently the Howard Johnson on Hotel Circle has a lifesize Hulk Hogan statue in the lobby.

As much as I dislike Los Angeles, I like San Diego. The big negatives are (obviously) the traffic and the urban sprawl; everything is very spread out, along freeways, and tuned to the stripmall. Something might be "just across the freeway" but to cross it you might have to jump on, exit a mile down the road, loop around and cross another exchange just to get there. But for that, it’s appealing and likable. And of course, it’s a great beer town.

Not much to say about the Monday drive home except that we went straight through (stopping only for gas, bathroom breaks, and fast food), and made it in 14.5 hours. We left at about 7:30 in the morning and were home by about 10 that night. The kids held up remarkably well, better than I hoped. So it’s doable—but I’m not sure I’d want to do it again.

Although you do save money if you don’t stay overnight…