Day 11 -- 12/28

Day 11	December 28, 1997	Outbound Trip Home Page	948 Miles Today: 26 Miles
	Day 10 Day 12 Snippet List Picture Lists Day/Place Map		Albion River Campground Albion CA

	Left around 11 am; campground just too big and impersonal. Fort Bragg itself is a dump. We drove straight through with no desire to stop.
22 sec at 28.8 Picture list MacKerricher	First went to MacKerricher State Park and walked to the headland to look at the seals. I tested my newly-purchased tree identification book - it works! A great visual algorithm, crying out to be converted into an HPC app. Compared to $3/pop for the paper version, however, one would need a large installed base (and ruggedized HPCs!) to make it viable; still, it'll happen. Isn't it strange, though, there still isn't a simple way to buy small pieces of software, even after all these years of OOP rhetoric? You're left trying to use crippled shareware or sending off a check to a PO Box somewhere. Not much sign of matters improving on the web, either. Most transactions there are still credit card based - that's OK for large or regular purchases, but not an impulse buy of a $3.00 WinCE applet.		Tom Watts Pacific Coast Tree Finder Nature Study Guild 1977 The Guild publishes a whole family of similar books; for a catalog, write to the address given in the Books List
	There were some explanatory panels on the headland walk at MacKerricher, and S. complained about the consistently simplistic portrayal of Native Americans one sees on these things. "Too much noble savage - they supposedly lived very simply but had a rich spiritual world. None of the complexity of their interactions with each other or the Europeans is ever admitted to."
26 sec at 28.8	Further south on Hwy 1; pulled in at the Russian Gulch State Park for a few hours. Found a wonderful spot under an arching concrete bridge over a river mouth - lots of those on Hwy 1. For a change, this bridge wasn't memorializing someone, as all those in Del Norte County seemed to do (we're in Mendocino County now).
	Then south again; seemed to miss the RV park in Casper, ended up here in Albion. Had to drive down a very steep hill into another gulch at a river mouth, this time of the Albion River. There's a foghorn hooting in the distance.		The rivers around here are all a wonderful whitish opaque turquoise.
Resisting the Borg	Still thinking about S.'s comments that I should play more, and just make worthless stuff for the hell of it. This brought on by the essay "Frivolity and Unction" in the Hickey book. My mind is glancing off thinking about art; maybe after all this Art Schtick of mine is just an ego protection ploy. Heaven knows, I need some kind of resistance strategy to avoid being assimilated by the Borg.		Dave Hickey Air Guitar, Essays on Art & Democracy Art Issues Press Los Angeles, 1997 Trip books
	Walked up the hill up to the highway and had a wonderful dinner at the Albion River Inn. Great ambience: high wood beam ceiling, one big room, buzz of conversation, just loud enough that one could chat over dinner but with a sense of privacy.		Albion River Inn 3790 North Coast Hwy 1 Albion CA 95410 (707) 937 1919 (800) 479 7944 www.innaccess.com/ARI
	Had the local Husch '94 Chardonnay: a bit oaked and malo-lactic (this is California, duh), but it did have a compensating acidic bite and aftertaste of caramelized raisings.		Passed the winery on our way down Hwy 128 on Day 13
	We both had soup to start - S. had the better one, potato and fennel with dried tomato strips. My grilled salmon was deliciously fishy, and the vedge was crisp and tasty.		S. had garlic prawns - could still smell it the next morning…
	Walked back down to the campsite after dinner in pitch darkness. Stunning star fields, as good as we'd seen in New Mexico. Most memorable - seeing them through a dark canopy of eucalyptus trees, with the smell of the leaves in the air.
	It was distinctly warm today for the first time on the trip. still have glorious blue skies and sunshine. Thanks, El Niño.
	The power in this campground is causing a really irritating 60Hz hum from the battery compartment; hope it stops.		The humming never stopped even after we left … Turns out to be normal, though some places seem to have more flaky connection boxes causing a louder hum - like at the KOA campground where we the connection box bunt out.