After Seattle, Fred drives through the Cascades and into Idaho on the back roads.
040825.1103 — Route 95, Idaho
Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles is/was around 2200 miles. I’ve driven about 3400 miles so far from San Diego.
Stopped in to a store in Craigmont to ask if the road over to Kamiah (“kam-ee-yay”) was paved or gravel; and stepped on a cat’s tail (the cat was on the doormat, and it was bright outside and dark inside). It shrieked and ran off, and appeared to be fine, but I felt bad. Then on the way out of town I saw not one but two black cats playing in the fields. Snapped a picture of one; was prepared to hand out tuna if I saw another but didn’t. The other day on the iPod, The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe (read dramatically by Diamanda Galas, whoever that is) came on and I actually had a chance to listen to it; gruesome but rather over the top. I’m not superstitious, I just don’t like to be mean to animals.
The time has come for car computers. Those crummy navigation computers in some new cars strike me as ridiculous and overpriced; I’d like an embedded computer (I’d want a Mac, but the choice of Windows or Linux would be good as well) that displayed all the car’s functions, as well as functioned as a standard computer. No, not for while you’re driving; there could be a lockout on that, or only allow the passenger to use the keyboard/pointer, but. Then I could use standard navigation software, iTunes as the MP3 player, etc.
Why don’t gas pumps let me enter an odometer reading? Optional of course. But if I go back to the same station, why not have it calculate my mileage for me, as well, and print it on my receipt?