We have traversed the great State of Jefferson and are taking a coffee break in downtown Grants Pass, wireless courtesy of the Ethereal Cafe. After a rainy departure out of Redding, we enjoyed some fine in-car dining at the Dunsmuir Subway, and cruised on. Just as we passed Mount Shasta, the skies cleared for a spectacular view of that snowy peak, and things just kept getting greener and greener as the border of Oregon approached. We held out on the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (100 calories per) until we saw the "Welcome to Oregon" sign.

Passage over the Siskiyou Summit, which we had been dreading, was painless. The road was bone dry and the weather relatively warm. Global warming? El Niño? Take your pick. It's supposed to cool off up there tonight, but no snow at road level (4300 feet).

Portland, here we come -- four hours away. It's a little windy down here, but nothing compared to what I see you've already got cranking up in the Willamette Valley. Oh well, at least for me, it's a tailwind.

P.S., 2:35 p.m.: I'm now on another hot spot, this time in the car parked outside the Grants Pass Post Office. Gee, I don't know what the big deal is about free wi-fi in Portland; they seem to have it in every Hooterville I'm passing through.

Anyway, the soundtrack: After Delbert, we went with mid-career Tony Bennett (a proven performer), and then we tried Poco's "Legacy," an album that we remembered more fondly than it deserved. You want your generic late-'80s rock? That was it. Even the hit single, "Call It Love," was pretty hackneyed. Next up: Elvis!