It's not until I was driving in Oregon that I noticed how spoiled I am about the road system in the San Francisco area. Driving along a highway at night I noticed that I was significantly more nervouse, and it took me a few minutes to figure out why.

Highway 62 doesn't have reflectors. Where I live, the lanes have white dividing lines and the yellow opposite traffic dividing line. But there are also white reflectors to go along with the white lines, and yellow reflectors to go along with the yellow lines. Both are one the road, as are these artificial bumps so that you can tell if you're accidentally crossing a lane. Also, along the side of the road will usually be short posts with white or yellow reflectors.

Without them, as I was driving along at night, I couldn't see very far ahead. If the road turns I'd only have a fraction of a second of notice, whereas with reflectors you get plenty of warning of the general road ahead of you. I can understand the lack of these things, as it snows in Oregon and the snow plows would just rip the reflectors out of the ground. I did see these "raise plow" signs which warn a snow plow driver that there is a road obstacle, such as at a bridge.

Anyway, we started back at 13:00, me following Dave and Julie in their RV. First we stopped off at a place where RVs can dump their wastes. That took a half hour since there was a line of RVs. It's quite disgusting. I donated some money to keep help fund the Oregon State Park system, as no one else seemed to be donating.

The first half of the drive was great. Julie was driving and she was going to about 65, which is fine for my car. And usually she went slower on the uphills. My car has a lot of miles and it starts shaking quite a bit past 65 MPH, so I try to avoid those speeds.

When Dave took over at Red Bluff, that changed. He drove at the speed limit as much as he could, which is 70 on the I-5. Staying up at 70 was not too bad, some shaking. Problems where when I fell back because of momentary traffic, because then I have to go to 75 to catch up to Dave.

It also started getting dark at 20:00 so I had to close up. Right about then we were approaching the 505 exit, which I dimly noted as I labored to catch up. There were two trucks to the right and two cars between me and Dave. Suddenly, he changes lanes to go between the two trucks. As I ponder why he would do this I see the sign that says "505 this lane". Dave starts pulling to the right, the car in front of me and I realize that we're going to miss the exit, so we both lunge for it, right in front of the second truck. Somehow I got through and by all rights, I shouldn't have complained if the truck had hit me.

Next up is the I-80. Here we hit heavy traffic and I somehow lose Dave just before the 680 exit. Knowing that he can't be too far ahead I speed up. So I'm driving at 70-75 on a two lane highway with moderate traffic. Still don't see Dave. 680 merges with the 780 and now there are three lanes, so I'm still going fast, along with some other cars. After about 30 miles I catch up with Dave just as we leave the freeway in Concord. Next time we should have walkie-talkies, that would have helped a lot.