Update 9:

This is my final update.

So, for several weeks, Bayliss strutted around the house in an insufferable manner, puffed up with the triumph of reaching his goal of 100 historical markers with more than a month left to go! He parceled out his campaign updates carefully, to build maximum suspense (and donation potential for ATC). As he reached the last few, he realized that he'd miscounted, and was actually 3 markers short of his goal. This led so some frantic markering earlier this week; he had to hit three low-priority markers here in Sacramento.

I almost feel a little guilty announcing this publicly, and it's too bad that he'll have to read it online rather than hearing it from me, but I beat him. That's right, after months of clandestine eye-rolling and online mockery, I got those last three markers before he did. Hah!

I traveled "behind the Redwood Curtain" to attend some work-related meetings in Eureka, Arcata, and Ferndale.

First, I picked off the marker for the City of Eureka (No. 477, at 3rd and E Streets, next to a seedy bar that was recommended to my colleague and me as the only place open for dinner after the Lost Coast Brewery had closed for the night - at _9 PM_. Unfortunately, my colleague and I are horrible, citified snots, and we agreed that an Irish bar next door to the rescue mission might not be our first choice).

The Jacoby Building (No. 783) is at 8th and H Streets in Arcata, just about where you turn around when trying to find Los Bagels for breakfast (for the reference, everybody's favorite Mexican-themed bagel bakery in the heart of the whitest part of California is at _10th_ and H).

Finally, Victorian Ferndale (No. 883) was the site of our meeting - in a smoky backroom (completely unheated, just like every other indoor space in Humboldt County) at the Victorian Inn. The actual marker is in City Hall Park, next to what my colleague the botanist identified as a gigantic horse chestnut tree.

Thank goodness, my long nightmare of historicity is finally over. I did, as my brother so cleverly observed, have fun not having fun. But, nothing was as much fun as the sweet, sweet knowledge that I get to combine three months of snarkiness with the thrill of VICTORY.

Update 8:

I'm starting to smell the barn on this campaign... Bayliss's craving for historical betterment is so strong, I doubt that he'll need the full 100 days to meet his target.

We were in San Francisco this weekend for a Chinese New Year party, and we took Saturday afternoon off to go on a marker-finding extravaganza. Bayliss added **27** notches to his history belt in a single day. Searching on foot allows for more nimble reactions than car-based searches (swerving and backing up tends to be less problematic), which is fortuitous, since the urban markers are never at the front of the building. They're always hidden someplace along the side, in an alleyway, next to the fire connections and the dumpsters, in prime lurking locations.

We grabbed the mission and El Camino Real markers in the Mission District, and then hopped a trolley downtown to dive into a teeming nest of markers along Montgomery Street north of Market. It turns out that we were not the only seekers in that part of town yesterday, and we were wiser than we knew, not to have driven. There were a slew of markers in the vicinity of Portsmouth Square, and we threaded through what I thought was a slowly-dispersing crowd after the Chinese New Year parade to log them. It was fortuitous that we didn't have the dog along, because every child for blocks in any direction was throwing fireworks into the street. We wandered down towards the Ferry Building, since markers literally litter what used to be the littoral zone before people figured out that the cheapest way to get rich in California is to create real estate, and the bay moved much further out. It was in this area that we had to thread our way through hundreds of tiger-themed scavenger-hunters. We led a couple of groups down the garden path, thinking that the markers that we were so ardently seeking were related to their various quests, but sometimes life isn't fair. We enjoyed a refreshing pause at the Ferry Building to recover our strength with some tasty salted pig parts, and then we headed back up the hill to polish off the last few markers.

This was the moment when we discovered that the parade was in the evening, not the afternoon, and that it would block us from reaching our last few markers. People with less grit and determination to learn about history might have turned back, and slunk down to Market Street with their tails between their legs to catch the trolley back home. But not our Bayliss! He hatched a daring plan to make sure that we'd hit the silver mark for markers on a single day. We sneaked into the Hilton, (snapping a photo of the marker for Jenny Lind's "dancehall" on the way in the door), used a luggage cart as "cover" to get into the forbidden parts of the hotel, and then busted across the overhead walkway (which was reserved only for the very fancy people, as we overheard from the cops as we were leaving the secure area) to emerge on the far side of the parade route, back in Portsmouth Square. After our James-Bond-esque escape across the rooftops, it was a cakewalk to knock over the last couple of markers on our way down the hill.

Update 7:

I'm falling a little behind; this will be a catch-up day for me. We did a bunch of Transcontinental Railroad markers on our way down I-80 from a ski weekend in Tahoe last week. I have reached the end of my patience with the foothills markers. I find the little towns disturbing, and I have reached a point where I don't find the "hangin' tree" markers even a little bit amusing. That tradition of lawlessness and vigilante "justice" is a part of the past that decent people would be ashamed of, not marking with bronze plaques.

But, as my brother pointed out, this campaign is all about having fun not having fun, so I need to get off this topic.

We did do some suffering for the cause of history... it was sleeting and snowing as we made our way down the hill, and I did find it fairly amusing to be pulling off the interstate in whiteout conditions to snap photos of identical historical markers. My attached photo doesn't really do the subject justice; at this moment it was sleeting, and you ought to be able to see about 50 miles up Yuba Gap behind the marker if there weren't about 400 pounds of falling ice in between. Priorities, priorities. No chain restrictions will keep us from our goal!

Update 6:

We visited several markers on the way down to a backcountry ski outing in Yosemite... they were of the "49ers were here, lynchin' and claim jumpin' in a historically important fashion" variety, which has been boring me to tears for several weeks now.

The markers on the way back were more interesting; they were in central Stockton. Now, I've spent time in some run-down little towns in my day (I did, after all, live in Texas for four years) but Stockton is a real contender on this front. Two of the historical markers were posted at sites which were surrounded by concertina wire (one was a parking lot, one was a cemetery... is this the story of the Central Valley?). Graffiti everywhere, vacant lots; not a happy scene. Although lurking was a popular activity in the area, we were distinct in several ways from the rest of our fellow lurkers, peering through fences; for one thing, we hadn't showered in three days; for another, we were wearing tights and windbreakers.

So, we'll have to go back a week. After a fun weekend in Tahoe, Bayliss and I made two stops by the side of the road for (you guessed it) another #@#$& Pony Express marker, and the former location of a town, across the six-lane arterial from Intel in Folsom.

The big news this week was not in fact that Bayliss added two more notches to the history belt, but that he went over his message limit on his cell phone emailing himself pictures of historical markers. I worry that I am the only person on the planet who has this problem. I scolded him, but it just goes in one ear and out the other. This may be a long couple of months.

Update 4:

We made a day-trip down to Oakland today for a concert by our niece. Obviously, we took the opportunity to bag some markers in Emeryville, San Leandro, and downtown Oakland.

Our first stop was in Emeryville. This is actually my favorite kind of historic marker - the kind where you rip out the historic shellmound, build a shopping center, and then build a fake memorial shellmound with a marker to talk about the unique cultural patrimony that was here before Abercrombie and Fitch.

The only bad part about this one was that it was absolutely pouring down rain when we arrived. We nearly drove past it - we had to burn a "u" in the Marriott across the street. I pulled over in the driveway, obstructing Access to Commerce for dozens of shoppers, and Bayliss scampered to the memorial, in the pouring rain, and waited for me to take a picture. I can't imagine what could possibly have gone wrong, but for whatever reason, I just couldn't take a picture right away. I had to fiddle with the camera for a while, and it was so hard to get a decent picture facing into the light through the open car door. Thankfully, I remained warm and dry the entire time, and eventually it all worked out, but poor Bayliss did have to stand around in the rain much longer than he had planned. You win some, you lose some.

All I have to say about the San Leandro marker is that it commemorates Estudillo. As if he needs any help - he already has an exit on the 580 freeway named after him! He's set.

I'll elide two of the downtown Oakland markers, and focus only on my personal favorite, which was of course the one which was bricked into the side of a parking garage. That one marked the original location of the University of California. Fancy! The Sociology department had three spaces to itself, with a view of the sidewalk, before they moved to their current digs a little further up the hill.

Our final marker of the day was for a relief ship, docked at Jack London Square. Needless to say, anything having to do with relief is "closed to the public" when we go hunting historical markers, but I'm sure it would be swell some time when it's open.

It's been a busy week on the historical marker front for Bayliss. He has now made two trips to downtown Sacramento and Old Sac to drool over various historical markers on furlough Fridays, and has made it roughly 25% of the way to his total. Maybe we should all offering vielen dank zum Governator for offering state workers the opportunity for personal growth, three days a month. I might rather have the money, though.

I was, however, able to join Bayliss for an exhausting weekend of historical navel-gazing and cross-country skiing. We joined a group of 8 friends and colleagues for a Tahoe weekend, and took the opportunity to stop about every 30 feet along Highway 50 to look at pony express-related markers.

These markers are a particularly fascinating subset; in addition to helpfully reminding us all that horses must periodically stop to be fed and watered, many of them also reported on the physical appearance and temperaments of particularly beloved equines.

Fortunately, we eventually reached the snow line, which rendered the markers virtually unfindable, at least until the melting snows of April reveal their gnawed and twisted carcasses.

This was a particularly precious marker. I feel like a historical marker that's completely obscured by snow has to make fun of itself, because it doesn't leave me any material.

Update 2:

Bayliss's second outing was to bag historical markers associated with Sutter's Fort. I begged off, on the grounds that these markers are actually located within walking distance of the house. Although Bayliss's boundless enthusiasm for history is really a wonderful example, which I strive to emulate, I am concerned that I won't have the endurance to push through to the finish. I'm conserving my strength.

That was my stated reason... really, Bayliss chose to visit them on what should have been a busy morning packing for a business trip to a traffic safety conference in our nation's capital. I decided that it would be a good idea for me to spend a little time making sure he had packed everything he needed, and not just given it a "lick and a promise" when faced with the siren song of more historical markers.

My suspicions turned out to be well founded... All he had in his suitcase were three volumes of Proust, St. Augustine's "City of God" in a middle-English translation, his DMV-issued polyester uniform trio (shirt, pants, and clip-on tie), and two pairs of drawers (perfect for the "four days, four ways" system of laundry reuse). Although the DMV ensemble was a sensible, pack-light choice (and it looks just as presentable on day 6 as it did on day 1), I took the liberty of supplementing it with some other outfit options. It's important to stay fashionable enough that he doesn't let down "Team Gay." Hopefully he didn't mind having to lug all that extra weight through the airport.

He returned flushed with the thrill of vicariously experiencing more history... with outdoor markers this time!