California was an expanse of limey green swathed with mustard, ‘til I got over the Grapevine. Then it was ... not hideous, not pleasant; just ... benign. It wasn’t my eyes, but my nose that sensed the divergence in the atmosphere: from truck fumes, to earth whipped up by dust devils; from pungent manure, to the glorious honeyed perfume of blossoming orange groves.
I kicked on the cruise control and blew up the freeway; cruising along the "5" under cornflower skies. The Central Valley was the color of toasted whole wheat bread - and about as flat. It was warm, and so dry, my hair stood on end, glued, by the static electricity, to the ceiling of the car.
Around mile 300 I started to see signs of life: at least more life than just the sticky orange bug splats plastered to my windshield. Soon I was in Stockton, my stop for the night on my way to the conference in Clearlake.
Just two weeks ago I was on another such expedition. “Road Trip!” The simple phrase conjures up a wild patchwork of images and thoughts: travel, adventure, new sights – sounds – flavors - experiences. We had our share of these ... plus tedious passages through monotonous stretches of road striped with lanky pines and swamps, entertaining only because of the moronic billboards defiling the way; of spats over speed limits and tunes (when it comes down to rap vs. elevator music – country becomes the common denominator, although it was a treat hearing Dad ‘croon’ to the oldies). We were charmed by southern cities like Charleston and St. Augustine, and dined in pubs, fast-food huts and seafood havens; we sniffed (and snapped off samplings of) the blooms of spring, craned our necks at lighthouses and steeples, shopped for treasures (‘small’ being the optimal feature, in the cramped car) ... hunted for alligators and cheap accommodations; and watched gas prices climb while the trees grew bare -- as we crept steadily north.
Mom and I chatted up vendors at the markets. Coco and I broke into hysterics fashioning fart-y noises, under the high-pressure hand dryers in the rest stops. Dad sang (I will mention that I got inherited my Dad's voice, which is not saying much. At one point Coco asked, 'Who sings that song Opa?' to which he replied, 'Peggy Lee.' 'Let's keep it that way,' she retorted.) At night we pulled into tidy hotels and unloaded everything from the car: luggage, suit bags, coolers, electronics ... One night Mom, tired of carting around a jug with the last two inches of vodka from the Florida house, transferred it into a small bottle of OJ for easier transport. Unknowingly (so he says) Dad drank it for breakfast. “The orange juice was a little zippy,” he remarked. We didn’t let him drive that day ...
Each night we played cards or watched TV until everyone collapsed (except for me – who insisted on wifi and worked well into the early morning on the book). Then we started all over again each after breakfast: rotating through the positions in the car – from front to back, straddling coolers and gear – taking the driver’s seat, or the prime napping location: shotgun. By the time we got to Donna’s (after crossing the expansive Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel) we were eager to stretch our legs, and enjoyed a long weekend of Little League games and Ballet lessons, dog walks, restaurants and pubs, before the final stretch home.
All in all it was a miraculous experience; three generations laughing and loving and exploring the Eastern Seaboard.
