There is nothing like a trip up the 5 northbound, escaping the congestion of Southern California with Palo Alto, San Fransisco or Yosemite as your destination.
The delirious ascent on the Grapevine and the roller-coaster ride descending into the valleys is better than Disneyland's Matterhorn.
Down in the valley rows and rows and rows of grapevines fill the expanse, an endless linear repetition of low plants and stake props.
Telephone poles blur by and mesmerize. Hot dry, wind blows your hair strands into your teeth. No air conditioning. The sky is wide and powder blue, as blue as western skies ever get.
If it was a family trip, my brothers and I would play license plate games. "Fastest person to find all the letters in the alphabet wins!" Or "whoever finds the most out of state licenses is better!" Older, faster and smarter, my brothers always beat me. I'm certain we bickered in the back seat and drove our parents crazy.
The expanse of vineyards, garlic and strawberry fields gave way to golden rolling hills. On a lucky trip orange poppies might dot the gentle slopes.
Sometimes we'd sing. To ourselves or at the top of our lungs.
Oh you can't get to heaven (echo)
In a put-put car (echo)
Cause the put-put car (echo)
Can't get that far (echo) Repeat
Oh you can't get to heaven (echo)
On roller skate (echo)
Cause you'll roll right past (echo)
Those pearly gates (Echo) Repeat
Then the Redwoods or Sequoias would take over.
A coastal journey is another edge-of-the-cliff story of steep mountains, Monterrey jagged pines, rocks and choppy seas to
Santa Barbara, Pebble beach, San Simeon or Carmel.
But my idyllic central California Steinbeck reverie is interrupted.
The trips weren't always picture perfect.
On one vacation, my dad, the adventurer pioneered off road toward the deserts behind Big Bear. My mother, gripped with fear, begged my dad to turn around back to our mountain home. She had just read a story about a family stuck in the desert, broken down car with no water. They had to do some desperate things to hydrate. My dad finally turned around and headed back to the cabin in Moonridge. They didn't speak to each other for the rest of the day.
Yes, being a parent on a road trip is a much different story from being a child traveler.
Armed with backpacks bulging with word puzzles, pens, paper, books, games and snacks, we'd venture out, 5 kids in tow to camp in King's Canyon or Ojai. The two rowdiest of the 4 boys sat in the closest back seat at arms length in case dad had to quickly discipline them. Which was often. I think I've blocked out this memory.
My husband, reading over my shoulder here, is quick to turn my rose-colored recollections into reality. On the narrow dirt road leading up to Reyes Peak, he reminded me of how I flipped out fearing we'd drop off the inches away precipice into the rocky ravine, or be stranded in a desert without water, forced to drink our own urine. (The same fear my mom had in Big Bear).
With a four-month-old in the back seat, I can now explain my psychotic mom-moment as postpartum disorder. Oh My! Lions-and-tigers-and-bears-Dorothy-of-Oz, Oh My! And Dorothy wasn't even a mom.
Next month my g - children will take a road trip from Virginia to South Florida. It's a good 16 hours. Hope they'll stop in Georgia to break it up. Pretty gutsy move with a 6 year old, 3 year old and a baby.
To kill time the boys will watch Frozen, Disney movies and Spider Man on the screens behind their parents' heads. I would've done the same if the technology existed in the 90's.
But I hope they also sing
and play games
and lean their little foreheads against the van windows
watching the hypnotizing stream of stick-pines go by.
And fight too, even if they drive their parents crazy.
Just like we did.
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| Cath (sis-in-law), Bro Pete, me, Yosemite (70's) |
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