I didn’t quite know how to settle down after so many years
of travel and adventure, but I gave it a try.
I enrolled in a local college, made a few friends, and spent most nights
in a coffee shop or two or three. Years
of meetings in different cities across the country, often several cities in a
single day, left me with a huge case of jet-lag and an insatiable desire for
caffeine. My new friends would join me
for a few hours, but eventually they couldn’t keep up with my schedule.
For years I had rarely slept more than an hour or two per
night, and often I would go many nights without ever seeing a bed. Dallas meeting this morning, Chicago this
afternoon, Cleveland tonight, Los Angeles tomorrow morning, New York City
tomorrow evening, Denver the next morning.
Such was my life. Whenever I got
a bit of time off, I took advantage of every moment. After years of this routine, I found I was extremely addicted to
coffee, and I just couldn’t sleep. Thus
the all night coffee shops.
My college classes were centered on geology, and this fed my
lust for the outdoors, but college keeps one close to home most of the
time. And this was another reason for
the coffee shops every night. I just
couldn’t afford the time to travel.
Like it or not, classes started at 8am five days a week.
My friends and I would grab a big booth at the local Bob’s
Big Boy about 9 every evening where we would have coffee, dinner, coffee,
desserts, coffee, snacks, and coffee for a few hours. The waitresses began to join us when their shifts ended, and the
group would grow and then shrink as some people had to go elsewhere (home). Usually the last ones there when the coffee
shop closed would go as a group to another coffee shop nearby to continue the
fun. I was always one of that second
group. And so was Rachael.
Rachael was the cashier at Bob’s when I started going there,
but soon she became a waitress. It
always made me happy when she joined the group at the big booth, and before
very long we became the last two to leave each night.
We were married April 30, 1977 at the Chapel in the Wildwood
in the foothills above Upland, California.
And within a few hours we were on a road trip up the coast. We stopped in many great little towns and
cities on the journey, but mostly we stopped for cows.
Rachael had never seen a cow before and was absolutely
fascinated by them. Our photo album of
the trip is mostly of cows. Yes, there
are a few shots of the ocean and other sights along the way, but if you ever
get the opportunity to see this album, well, expect to see cows.
We stayed in a variety of places and some were better than
others. One of the most expensive
places we stayed was in a town north of San Francisco and, believe me, it still
ranks as one of the worst places I’ve ever been. When we travel today, this is still one of the three places we
compare all others to (the other two are in Flagstaff and Albuquerque, and they
are a story of their own).
When we arrived at the motel’s office, we were not happy
with what we saw. The photos we had
seen before making our reservation were not even of the same buildings. We had seen a series of individual brick
houses with carports. We arrived at a
large wooden structure with boards falling off the side. And we parked in a dirt yard. With mudholes.
We drove around for about an hour looking for another place
to spend the night, but “No Vacancy” signs were everywhere, so we reluctantly
drove back to the building. We didn’t
recognize it at first, but after looking at it for a few minutes, we realized
the building was now leaning to the west instead of the east as it had been
earlier in the day. It changed the
entire look of the building. We checked
in. We should have spent the night in
the car. At least they had a restaurant
at one end. Another mistake on our
part. The only thing I can say was that
the gasoline flavored martini was served in the correct glass.
The next morning we drove a few miles to another town where
we immediately checked into a motel just to shower and use the laundry to get
rid of the fleas. Then on to Sonoma and
Napa, and other great places. But soon
we had to turn back toward southern California. At least we could take a route through the Sierra Nevada to get
there.
After leaving Yosemite we took a side trip up into the
Sequoia/Kings Canyon area. About
halfway up into the mountains, a gentle white substance began to fall. Rachael, who grew up in So.Cal., naturally
thought a forest fire was in the area and we were being covered by ash, but I
had seen snow before. She began to
worry, so I pulled over to the side of the road to let her take a closer look. I wish I could describe her excitement at
this discovery.
We spent only a couple of hours in the snow, but the size of
the trees made the side trip worthwhile.
Even though I had been in California many times, these trees were
something I had never seen before. No
picture could do them justice. True,
the photographs accurately showed their size, but the real life physical
experience is indescribable as one stands at the base of one of these
giants. Now I truly know how a
Chihuahua must feel when standing beside a person. Actually the difference is much greater.
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