nolte and I headed
northwest to the Pomona Valley in California to see my mom. We
stopped in Phoenix and called ZB Lori, but the girl answered the
phone in San Diego.....she would be home in three hours would we
wait? Nope....in three hours we would be somewhere in the Mojave
Desert. Damn! Damn! Damn! We hung up the pay phone when our line was
disconnected and continued on our way.
We dallied through the Joshua Tree National
Forest for a few hours, learning more about cacti than we ever
thought possible. There is a cholla (pronounced choy-ya) cactus
"garden" that is eerily beautiful. We walked through the trails with
our handy 25 cent brochure that told us what we were seeing. The
Joshua trees make everything an "other world" feeling, like we are on
an alien planet. We stopped here and there to look at the trees
closer. They are a cross between a tree and cactus -- an outer bark
and an inner more porous infrastructure. The geology of the area was
exciting (my fella has a degree in geology so I get the whole stuff).
The critters were scurring around. As we left the park, we drove
through Whitewater Canyon........a canyon with some of the toughest
winds anywhere that wanted to blow my car off the freeway.
The second leg of this trip was to rent a UHaul trailer to tow an
old bookcase home. The bookcase is not beautiful but my great
grandfather made it and I love it. My sister has been storing it in
her garage for about six months. It's a rather big thing -- 5'6" feet
tall and almost 4 feet wide -- and we have thought and thought over
the past six months how we can get it up here. The size of the
bookcase made it impossible for me to pull the trailer I needed to
have (the openings are much smaller than the trailers themselves) and
the open trailers and the pick up truck rentals are only two-way
rentals. I finally figured I could get it into the smallest trailer
UHaul rents (and the only trailer my car can pull) by kitty-cornering
the opening......and the trailer itself is 5'7" to my case's 5'6". I
read I could rent a trailer hitch for $5 extra. So that was our plan.
Day Eleven: First stop: UHaul.
Yes, we could rent a trailer one-way for $150. Big smiles all around.
And the hitch for our car would cost $175. Frowns. No rental hitches
for MY car, but we could have a special order and a permanent
installation. It would take at least six days to order and install
the hitch. Maybe longer because of Labor Day weekend. More frowns
with grumbles included. Now, I love my mom but I had no desire to
hang around for another week. Besides, classes began the following
week. We left UHaul feeling defeated and went to my sister's to visit
my bookcase.
At my sister's, we tried to think of every possible way to take it
home with us. On top of the car like my old surfing days? Nope too
big. We tried to toss in in the back and drive the 1200 miles with
the hatchback up. Nope we would become asphyxiated in moments. We
loaded the car with everything else there -- a chair and wood TV
trays; we searched the garage for the box of old books (to no avail)
and headed back to mom's, waving good bye to our bookcase. We decided
to call moving companies to pick it up and deliver it here.
Day Twelve: My
brother-in-law sells oils and incense at
Farmer's Markets and fairs in the Los Angeles area. He used to also
sell goods (baskets and material and trinkets and drums) from his
homeland, Ghana but receiving the goods without returning to Ghana
himself became too risky for the money he sent rarely reached the
exporters. So instead he took on a partner, also from Ghana, who sold
these type of goods. In Los Angeles every year there is an African
American Community Fair where he sells his stuff. We were lucky
enough to be in the area the last weekend of the fair. My sister had
to take my nephews to baseball games and for football team pictures,
so we picked up my nieces and headed to LA
for the day.
Great music. Great dancing. Great ethnic
foods. Great venders of stuff. Fantastic art work. I spent money.
Bought some clothes. Bought some prints. Brought some posters. Bought
a hat to keep my head cool and to hide my hair which was curling out
of control from the heat and sweat and sun. I found a bag I liked and
my brother-in-law insisted he bargain for it. He gleefully presented
it to me as we left for the day. My sister and
nephews showed up about an hour before
mom and nolte and I left. We returned
home to Mom's tired and spent....both money- and energy-wise.
Day Thirteen: Time to head
home. I had been on the road for 13 days, my fella for five. We hit
the freeway and headed towards Bakersfield where
Living Lightly was waiting. We enjoyed her and
her dogs -- that tiny Minnie really does
rule the roost! -- and the food and the chocolate (thanks!).....but
mostly loved the short time we had to talk. We took pictures. We
hugged and kissed good bye and headed north. We spent the night in
Redding.
Day Fourteen: We drove through
the Shasta National Forest and stopped at Council Crag, where we took
the long narrow curvy drive to the look-out point, the short steep
hike up to the landing and looked out at the view. Mt. Shasta to our
right and Council Crag to our left.
Breathtaking.
We drove on toward home, the air full of smoke from fires in the
mountains. When we hit Ashland, Oregon we diverted off the freeway
and drove along historic Route 99 through the small towns in southern
Oregon until we reached the mountain range.
A two-week roadtrip......lots of sights, lots of adventures. And
now it's over....those last days of summer. I love summer and mourn
it's passing. Summer means freedom with long days of swimming and
playing, sitting out in the backyard sipping iced tea and listening
to the neighbor's yappy dog, sleeping in and waking up to bright
sunshine. Fall means being an adult again.
I guess it's time to be an adult once again.
