Just Another Road Trip

My car is 85 years old, and I’ve got 113,000 miles on me.  It could be that I’ve got those numbers in the wrong slots, but never mind—we’re both rust-buckets waiting to be pushed off the road.

Last week I went on a road trip.  Three days long.

Day 1:  Sacramento to Petaluma. Sightseeing stops along the way turned a two-hour drive into a six-hour excursion.  Major stop—Lagunitas Brewing Company, where I bought a souvenir cap but held off on drinking any beer until I stopped for the night. At Petaluma I stayed at the Coast Guard training base, in the guest lodging operated by the service’s MWR (Morale, Well-being, and Recreation) unit.  Reduced price lodging there is one of the perks of military retirement.  (In times past I’d seen MWR to stand for Morale, Welfare, and Recreation; could be that the Coast Guard is averse to the word Welfare.)

Day 2:  Loop tour through the hills of West Marin then along the coast to Point Reyes National Seashore, returning to Petaluma after a picnic lunch at the Marin French Cheese Company (established 1865).  Scenery a lush green with patches of fog—cooling and relaxing.

Day 3:  Petaluma back to Sacramento, the long way, via Clear Lake, a route I hadn’t driven in years.  The twisting, turning route crosses the Coast Range, and, coming out of the mountains, the lush green vegetation was all behind me.  The usual long, brown summer had arrived in the Sacramento Valley, and it was only the first week of May.

It was a good trip.  I enjoyed it, but I’ve always enjoyed road trips, even years ago with four miniature humans in the back seats providing entertainment of various qualities.

For me it was just another road trip, but a trip brought on by restlessness and the belief that, even at my age, if I can drive in the craziness of Sacramento traffic, why shucks, I can drive anywhere.

But it was a chancy thing to do, and I got away with it.  I didn’t hear any horns blaring, no squealing of skidding tires, no crumpling of sheet metal.  No newspaper article headlined “Elderly Driver Plows into Crowd; Kills Everyone in Sight.”

So I’ll probably do it again.

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