Currently I am doing a final edit, photo edit, and formatting a book that has been a long time coming (about the TB hospital in Springville, here in Tulare County). Things are a bit urgent, so here is a post about my road trip 10 days ago, because this is my blog and I can write whatever I want. Any questions? (Besides how to comment; I KNOW commenting is a pain of signing in, user names, passwords, etc. I HATE that stuff and feel grateful to anyone willing to navigate it all.)

The drive was beautiful. It was green with wildflowers. I left at 6:30 a.m. and seemed to encounter cars coming up the hill about every 1/2 mile or so before getting to Highway 65, which caused me to ask, “Why all the traffic?”

This is just hilarious in view of heading to Southern California. I live in a place where we simply say “The Freeway”; everyone I went to visit has to refer to the many freeways in their lives by the numbers. Do they say “Five” or do they say “The Five”? And if they say “The Five”, do they also say “The Walmart” and “The Facebook”? I forgot to notice.

The photos never do justice to reality. Additionally, I was holding up my phone while watching the road (OF COURSE I WAS WATCHING THE ROAD!) and hoping to get lucky. (No film was wasted, but many photos were deleted after I arrived.) There were wildflowers on the hillsides, wildflowers in patches on the shoulders of the freeways. The hills over The Grapevine* were green, the hills in Southern California were green—just wonderful, looking the way i think it always should look. (God didn’t ask for my opinion when he designed the seasons in California so I’ll just trust that all is as it should be despite my attitude.)

The freeway system has changed since I was a frequent traveler along that route. Confusing stuff. I used the talking lady, until she told me to leave The Two-Ten and head west. Can’t remember. I just pantsed my arrogant way along, sure I could figure it out. Then The Fifteen became a tollway, not a freeway. WHAT?? So I took The Sixty west, and asked the talking lady to get me to Escondido again.

I ended up on The Two Fifteen (Hunh? What”s that one?) and eventually it fed back into The Fifteen (without my spending a dime other than burning gas that cost $5.99/gallon in Three Rivers), and things became familiar again.

I love this bridge, which we called “Dad’s Favorite Bridge” for awhile (Was he unaware of the Oak Grove Bridge on the Mineral King Road? Nope. “De gustibus non es diputandem” as he used to say.**) It is a beautifully minimalistic bridge, spanning a huge freeway, as you can see. It is south of Fallbrook, in case you are curious.

Driving home, I decided I didn’t need the talking lady, but I asked her to take me to Fresno, just for curiosity’s sake. Yeppers, once again, she tried to force me off The Fifteen (or was it The Two Ten?) and once again I ignored her. I didn’t encounter any tollways nor did I see The Two Fifteen. Boy oh boy, do I ever need an updated map.

I was reminded that in order to stay on The Two Ten, one must continually exit and then merge onto another freeway, each interchange a total constipation of too many cars. I didn’t like it, being much more comfortable on a one-lane unpaved curvy road without stripes or guard rails.

However, Momscar with its 6 cylinder engine was mighty fine in several instances. People say they hate all the shifting in traffic; I never did, but often wished for more ponies under my hood back in the olden days of driving 5-speeds.

This is the first time in my life that I remember seeing so many wildflowers on the Grapevine. It was beautiful! I also had a good audio book, The Tao of Martha by Jen Lancaster (Memoir read by the author is my favorite, but why do people have to cuss so much? Sigh.)

I did finally see why a Tesla “truck” calls itself a truck—I could actually see it has a bed like a real pickup. But the ugly factor just slays me.

I was very eager to get home, and in the second passing lane around the lake, I blew around someone poking along. After getting past, I quickly came to a traffic jam. What?? I could see that cars went all the way across the Horse Creek bridge, coming downhill. What?? Eventually we crawled back into action, passing a slightly wrinkled car sitting on the bed of a tow truck.

Dorothy was right—There’s no place like home (not The Home).

*The Grapevine is what Freeway 5 (“The Five”?) is called where it crosses the Tehachapi Mountains because even until I was a little kid, it was a country road that was very twisty. Now it is multiple lanes, high speed until you catch up to someone (who should keep right) crawling uphill in one of the faster lanes. The summit is closer to Bakersfield than to Southern California—Tejon Pass, 4144’. After the summit, it feels as if we still climb, but who knows? Not me.

** Latin for “it’s useless to argue over matters of taste”.