The
dream began over a year ago, always in the back of my mind to do a trip and see
nothing but friends and loved ones, and to squeeze in as many as I possibly
could.
I
completed my 10 day whirlwind trip last month from Thursday, April 18th
to Sunday, April 28th, 2013. There were to be nine to ten people I was
going to try and see and I was fortunate enough to get all but two in, not bad
for a trip with a lot of people involved.
Several
components were involved in building this mini-adventure and I thank God for
being able to have found several friends through the use of Classmates.com and
Face Book. Without those two social
media sites, I would not have been able to have visited old family friends or
high school friends!
As
usual, I like to begin packing about a week before trips, that way I don’t
forget the little things like toothpaste or deodorant, although I did leave the
toothpaste tube on the bathroom counter at home.
I bought one on the road and it will now fill my pre-pak travel
kit. By the time D-Day arrived I was
pretty well set with clothes for all kinds of weather or events. You never know what kinds of things are going
to pop up.
Finally,
Thursday broke bright and sunshiny and I headed out of the driveway by 10:30
a.m.
My
son had made a CD and loaned it to me for the ride so I popped that in and the
first tune belted out was Alicia Keys’ “This Girl is on Fire!” With all the windows rolled down I pointed my
nose W/SW and merrily car-sang that tune several times until I hit the highway.
About
two hours later I had crossed the Oregon/California border and kept Mt. Shasta as my viewpoint
for quite awhile. A great first sight on
that clear, blue sky day. About two and
half hours later my GPS dashboard girl
friend brought me to the front door of my first stop; Bill and Connie Jensen in
Redding, California. I knew Bill in high school forty one years
ago and met his wife Connie through our email letters. Bill and I connected through Face Book, Mark
Zuckerbergs’ famous online social gathering.
Bill
and Connie have been married 39 years and hearing about how they met and fell
in love was cute and funny, great to see them still together and beating the
odds of many of the rest of us.
Connie
put together a delicious barbecue chicken dinner while Bill took me over to the
Sun Dial Bridge in Redding—very cool
structure!
All
three of us stayed up until about 10:30 just catching up on old times and
friends, who we knew, who was gone and
who we’d seen last. Connie had to go to
work the next morning so we called it a night and headed off to bed.
Since
I had a couple of hours to spare before heading out to the next destination,
Bill loaded the kayaks into his truck around 7:30
a.m.
and we drove to Whiskey Town Lake. By 8:00 a.m. we were coffee’d
up, geared up and on the lake.
It was a bit breezy but not cold and once we
got paddling we warmed up nicely. The
wind died down shortly thereafter and we continued to enjoy the clear skies and
serenity of the early morning. We saw
quite a number of birds; bald eagles (at which Bill said he couldn’t recall
seeing any in this area before), cormorants, a blue heron, ospreys and crows. During our easy paddling we watched a bald
eagle swoop down and snag a fish with its claws. Pretty magical there.
The
second leg of the trip was a stop in Folsom, California at Marsha and Kent
Harris’ house. Marsha and I were friends
in high school and a little bit afterwards.
One of our memories included a trip to Lake Tahoe together in my pretty
little yellow 1967 “Le Goat”—the front
end of which had GTO on the front grill and the rear end was marked “Le
Mans”. I don’t know how it got that way
but I loved that car…
Marsha
looks the same as she did in high school and the best part is, you can’t miss
her beautiful and cheerful smile. Always
sweet and kind and lots of fun and she is still that way. Marsha and Kent just bought a brand new home
and were only in it for a week before my visit so it still had “new home”
smell, certainly better than new car!
That
evening Kent took the three of
us in for a quick stop at a local tavern so we could hoist a few margaritas and
salute old times. Afterwards we walked
the old town section of Folsom, wandering the short,
touristy street, stopping in at the huge corner candy store where we bought
some fudge and hard cinnamon candies. The next stop was dinner at Viscontis’, a
wonderful Italian restaurant where the owner cruises between tables, inquiring
about the meals in his beautiful Italian accent.
Very
soon the evening was closing and it was time to return home where Marsha and I
put on our ‘comfies’ and sat on the couch, reminiscing about youth, old life
and good friends.
Next
stop: Rio Vista, California, to visit my
brother Pat and his wife Cathie. I
entered their address in my trusty dashboard GPS and her wooing
voice instructed me to head in a direction that seemed odd—north—but I did it
anyway knowing that I could always pull over and turn around/change direction
and she’d start over again. So far,
“she” had delivered me to everyone’s front door without incident.
I
got out of busy Folsom just fine and was eventually directed onto a six lane
highway on Saturday afternoon. At 2:30
p.m.
I was trapped in full-blown bumper-to-bumper-doing-10-miles-per-hour
traffic. Saturday?? Just WHERE was everyone going? The other six lanes of traffic heading south
were virtually empty. You would have
thought it was 5:00 p.m. on a Friday. The scary part was people simply pull right
in front of you if there’s a one inch space between your front bumper and the
rear bumper of the car ahead. Just push
right in. And then the flowing mass of
metal would speed up to 25 and slow down again.
I soon caught on that this was due to two merging lanes at a time, about
every mile for, well, forever it seemed, but in reality it was probably
about six miles. Most of this
crammed-in, metal blob lasted for the entire forty miles it took to get on the
highway that pointed me to the east. It
took an hour to drive that freeway in the flat, dry and hazy Sacramento area. My knuckles relaxed off the steering wheel
and GPS gave the rest of
her directions in that soft, soothing voice of hers without incident.
I
arrived at Pat and Cathie’s that Saturday, relieved and tired and so warmly
welcomed on that late, sunny afternoon.
Cathy had put a stew on earlier and the whole house was enveloped in
that wonderful, meaty aroma. I put my
things in the spare room, we got something cool to drink and planted ourselves
on the back patio for some catch-up talk.
It’s almost always breezy in Rio Vista, being in the delta area, so when
it reaches 85 degrees it is still comfortable.
Oh,
and I forgot about Chica! Last year Pat
and Cathie got a new little dog, a miniature pincher. She may be teeny but she has big attitude and
now she knows she runs the house. That
little rascal can fly from one room to another, a little black blur with big
eyes!
I
had planned to stay with Pat and Cathie for that Saturday, Sunday and Monday. A
chance to just visit, talk, eat and catch up on family news events and to relax
and enjoy each others’ company. I did
just that!
Sunday we drove over to the Rio Vista Railroad Museum (the last time I
was there was when Michael and Sara were 6 and 7 years old! We were there with
my dad and step-mom).
There
was the museum itself with books and postcards and various other items you
could purchase, along with the posted times and costs of the train rides. There were different excursions that day; a
short 5 minute tour on one of the smaller cars and another one on the larger
train that took you on a 7 mile loop.
The three of us hopped on the mini-tour and thoroughly enjoyed it, the
smells of the wood and leather, listening to the wheels clickity-clacking over
the rails. Above our heads were
advertisements of the day (1930’s) and for fresh air you could raise up the
wooden window, “Just don’t stick your arms or heads out because the windows
have been known to slam down”, the conductor told us.
This
museum is all-volunteer run, these guys do it because they love being around
these trains. You can feel the love and
you know they really enjoy wearing their conductor uniforms.
When
the mini-tour was over, Pat and Cathie and I went over to the snack shop and
got a hot dog and Coke while Cathie got a really intense chocolate ice
cream. We sat down at a picnic table and
enjoyed the slight breeze, the sunshine, our snacks and watching jack rabbits
play around the huge landscaped lawn area.
Soon
we heard the train a’comin’, we were excited to get on board the big one, feel
the rocking and rolling of the cars and check out the scenery as we rolled
along.
The
conductor gave us a short story about how and what these trains were used for
“back in the day” and that many of the messages to be passed on to other trains
and conductors were either left in a mail bag hanging on posts or that certain
bags were in a particular place-which meant that a train was either coming and
they should be headed to another track or whether it was safe to proceed. Sometimes
they stopped the train so that these mail bags could be retrieved and sometimes
the conductor simply leaned out and yanked them off the poles as the train
slowed down to do so.
On
one of these particular passes we actually LOST our conductor! There were two conductors, one ‘rail worker’
and about ten passengers on the train and as we were rocking along, a young
girl about 8 years old and in the car in front of us, yelled out that someone
fell off the train! A male passenger in
our car then yelled out, “Man down! Man
down! Stop the train, someone has fallen
off the train!” Of course there was a
bit of confusion as to whom it was that fell off the train but within seconds
it was determined that it was one of the conductors.
It
was only a matter of minutes before the car was slowed down and we were in
back-up mode, we hadn’t gone far from the above telephone post where we saw the
crumpled heap of black and white laying motionless against the pole. He was face down in the dirt and he was not
moving when the car stopped. Another
passenger volunteered that she knew CPR and sprang out of her seat to
help. Several people got off the train
to help, not all of us so that there would be plenty of room for action. They said they could hear his raspy breathing
but that he wasn’t moving. His head was
bleeding profusely, someone peeked in the door and asked for a scarf or spare
shirt to wrap around his head, I offered the one Pat and I had stashed in my
purse earlier, “In case I get cold”, Pat said.
The rest of us sat in our seats, silently praying that he would be okay
since everyone’s first thought was that he was dead. None of us thought he could have survived
that fall out the open door at 25 to 30 miles an hour.
Since
we were in a narrow stretch of the run, two people were out on the high ground
calling 911 for help, they were able to reach emergency services and within a
ten minute period, an ambulance truck and fire engine had been dispatched and
arrived, straddling the tracks as they drove to our position.
It
was soon decided that we passengers would disembark the big train and reload on
the small one we’d been on earlier and return to the main passenger loading zone. We were all quiet and concerned about the
status of our pleasant and knowledgeable conductor, Cliff.
Approaching
the main gate, the second train conductor offered to call anyone who was
interested in knowing Cliff’s condition if they would leave a business card or
piece of paper with a name and phone number.
We
all returned solemn about the event that just occurred when the remaining
conductor said, “We are very sorry that your train ride has been ruined” and I
replied, “The only way this would be ruined is if Cliff is NOT okay, this is no
fault of yours and hey, things happen!”
Later
on after dinner as we were sitting out on the back patio, Cathy received a call
from #2 Conductor and he related to us that Cliff was doing okay! “No broken bones but quite a few bruises and
contusions, but all good considering and they’re keeping him overnight for
observation”. That was the icing on the
cake for that day. Pat, Cathy and I were
so happy to hear that he was going to be fine.
Whew!
Monday
came and we decided to just lay low, take it easy, talk and talk and share
memories of mom and dad, older brother Rick and various other family things
that came to mind. Cathy went and picked
up Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner and while she was gone, Pat played his
guitar for me. I loved it. I remember when he came home from the Army (1970?),
teaching himself how to play…
What
a great memory I have of my brother Pat.
I have a great memory of Cathy putting a bikini outfit on Chica, too. Chica is their miniature Pincher they got
last year, she’s still a pup but oh boy, does she have “I OWN this place”
attitude, ha ha.
Monday
arrived all sunshiny and beautiful, we had a lovely breakfast and then Pat and
Cathy decided to wash my car! That was
so nice of them to do that, I was going to and simply ran out of time when I
was getting ready for the trip.
Tuesday
came and I was pointed towards Walnut Creek to spend a day and
night with my step-mom whom I hadn’t seen since my dad died in October of
2013. Wow, hard to believe he’s been
gone that long.
But,
I got to mom’s house and when she opened the door, I thought she looked great,
just great! She’s a busy woman, she
exercises and walks and helps out her neighbors with personal care or small
chores. Their isn’t a whole lot of
sit-down time with her, I see mom going for quite a long time.
It
was kind of strange being in the house and dad not there, although mom seemed
to switch from past-tense to present when she was talking about dad.
Sadly,
the pictures I took of mom on my phone I ended up losing, don’t know what
happened to them, maybe I can get her to send me one or two.
It
was great to see her, mom’s in great shape and it was hard to go, too. I am so glad she was a part of this
journey.
Getting
to Walnut
Creek I was able to get two people in this stop; mom and my
childhood friend, Debbie Wiley. We’ve
been through some times together, that girl and I. We met in first or second grade, can’t
remember which and don’t think it matters a whole lot. Her mother and my mother shared Room Mother
duties way back then. Debbie
and I shared a lot of recesses together and an event that happened in our 6th
grade teachers’ class (Mr. Last) will forever be etched in my math memory. I’ll just let that stay in the memory books.
We
had Girl Scout times, some shared friend’s times, even went and stayed at her
parents’ cabin in Soda Springs (by Truckee) once. I remember getting homesick and I remember we
had a “snipe hunt”; we all grabbed pillows and went out into the woods after
dark supposedly trying to catch a snipe.
Then there was the time after graduation that we borrowed her brothers’ big
ol’ flesh colored bus-truck and drove up the cabin area, we were going to go
camping! Just us girls. We drove onto a dirt road and were going to
camp there but for some reason we left, I don’t remember if we were run out of
there or got scared and I think we went to the cabin, can’t remember all the
details.
Anyway,
I waited at mom’s and finally Debbie called me at 7:00
p.m.
on Wednesday evening, she’d just gotten home from her work as librarian in Fairfield. She says her commute isn’t bad, better than
if she were going the other way.
I
hurried on over and as I got there, Deb was fixing hamburgers. It was just wonderful to see my good friend
of 52 years. We sat and reminisced about
funny things, our parents and our families, some good and some bad. And of course, never enough time.
Two
kind of funny things happened while I was there; as Debbie and I were sitting
at the table (the one above) we both heard a very strange sound that came from
the kitchen; it was a cross between a moan and the sound a smoke alarm makes
when the battery is dyeing. Neither the
dog nor the cats reacted to this noise and her back door was open, no
‘critters’ were trying to get in. I
thought it might have been a raccoon but since the dog was outside and he
didn’t behave differently, that thought kind of went out the window. Ultimately, we never did figure out what that
strange noise was.
Since
Debbie had to get up and go to work the next morning, I asked her to go ahead
and wake me; she said she got up about 7 or so.
We
both hit the pillows around 10:00 p.m., wishing we could
stay up more but alas, work schedules rule.
I went to sleep quickly in a huge, soft bed, made me feel like a
princess it was so big!
About
5:30 or 6:00
a.m.
I heard a knock on the door and then it opened—I said, “Debbie? Are you up?”
and there was no reply. I got up and
looked around into the kitchen, I saw no lights and heard no sounds so I went
back to bed pondering this new event.
The door that led to my room was not a light door, rather solid and
stout so it shouldn’t have just ‘eased’ open.
I mentioned it to Debbie when she did get up and she was just as
surprised as I was. There have been no
new noises since my visit…
The
next stop on my vacation was down in Campbell, California, about 2 and a
half to 3 hours away, depending on the time of day one leaves and hit the
traffic on the freeways. I left about 10:00
a.m
and had no problems with excessive traffic, no slowdowns and plenty of room on
the road.
I
programmed my little GPS friend and she got
me on the freeway headed south, made all the right exits and lane changes and
did just great all the way to Hal and Joanne Carroll’s’ house---well,
almost. This was the first time that I
was short-changed by one block. Their
address is 1395 and Miss GPS kept telling me I
was at their door when I was really at 1295.
I am not going to complain, after all, I wasn’t headed down a snowy road
out in the wilderness as some people have been led.
There
was the Carroll homestead, little white fence out front; yard full of orange
and lemon trees, rose bushes lined the front porch and a signature
statue-fountain under the living room window.
I pulled up into the driveway and gave a little honk to warn my friends
I had arrived. Within seconds Hal came
out the door with welcoming arms and Joanne was close behind. I have known Hal since high school and Joanne
in just the last few years. Hal has
always been and still is one of those rare people who are genuinely full of
love and care for all kinds of animals and people. Always a respectful young man and generous in
his friendship and kindness, it is nice to see he hasn’t lost any of those
qualities as he has matured. Joanne is
busy and bright with a quick sense of humor and makes you feel as if you have
always known her. They are a remarkable
couple to have as friends. If you look
closely you will see a picture of me and Sara on their “Friends Wall”, we are
the second one down and second to the right, Hal and Joanne’s’ is the 3rd picture down and on the
left. Kevin and I are the second picture
down from the top red picture, second to the right.
I
may get my meals mixed up since I spent three days there but it doesn’t matter,
they treated me so wonderful while I was there, I hope to be able to
reciprocate the same kind of hospitality to any of my friends should they be
able to stop in at our house on a future trip.
I
believe the day I arrived we went downtown for dinner and I had some ribs. Our next day was a lunch downtown where we
shared two different kinds of pizza while dined at sidewalk tables and listened
to the busy sounds of town life.
The
first night Joanne and I went together to her carving class, now I have been to
this class with her before but this time I was able to participate by
practicing with a burning tool. She gave
me a little sheet of wood and began some simple instructions on different ways
to make feathers, dots, and lines that look like fur or hair on a carved
piece. It was fun to try this and I
brought my practice piece home where Kevin inserted a marble; when I hang it in
the sunlight the marble will be a light director! I got this idea from an internet site where
someone had inserted marbles all along a wooden fence and when the sun hit
those marbles just right, it was quite a light show.
Joanne
has a friend she walks with in the mornings so I was invited to come along, get
some of the kinks out of my legs from driving and sitting. I’m not used to walking city blocks so it was
interesting to see man-made landscaping again, the various plants that grow
down in Campbell as opposed to what
I can grow here in La Pine. One of our
walks included the percolation ponds where there is quite an extensive paved
path system for both bike riders and walkers.
Lots of wildlife over there, too!
The Canada geese were just
taking their young broods out for park visits; we spotted ducks with their
chicks swimming madly behind mom and dad, trying to keep up. There were white egrets in the trees on the
islands and on the last leg of the walk we spotted a lonesome white swan.
The
ending to this beautiful day? We
celebrated with Hal’s homemade macaroni salad and barbecued ribs out in the
backyard on the patio, surrounded by flowering greenery and singing birds.
The
weather was beautiful; warm and welcoming, not too hot for this ol’ gal from Oregon. I had mentioned to Hal and Joanne, during
this visit, something about “a full monty”, and not really knowing what it
meant. “Well Janie, you’re in luck
because we HAVE that movie! I think we
should watch it so you’ll know what “a FULL MONTY means”. And we did…it was hilarious. I had heard this silly comment before but
didn’t REALLY know what it meant, what a great comedic end to the day, indeed.
Next
morning we were treated to homemade Belgian waffles with some of that jam that
Joanne is famous for making (some of which I helped make on this visit)
I
didn’t climb any mountains or rescue any people, I didn’t create a miracle or
cure a disease, what I did do was have a magical and wonderfully peaceful and
loving vacation. Never quite had one
like this, enjoying so many friends and seeing family. Definitely a
once-in-a-lifetime event.
My
three days of visiting the Carroll’s Camp was over, packing again and getting
ready to leave at 6:00 a.m. the next day and
headed towards South Lake Tahoe where I would meet
up with another high school
friend (actually, since 7th and 8th grade!), Terri
Beauchamp.
I
hadn’t driven the expressways and freeways of California in a long time so
hitting the road early on a Sunday morning was great and as the sun was coming
up over the rolling green and fog-shrouded hills, I breathed in a sigh of
satisfaction. It was beautiful but
short-lived. The fog dissipated quickly
and the air had a strange, sort of industrial aroma to it.
Entering
South
Lake Tahoe as a destination point in my GPS, I felt
fairly confident I wasn’t going to get led too far astray. I was able to take some lovely winding back
roads through the gold country, places I hadn’t been in years, through Jackson where my parents
and I used to visit old family friends.
Oak trees, old barns, and 1940’s trucks rusting out behind old gas
stations—I loved it.
It
wasn’t long before I was gaining elevation and climbing the hills of the
southern edge of Lake Tahoe.
When
I hit town, I called Terri and we met up in a parking lot across from a Subway
sandwich shop (after missing several connecting points because this town had
two of a few of the same things). We
headed over to the Subway and bought some sandwiches and a drink, then headed
to a nice little beach where Terri and I sat and started to catch up on
life. We had not seen each other in 40
years, where do you start “in a nutshell” was able to spend two hours with her,
it was so sweet to see her, hear about her life and know she is doing well. She
is still a funny, sweet and beautiful woman; she was the cherry on top of the
cupcake of my trip. Thank you for
sharing this with me, Dear Friend!
Of
course our visit wasn’t long enough but you take what you can get and I loved
every minute of it! Time to hit the road
again, the time was about 12:30 in the early
afternoon. According to the GPS, I would
arrive home between seven and eight hours of driving—if you don’t stop.
I
tend to enjoy the scenery but one person did slow me down a bit. I was winding through the hills on the downside
of Tahoe, around 2:00 p.m. when I came up
behind a man in a bright red Mustang convertible. He was cruising, and I mean cruuuu-sing
along, enjoying the wind in his hair, the sunshine on his head and stunning
scenery of the valley off to our right.
At 50 miles per hour.
I
followed him at this speed for several miles since the option to pass wasn’t a
viable choice. Finally, with a little
bit of a stretch ahead of us, I went on past and as I did so, this
white-sleeved hand gently stretched up over his head, waving parade-like as I
went by. Oh, to have that much time….
I
had about five more hours to recap in my mind all the wonderful (and scary!)
moments of this unique trip. How many
people said they wished they could do the same thing and how fun it seemed to be? All the reconnects of family and people I
hadn’t seen in so long. It was truly my
most magical trip.
