"And the road a-winding goes..."

A couple of years ago I found myself repeatedly playing this game called Ten Fingers. In this game you say something you’ve never done, and everyone else who has done said thing puts a finger down. The winner/loser is ultimately the person who has experienced the least. This can be a good thing or bad thing, depending on who you are and what your fellow players are claiming they’ve never done. I was repeatedly the winner/loser, and I didn’t like that one bit. I’d never been to Disneyland/world, I’d never been the female lead in a show, I’d never been in a relationship, I’d never been to California. I felt like I hadn’t Lived. Since then I think I’ve been through a lot of good and bad, and though I’m still very inexperienced in some aspects I’ve conquered some of those Nevers in the past couple of years.

California is one of those Nevers that I’ve been trying to drive off to for a while. I’ve planned on going before just to have my fellow planner drop out on me. Well sometime during Winter semester, my friend Emily and I were lying on the Slab and she mentioned how she had never been to California and she’d always wanted to take off there, and I said “Me too, let’s go!” So we did. And my lovely roommate Beth came too. Three girls from New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas who’d never seen the Pacific had nothing else exciting planned for the summer. Honestly, I was dying to get out of Utah (I’ve been here all year, and won’t get away again until Christmas). I reasoned that this would absolutely be the best time to go. Who knows if I’ll live this far west again? I don’t have anyone dependent on me, I’ve got the time, and I have an Aunt and Uncle who live right outside of San Francisco, our destination of choice. (From my Ireland trip last summer I learned not to tackle too large of a geographical area at once, and to spend more time out of a car than in it, experiencing a place through the windows of a car is not satisfying.)

So early Tuesday morning, three very sleepy but excited girls piled into a car and we put the sun to our backs. It was a 13 hour drive, and things were going great. I quite enjoyed driving through the salt flats, it’s surreal and I was delighted to find a piece of modern art created by another man who was inspired by the surreality: Karl Momen, a Swedish artist, created the Tree of Utah. “A hymn to our universe, whose glory and dimension is beyond all myth and imagination.” Further along, people had written messages on the side of the road with rocks, and I was tempted to stop and create my own, but resisted. Nevada was Boring. But at least the road was straight and flat.




So far Beth had been sleeping in the back, but we woke her up to take the wheel and we crossed the border into California. The moment we did, the landscape was suddenly Gorgeous.We careened through mountaineous ranges of pines and pockets of sparkling lakes to the strains of "California" by Phantom Planet as loud as we could bear it. By some town in California there was this huge statue of a man bending down with a bowl, and I was the only one that saw it. I wasn't quick enough to take a picture, but I wish I had, it was really cool, and kind of random.

We made it to Oakland before the sun set, but promptly became very lost and very frustrated. We were all quite tired and were only too ready to find our destination: my Uncle Nick's and Aunt Jayne's house. We finally broke down and Beth went into a Safeway to get a map while I called my Uncle, admitting defeat. We were actually quite close, and in minutes we were finding a parking spot on this delightfully hilly, windy road crowded with houses. The neighbourhood cats followed us to the house. As they would continue to do every day when we dragged our weary feet to our temporary home in the middle of the night.

In general, I don't know my relatives well at all. Specifically, I didn't remember ever meeting my Aunt and Uncle, though I'm sure I have sometime years ago. Yes, I felt really awkward, but when do I not when I'm making small talk with people I don't know. I immediately liked them and loved their house. Books were everywhere. And then I looked into the study and literally half of the room was inaccessible because it was filled with PILES of books. Heavenly. I wish I'd taken a picture. These were obviously kindred spirits. I've never felt so immediately related to anyone else in my family. After chatting for a while my aunt, uncle, and cousin Aleck retired to their beds while the three of us planned for the next day. I fell asleep gazing at a huge, varied, incredible film collection sandwiched between more books.

On Wednesday we arose bright and early and drove south to Monterey. Devil's Slide was sadly closed due to cleaning up from winter's storms, but driving along the coast south of that along Route 1 was lovely. Our first stop: Pidgeon Point Lighthouse. My first lighthouse ever. The day was overcast, thrillingly foggy, and delightfully cool. Ideal weather for the summer, in my opinion. At times cool, but warming up quite nicely at other times. Definitely preferable to the current, stifling heat wave here in Utah. The lighthouse also housed a hostel. It all reminded me very much of Ireland. I soon decided that living on the California coast for a year would not be the worst thing in the world. We couldn't go to the top of the lighthouse, and so, alas, I could not re-enact "Candle on the Water" from Pete's Dragon. Another time. After wandering around, looking at seabirds and waves, we hopped back into the car. We passed an ollaliberry farm, but I was not quick enough to stop. Luckily, there was soon a U-Pick Strawberry farm, which turned out to be owned by the same people, and they sold their ollaliberry shortcake and pie there as well. We picked some strawberries for the road, ate ollaliberry shortcake, Beth revelled in the posters on the wall of the United Farm Workers Association. What are ollaliberries, you ask? Um, I'm not sure, but they look like big blackberries, and they're yummy.
One of my favorite things about this roadtrip is that there were three of us. We could do what we wanted, when we wanted to do it. Our only rule was that when you saw a sign or a road that you wanted to pursue and explore, vocalize that impulse and we'd do it. Hence the lighthouse, ollaliberries and strawberries, and historical general store. We continued on our way to Santa Cruz...