Trippin’ Down Memory Lane – Hwy 101: Day 3, Freedom’s in the Knowing

  By Lois | May 15, 2012 - 2:43 pm | It's All About the Trip, Now What?, Reflections, Road Trips
10 Comments

Continuing the third and final day of this road trip down memory lane, if you’d like to catch up on the first two days, click here for Day One and click here for Day Two.  These links will open on new pages so you can easily come back here when you’ve finished reading.

In Gold Beach, Oregon, the morning dawns bright, and completely fogged in.  The bridge outside our window the evening before (see this photo of the bridge taken on Day Two) has disappeared into a thick layer of low clouds, hiding everything from view – the Rogue River silently running below the bridge, the shoreline on the other side with its houses all lined up, the wonderful Oregon Coast that I’d heard so much about and was looking forward to seeing in person.  I poked around the motel room, wasting time, waiting for the fog to lift, and all I got for my efforts was more fog.  The low clouds continued to settle in even lower.  I decided we’d move on anyway, and just hold out hope that the onshore breezes would start early in the day and blow the clouds out.

What really happened was just the opposite – the road stayed fogged in, the coast with all the fantastic rock formations I’d heard so much about was invisible, the on-coming cars had their headlights on for visibility, as did I, and we drove slower than usual to make sure we stayed safe.  We continued northward through the little towns that I’d been told were so picturesque and quaint, only to see fog and more fog, low clouds and more low clouds.  We were approaching Port Orford, a place the locals have dubbed “Port Awful” simply because the coast is so often fogged in and the view, the weather, is awful.  And yes, it was still fogged in.  Hmmm.  I began to wonder if we’d ever see the sun again.  Then, as if by magic, the sky brilliantly cleared up into a gorgeous, cloudless blue; the highway had turned inland where the moisture in the air keeps everything hydrated and green, so our views now were of trees and the coast hills.

Not too many miles up the coast is the little town of Bandon that’s well-known for the cranberry bogs that surround it.  Little did I know that Bandon has had so much more history than just that small fruit so popular at Christmas time!  I decided it was time for another break so I parked the Montero and UHaul trailer on the street, right in front of the door to the Bandon Historical Museum, and paid two bucks to spend an hour amongst the fairly extensive collections of the residents.  What an amazing wealth of information about the logging industry, the agriculture of the area, the local fishing industry, and the big fire of 1936 that nearly burned down the entire town.  I was fascinated by the history of the women in logging, and that the trees were called shes!  And it was only two bucks – such a deal!  If you have an extra hour (or more), it is well worth spending the time.

We continued driving north, knowing that we were getting closer and closer to our final destination, where we’d be unloading the little UHaul trailer and beginning the fix-up of the little 10-footer that the three of us, Dinah Dog, Louise the Cat, and me, would be living in when we took off on a road trip adventure across the country.  Even though the plan is to keep driving, checking out hidden America, meeting new friends, seeing things we’ve never seen before, since there really is no plan, we could end up loving Montana enough to stay for awhile.  Or maybe we’ll find that the coast of Texas is beautiful enough to stop driving for a month or two or ten.  Who knows?  I certainly don’t!

So, I kept driving, and driving, and driving, stopping for gas, stopping to stretch our legs, stopping for Dinah’s pee and poop breaks.  Louise the Cat found a place to curl up in and she stayed pretty well hidden for hours.  We pulled into a little marina in Coos Bay, with lots of boats, some deserted picnic areas, no other people around, and took a break for awhile, just drinking in the wonderful blue sky, the pleasant temperatures, the salt smell in the air, the seagulls chattering away as they flew around looking for a bite to eat.  We rested our legs, sat in the sun, poked around the edges of the water, took pictures of a couple of Canada geese sharing our space.  And then it was time to move on, so Dinah and I climbed back into the Montero and headed back out to the highway.

The drive became a mile-after-mile repeat of green hills, turn-offs for dunes and lighthouses, tall trees, little bitty towns so small if you blinked, you’d miss them, state park after state park, tiny airports, and north of Florence, some very nice ocean views, where the waves crashed up against the shore.  By the time we arrived in Newport, I was tired and knew it was time to make a decision – it was early afternoon and we could spend another night on the road or we could head inland and leave the remainder of Highway 101 for another day.  We took another break where Dinah Dog could get out and stretch her legs while I checked my email on my iPhone.  Guess what?  I had a message from the trucker I’d met the afternoon before.  We exchanged a few more messages and agreed to meet up that evening for a bite to eat in Aurora at the truck stop where he was parked.

So we turned east at Newport, driving through the inland coastal area, passing through trees, meeting greenery at every turn.  Oregon is indeed a beautiful place; the almost constant rain, drizzle, sprinkles keep it green and lush with ferns and flowers, trees and bushes.  Once we had arrived at Interstate 5 in Albany and headed north, it began to feel like we were entering the home stretch, the continuing Freedom, the call of the open road louder in my ears than anything else.  Freedom means so many different things to each of us; to me, it means just being me.  Freedom is knowing that I’m perfect the way I am, that every part of me is the way it’s supposed to be, that I can be who I want to be, that I alone am responsible for any changes I want to make.  Channeling Marlo Thomas here: I’m free to be me!

With the sounds of Freedom shouting in my head, we got off the freeway at Aurora, where Mike the Trucker was waiting to have dinner with me.  After pulling into the truck parking area and locating his truck, we walked over and sat down in the almost deserted restaurant.  Over plates of salad bar and bowls of soup, we chatted and talked, discovering things we had in common (both he and my son worked at the same submarine base in northern California, during the same time period!), things that were different (he’s a code enforcement case; I was a code enforcement officer); finding out that his dream floats (he just bought a 22′ sail boat) and mine has wheels (my current home sweet home is a vintage 1965 ten-foot travel trailer).  It was a nice end to the day, sitting and talking with another new friend.

Realizing it was now past 11 pm, and feeling like I was fading fast, I took my leave from Mike and headed down the road a couple of miles, to Canby, where the 10-footer was parked in the workshop of my friends, Seth and Tricia, and where we would “home-base” for a few weeks while I got the little guy spiffed into shape to live in and safe to travel down the road.

The trip down memory lane on Highway 101 had come to an end.  Filled with wonderful reminiscing about so many amazing, fantastic trips up and down 101 over the years, it felt a little sad to finally draw this trip to a close. But just knowing that my own personal freedom had come back to stay and would be with me forever, made it easy to settle in to the little house in Canby and start to get my head around the big job ahead. There is much work to do and it is time to move forward with it and get this next road trip show on the road.  Who knows, perhaps we’ll pick the 101 back up in Newport and complete the drive to the end.

My wish for all of us is that we be free, truly free, and that we experience our own Freedom completely, for that’s where the knowing is.  It’s in our Freedom.

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“True freedom is always spiritual. It has something to do with your innermost being, which cannot be chained, handcuffed, or put into a jail.”

— OSHO, Freedom: The Courage to Be Yourself

Trippin’ Down Memory Lane – Hwy 101: Day 2, Freedom Around Every Corner!

  By Lois | May 9, 2012 - 4:37 pm | Now What?, Reflections, Road Trips
6 Comments

If you haven’t read Day One of this story, and would like to go back and catch up, click here to be taken back in time to the previous day’s adventures when Freedom called out it’s name so loud and clear, it invigorated and energized me in its urgency.  This link will open the page on a different screen so you can come right back here once you’ve caught up with us.

So, as we headed out from Rohnert Park with a restless three-hour “nap” in an industrial park under our belts, and continued driving up Highway 101 in California, the sense of freedom kept creeping into every tree we drove past, every semi-truck roaring by us going the other direction, every bird we saw flying next to us on the highway, every bite we ate, every sports car that zooming around us as we rambled along with our UHaul trailer following behind us, fifty-five miles per hour feeling like we were snails moving along the roadway, always under threat of being squashed like the pokey slow-movers that we were.

Driving through Santa Rosa, I was reminded of Hula, my son’s last Guide Dog Puppy that he raised for Guide Dogs for the Blind.  She was the most gorgeous of the golden retrievers to whom we’d given a temporary home as she was raised to be either a guide for a blind person or a breeder for the school.  Hula had the sweetest temperament, the goldest of coats, the softest of ears.  She’d been called the Social Director of the Kennels because it was her mission in life to greet each incoming dog with loud barks and gleeful tail-wagging.  Indeed, if the dog world had social directors, Hula would have been their administrator.

Hula lived with us in our home until she was about a year and a half old, at which time, she returned to the school in San Rafael for her training as a guide dog.  Even though she went on to become a breeder for the school, dogs who enter the breeding program must show that they would also make excellent guides, and Hula passed with flying colors.  During her life as a breeder, she produced a number of litters for the school before she retired.  All of this is to say that Santa Rosa is where she lived with Chet and Gail Kreidler, the long-time volunteers for Guide Dogs for the Blind who kept her during her breeding life and retirement.

As Dinah Dog, Louise the Cat, and I traveled through Santa Rosa, we passed the sign for Guerneville, a place I’d visited many times when the son was small.  Oh, what memories of that time came flooding back to me – the freedom of being young, of not having “real” jobs, of driving a cheap-on-gas Volkswagen squareback (how I loved that car!), of starting out in life, of having a brand new little one (that would be the son!), of new places to see and new places to go.  We’d wander those back roads for hours, for days, meeting new friends, hanging out in little funky places, and doing what we thought was just being!  I suppose we were probably called hippies back then, the son’s father and me, bumming around with this little baby, in our veedub, with our sleeping bags and tent, our Coleman stove and lantern… but talk about freedom!  We sure felt like we had it back then and I wanted to get it back… that’s what this trip was all about, wasn’t it?  Freedom!

Dinah, Louise and I drove on, driving through Cloverdale, spying the sign for the KOA campground where we’d stayed for a week or so all those many years ago while we looked for more permanent housing and a job for the son’s father so we could stay in that area.

I’ve loved the Northern California area for a very long time; everything from Santa Cruz north intrigued me, inhabited my dreams, filled my waking hours with plans and schemes.  I’ve spent many weeks over many years cruising through the small towns on the back roads of Mendocino, Napa, the Sonoma coast; many days lying on a beach in Bodega Bay watching birds fly by; many hours wandering around the magnificent Point Reyes with its fabulous light house (300 steps down!) and incredible diversity of birds and wildlife.

So it was, with green hills surrounding us as we drove north on Highway 101, trippin’ down this memory lane, I still heard freedom screaming its name from every tree and every fence post we passed.

We soon passed a sign for the historical Sun House in Ukiah.  How many times had I passed this sign and never stopped?  A place called the Sun House?   We have to go!  Even though it was way early in the morning and the adjacent Grace Hudson Museum wasn’t open yet, I walked the grounds where the wisteria was just beginning to bloom and the azaleas were bright in all their colors, drinking in the quiet of the workday morning, the stillness of the redwoods nearby.  The freshness of the dew on the lawn of the Sun House was delightful!  Some day, I’ll go back to see the museum when it’s open; perhaps on a fall day when the leaves are turning red and winter is preparing to descend in all it’s quiet solitude.

The redwoods were calling our names so we headed back out to 101 and pointed ourselves north once more.  At Willits, the Gateway to the Redwoods, we began driving through stands of trees, those grand, stately redwood trees what seem to touch the sky itself.  I’m sure I could drive through these big, giant, beautiful trees all day long!  I think trees talk to each other, dance with each other when the wind blows, cry with each other when it rains, and I wanted to be a part of it; I wanted to listen to them, hear them, dance with them.  By just driving through them, I felt like we were part of the tree family.  The tree family!?  How can they not be a family?

There’s a very unique 31-mile drive through the Humboldt Redwoods State Park called the Avenue of the Giants and if you ever get a chance to drive north on Highway 101, do not miss this parallel path through the most amazing trees on the west coast!  Even if you just drive through, this family of trees will amaze you, awe you, strike you with its magnificence.  There are many places to pull over and stop, to take a short hike through the trees, to relax with a picnic lunch, and to experience this wonder up close and personal.  There’s also a visitor center that’s very interesting, with interactive exhibits and lots of fun displays. Seriously, try it – you’ll like it!  It’s one of my favorite sections of 101.

Still heading north, we drive through some of the coolest little towns anywhere.  As much as I could have stayed in this area for a long time, I also knew that we needed to continue our journey northward, enjoying the views, loving the area through the windshield of my car.  After driving through all those trees, the first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean was couched in low clouds and mist.   We pulled into a deserted rest area north of Eureka.  Dinah and I both took our time at this peaceful, quiet rest stop, needing the break and stretching our legs.  We’d been on the road for about thirty hours by this time, with only a few hours down-time for me in Rohnert Park the night before.  Even though Dinah was well-rested, sleeping while I drove, she likes to get out and walk around, giving her legs a break from the rear of the car.  She’s such a trooper – when she began having difficulty jumping up into the back of the Montero, I got her a ramp to help her climb up into the car.  She’s not very fond of it yet, thinking she can still jump in, but I’m sure she appreciates that she doesn’t have to try to make that big leap.   We walked down one of the paths that meandered through the redwoods and blooming rhododendrons.  Ah, rhodies, how I’ve missed your wonderful colors and fantastically large blooms.  (This pink rhododendron probably tops out at more than eight feet high because that “pet area” sign is as tall as I am!)

Returning to the car, I got Dinah’s ramp out of the back and prepared to walk her up the slope, just as a semi truck pulled in a few spaces over from where we were parked.  Dinah hopped on up the ramp and the trucker initiated some conversation with a comment about the tarps covering his load.  We chatted for a few minutes, talking about the drive ahead for both of us (he was heading to mid-state Washington) and how we each thought we were getting too old to be doing this kind of <fill in the blank> anymore.  He then pulled out a photo of his new “hobby” – a 22-foot sailboat!  He was planning on retiring in 18 months, and is intending to sail her to Baja for the winter; then he’s trading her in for a larger 35-40-footer, and sailing off to cruise the waters around the world.  I love it when people dream big, especially us “older folk” who might not have the physical strengths we once had, and who, more often than not, get bogged down in the “what ifs” and the “how do I leave all my stuff” and the “I could never do anything like that” – but we can still dream and do, can’t we?!  Dream and Do!  Dream and Do!

Anyway, I wished him well, congratulating him on his up-coming adventure, and as he prepared to leave, and I started back to my car, he said we should keep in touch – and who knows what doors open in front of us and what paths are cleared as we move forward?  So we exchanged email addresses and I drove out the exit, heading northward, knowing I needed to stop for the night in the next few hours for some R & R.

Still driving through some of my favorite terrain, we passed places like the Mystery Trees with its big, huge statues out in front of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe.  I’ve never been to the Trees of Mystery, as it’s officially titled.  Maybe it’ll be worth a stop on the next trip but for now, it’s getting late, I’m tired, we’ve been on the road for thirty hours, and I’m working up to getting hungry.  Looking at my iPhone maps, I see that Brookings and Gold Beach are not too far away, so I search for the closest Motel 6 because that’s the one place we can stay that allows pets and doesn’t charge for them.  My kinda place!  I see that there’s one in Gold Beach so I decide that’s where we’re spending the night.  The coast along the way is overcast and gloomy, the drive through the trees shrouded in foggy mystery.  The afternoon was quiet and pleasant; we were virtually alone on the road.  It’s a Thursday afternoon in April – tourist season has not started.  This time of year, the picnic areas aren’t crowded with people on vacation, the weather is cooler, the colors muted.  It makes for a very nice, very peaceful journey.

The Motel 6 in Gold Beach is currently under remodel (construction stops early and starts late so it won’t interfere with your serenity!), each room being completely re-done and updated, and not the typical Motel 6 at all.  Rumor has it that it’s a converted lodge, high on a hill overlooking the old bridge that spans the Rogue River in  the northern end of town.  Whatever it was in its past life, it’s now a nice, acceptable, low-cost alternative to the high-priced places elsewhere in town. The view is spectacular and I’m hoping we have an awesome sunset!  We checked in and I spent the next half hour getting all of us into the room and settled down – that means dinner for Dinah and Louise and a look around for place to go for dinner for me.  In the parking lot, I was approached by a woman who was missing her own dog back in Ottawa and wanted to know if she could get a “pet fix” with Dinah.  Dinah never passes up an opportunity to be petted and loved on, so, of course, the answer is yes!  In our conversation, I find that she is traveling with her sister from Vancouver, British Columbia, and they’ve been driving up the coast from San Diego, just like we’ve been!  Kathy from Ottawa and Marilyn from Vancouver, BC, are heading north, cruising along the coast of the Pacific Ocean, on their way home from a sister road-trip.  We all sit and talk and connect and laugh and exchange email addresses and vow to keep in touch while we journey through life.  Thank you, Kathy and Marilyn, for your connection – it’s wonderful to find kindred spirits everywhere, isn’t it?  (I discovered later that evening that Marilyn had also connected her friend Marina in England with my blog!  Wow!  What amazing serendipities happen when we let them!)  The cry of freedom is still ringing in my ears, the sense of openness and the infinite wonder of possibilities pokes at me from around every corner!

If my dinner that night was forgettable, and it was, the location was anything but…. at the edge of the Rogue River where it dumps into the Pacific Ocean, on a somewhat cloudy and overcast evening, with freedom oozing from every blade of grass, every grain of sand, I walk back up the hill to my room, passing a couple of deer grazing in the grass near the sidewalk,  and crash into bed, alongside Louise the Cat, for the night.  Ahhhhhh…….

Yesterday was a day of connecting up with friends I’ve known since forever, sharing our paths one more time; today was a day of making new friends, of connecting with people doing the same thing I am, of meeting up with others who aren’t sitting still as their lives continue past the half-century mark.

Tomorrow will be another day of Freedom, and as I close my eyes for the night, I hear a cry of joy just outside my consciousness – Rock On!

Coming up: Trippin’ Down Memory Lane – Hwy 101: Day 3 – Continuing Freedom

Trippin’ Down Memory Lane – Hwy 101: Day 1, the Beginning of Freedom

  By Lois | May 1, 2012 - 12:31 am | Now What?, Reflections, Road Trips
6 Comments

There’s nothing like a drive on Highway 101 in California to bring out the nostalgia in me.  If one could love a road, I love this road.   The changing scenery, the little towns, the rolling hills, the vineyards, the beaches, the redwoods, the ocean – all of these serve to remind me of some previous trip or some event that can be tied to a person or time in my life that I remember fondly.

The start of this particular trip actually took place in San Diego County as I packed up my belongings and the dog and cat, and headed north, reaching the beginning of Hwy 101 in Hollywood early on a Thursday afternoon, before the rush hour traffic began.  I marveled at the lack of traffic, and as I merged to the left, towards the arrows pointing to the 101, I reflected back on the last hour.  I’d stopped in Pomona, where I’d spent a few minutes catching up with my friend, Debbie.  She was just starting her lunch break when I’d called, so she drove a little south and I drove a little north and we met in the middle in a parking lot that had a little grassy area and some shade for Dinah Dog.  It was to be the harbinger of the days to come, this meeting up in the middle of nowhere with a friend I’ve know since forever.  Debbie, you set the tone for my trip… thank you for meeting me on your lunch break!

As Debbie went back to work and I jumped back on the freeway, headed for the 101, I knew that my upcoming trip to the Pacific Northwest was going to be a special one.  My mind’s voice kept repeating over and over, saying “FREE! FREE! FREE!  I’m free!!”  I couldn’t help but think that freedom was finally within my grasp, that I was finally free to do what I was meant to do, that I was finally going to be who I was meant to be.

Once through Hollywood and headed for the Ventura county line with my first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, I started digging into the freedom that was mine for the taking.  My mind began to go wild, picturing every little possibility along the way, knowing the choices were endless, the options as infinite as the drops of water in the ocean on my left.  Oh, the places we’ll go, my dog and cat and me!  In our little trailer, just the three of we!  (Dr. Seuss would be so proud!)

I called up another long time friend as soon as we passed the city limits into Ventura.  He was just beginning his afternoon break, so I stopped on by and got a tour of his kitchen where he is the Chef for the Sisters of the Holy Cross at St. Catherine’s By the Sea.  A beautiful kitchen, a gorgeous view out the windows of the dining room, the peaceful, serene grounds of the convent around him – how can he do anything but love coming to work every day?  Bruce, you’ve got it made!  You’ve finally arrived!  Good on ya!  Oh, and by the way, your soup simmering on the stove smelled delicious!

I could have stayed in Ventura for another hour or more (I love this town!), cruising around the beach area, soaking up some of that special ambiance that doesn’t seem to be tainted by the fast-pace of life just an hour south, but I knew it was time to take my possibilities and head on up the coast.  There were other people to meet, other serendipities to be had, other ocean views to drink in.  We’re off!

With a brief stop at the very windy, always windy, Gaviota Rest Area just before the Gaviota Tunnel, we began our drive through some of the prettiest rolling hills and vineyards anywhere.  I love this section of 101 – so peaceful, so serene, so green this time of year, so full of the promise of a bottle of yummy wine – the views stretching on for miles and miles, always changing, always beautiful.  (The banner at the top of my blog is one of these views.)

Every time I tried to look behind me at the traffic, I saw the UHaul trailer staring back at me in the mirror (for the entire trip, I kept looking in the mirror thinking someone was driving way too close!).  With the trailer following us everywhere we went and Louise the Cat snoozing in the sun on the front passenger seat, we drove north, through memory after memory after memory – we’d already driven past the eucalyptus trees in Camarillo that used to span the highway, and we were now were driving past the signs for Pismo Beach and Morro Bay.  Ah, Pismo, you’ll always have my beach heart – you’re the first beach I ever drove a car on!  Near dusk, we drove past the Madonna Inn where I’ve always wanted to spend a night or two but just never have.  Each room has a different theme!  What could be more fun than staying in a room called the Caveman Room?  Or how about the Highway Suite?  Wonder what’s in that room!  I understand they have a tasty bakery on site, too…  and I hear the waterfall in the men’s restroom is not to be missed – wonder if I could sneak a peak?!

Even though the daylight was ending, I somehow couldn’t stop driving!  I was wired, excited, ready to go, go, go, and so I went, went, went, continuing to drive and drive and drive.  My mind was still thinking of the possibilities, my eyes were taking in all the surrounding glory of California in the spring.  And I was still driving!  I thought I should have had a voice-activated recorder with me so I could remember all the things that were going through my head.  I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget a thing!  And then I realized that this dream I was living, this reality I had chosen for myself, was not going to go away simply because I wasn’t writing it down or recording my thoughts.  I could choose to remember it all over again at a later date!  Oh, the freedom that that thought brought me as we traveled up Hwy 101 heading north.  And there was that word again – freedom!

What is it about finally taking off to do the thing that I felt like I was meant to do, the thing that I found myself doing as a very young person only to be disciplined by my mother for it, the thing that my soul yearned to do, the thing that nagged at the back of my head for years, the thing that made me the happiest, the thing that I have no clue how I’m going to do now?  What is it about this thing that makes me forget that I’m going to be 60 on my next birthday in a few months, that makes me forget I’m traveling alone in a micro-sized trailer with an old dog and a senior cat, that makes me want to jump up and down and shout out loud, that makes it okay to ignore what everyone else thinks, that makes me impatient as I get our little trailer ready for take-off?  What is it?

We drove into the night, occasionally stopping for gas, with me still feeling like I could drive forever.  I love the GasBuddy app on my iPhone (you can use it on your computer, too) – with it, I can locate the cheapest gas wherever I am, along with a map showing me how to get there, or wherever I’m thinking of stopping next, usually about 200 miles up the road.  In Salinas, we stopped for fuel, and I thought I might like a snack of some kind.  Or, that is, a snack that was different than the food I already had in my car, of which I had lots… haha!  So I filled the tank and drove through the shopping center, only to find that all the stores, including WalMart, and all the food vendors, including Wendy’s Hamburgers, had closed at 10 PM and it was now 10:05!  Bummer!  I was going to have to settle for some of that food I already had.  Bummer again!  I pulled into a section of the parking lot that was empty so I could search out some of that aforementioned food-in-the-car, just as a cat ran across the pavement in front of me… running toward some garbage that had been left on the sidewalk near the door of the store.  A hungry cat?  Well, I thought, I could help out with that, seeing as how I had a cat in the car with me and she had a food dish that was overflowing with dry food.  So I opened the car door and called out to the kitty, watching as she cowered behind a planter box, staring out at me, skittish.  I grabbed a handful of the dry food and, quietly speaking words to the cat to let her know I wasn’t going to chase her, I carefully placed the food on the sidewalk and backed towards my car, getting in and closing the door softly.  I watched as the cat, belly low to the ground, cautiously made her way to the food and took a tentative bite, watching me all the while.  When she realized it was indeed food, and I wasn’t going to jump out and chase her, she settled down and began to eat, still keeping her eyes wide open for any distractions.  I wanted to take a photo but didn’t want to use the flash to alarm her, so this picture is rather dark and indistinct – I’ve lightened it a little to make it a easier to see the kitty although it’s difficult to notice that she is a beautiful grey and peach calico – she’s in the lower left hand corner of the photo.  Even though I didn’t find any food for me, I began to feel like the stop was simply a way to pass on a kindness to another creature of our universe.  It was another sign of the freedom I was feeling!

Onward!  Was this day never going to end?!  Was I ever going to be able to stop for a few hours and rest?  Was my newly found freedom going to interfere with my sleep cycle?  Sleep cycle?  What was that?!

Highway 101 travels through San Francisco on “surface streets” – that is, the freeway ends and 101 continues through the City, going past places I remember from my distant past when I lived there and thought Dario’s Pizza was the best pizza on the planet.  I drove through the streets, remembering the manys: many shrimp cocktails eaten at Fisherman’s Wharf; many picnics near the Marina; many visits to the Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts; many cable car rides; many kite-flying trips to Golden Gate Park; many, many visits to the Haight;  many trips on the BART; so many, many, many wonderful memories of SF.  I left my heart there 45 years ago as a teenager and I love going back to visit it.  Even just driving through the City is a joy!

As we continued through San Francisco, down Van Ness, turning left on Lombard (the same Lombard of the Crookedest Street fame), heading for the Golden Gate Bridge, one could see that, even past midnight, the City was still alive with people driving through the streets.  After many mostly dark blocks, the lights were still on in the Infinity dealership, blazingly bright, like a homing beacon that’s beckoning, “Buy me! Buy me!  Come on in and buy me!”  Except the dealership was closed, so we all just drove on by.

Once we near the bridge, while driving through all the night construction taking place, I pull some bills out of my pocket in preparation for the toll which I know we have to pay to leave the City. I can see the glowing night lights of the driving span of the bridge ahead.  I get my money ready to hand over for the toll.  And there, in a lighted sign over the toll booth, are these words: Slow to 25 mph Pay No Toll.  My late-night brain is wondering what the toll would be if you’re driving faster than 25 MPH and how do they know what your speed is as you drive through the toll booth?  Is there a radar contraption that measures speed?  Why 25?  Why not 30?  It isn’t until I’ve passed the booth that I realize there is no toll!  I’ve never driven across the Golden Gate Bridge leaving the City without paying a toll!  How can that be?  I wanted to turn around and do it again just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming!  After all, I’d been on the road by this time for 15 hours and maybe I was hallucinating.  I don’t know.  It could happen.  Instead, I kept driving straight ahead.

As we head on up the 101, passing Sausalito with its wonderful houseboat community, San Rafael with its memories of so many Guide Dogs for the Blind that my son raised, and Petaluma, where my Facebook friend, Laurie, has invited us to stop for a face-to-face meet up (although I’m fairly certain she didn’t mean 1:30 in the morning!), I know I need to stop soon for the remainder of the night.  I’m not tired.  I’m not sleepy.  I feel like I could keep driving for hours more.  I also know that it’s pushing 2 AM and if I’m to be worth anything at all tomorrow to continue our trek up 101, I need to figure out a way to get some rest.  We drive into Rohnert Park, a place I’ve only been once before to visit someone who lived there, and pull into an industrial area that’s sure to be quiet for a few hours, even though the lights in the nearby parking lots are so bright, it could be daytime.  I recline the seat backwards, grab my pillow, and close my eyes.  It wasn’t an easy thing to slow down, to rest, to relax, after the recent amazing drive up Highway 101 but I knew it was necessary.  I soon fell into a fitful sleep, not waking up until workers began driving by on their way to start their workdays in the adjacent businesses.  It had been an uneasy, not very restful three hours of down-time.  Now to stretch out my legs and arms, find a gas station, a restroom, a patch of grass for Dinah, and a cup of tea for me.

Coming up: Trippin’ Down Memory Lane – Hwy 101: Day 2, the Sense of Freedom Continues