corona road trip
(vintage postcard of the golden state)
in this time of corona when air travel feels dicey, we decided to road trip to california for our annual summer visit… spoiler: WE MADE IT! that may be an obvious conclusion for most, but given my flimsy navigational abilities, it was no guarantee for us. (our odds WERE probably elevated by the fact that my first husband generously decided to accompany us on the ride out - corona concerns aside, i think he was worried that we would end up in toledo or baton rouge by mistake.)
i also have a less than stellar packing track record… i typically forget something SUPER important (like a bathing suit for a beach holiday - i now have about seventeen swimsuits because i’ve bungled that so many times and end up having to purchase one when i arrive.) this trip was no different… i didn’t bring a SINGLE coat. i can’t even claim that i forgot because i stood in front of the hall closet and contemplated grabbing both my lightweight pea coat and my adored amazon coat and made a CHOICE not to bring them. to be fair, boulder WAS over a hundred degrees that day and i had just spoken to my dad who told me that berkeley (our destination) had been ninety-five degrees for days on end. nevertheless, i grew up in the bay area and i KNOW that warm evenings are unusual, especially during summer (“the coldest winter i ever spent was a summer in san francisco.” mark twain didn’t actually say this - i just looked it up - but it perfectly sums up a bay area summer.) the sun goes down, the fog rolls in and it feels like antarctica. i have poignant high school memories of spending days at stinson beach with my girlfriends slathering myself in the orange gelee bain de soleil no. 4 (hoping the orange tinge would make me look a tiny bit tanner and more like the mahogany colored bain de soleil lady - it did NOT by the way and i curse her every time i discover new sun spots on my legs that i am sure are the result of all the sunburns i got in her honor) and then spending the evening at cafe roma (drinking mochas) wearing a tank top, a denim mini skirt and sandals, covered in goosebumps and absolutely SHAKING with cold but determined not to put on any more clothes so that i could show off my hot pink sunburn.
(the bain de soleil lady… she was 80’s perfection!)
so the one summer that i have loads of room in the car for whatever i’d like to bring (i DID throw in my vitamix which has come in very handy for making the watermelon juice my darling acupuncturist, serena recommends - VERY hydrating, my green smoothies and home made plum sauce from the tree in the backyard of the cottage we are renting) AND the summer that i KNOW all socializing will be taking place outside, in the FOG, i don’t bring a coat… go figure! (i DID remember to bring some pretty killer road trip snacks: a big TUB of red vines that were so fresh and delicious - don’t even talk to me if you prefer twizzlers - i had to pause my “water diet,” classic doritos and teriyaki beef jerky.
twenty-five years ago i road tripped across the country with my hilarious girlfriend p to get my new car from california to new york where i was then living. (i don’t know why i didn’t just buy a car in new york!) i distinctly remember driving through these enormous, stunning red rocks in utah (i know i didn’t make this up because those same rocks are depicted on the utah license plates.) so the whole time we were driving through flat, boring wyoming (about SIX hours) playing the license plate game - i made the shocking discovery that NEITHER of my kids (mind you they are ten and fourteen) REALLY know their alphabet… even if they’d just found a “C” they would have to sing the alphabet song from the beginning to figure out they now needed to look for a “D” - it wasn’t just automatic. i would like to blame this lapse on corona online learning, but i have a terrible feeling that it goes much deeper than that. anyway, i kept telling my kids that the red rocks were going to be amazing. and all of sudden we were in nevada and all we’d seen in utah was flat, boring salt. i don’t know what happened to those rocks, but it was pretty disappointing. PRAISE JESUS we had the red vines to soften the blow.
(proof that those red rocks exist!)
(i may have to invest in another set of these magnetic alphabet letters)
(bonneville salt flats…salt for MILES!)
we DID stop in salt lake city and their dad took them to see the tabernacle… i was too tired to go along and got in my jams and had a cocktail imported from boulder (i did NOT forget to pack alcohol because i know the tabbies don’t drink.)
(i didn’t see this, but first and the kids did… photo: scott cannon)
unfortunately, the drive through nevada was not much better. we were meant to stop in reno, but our hotel there was so dodgy (it looked like we might be able to buy crack from the room next door - notice that i didn’t say “meth” even though i watched all six seasons of “breaking bad” so i know all about meth … i grew up in the 80’s so crack is my scary drug of reference) that we drove on to sacramento. i must say that as soon as we crossed the border into my beloved california, everything was prettier. the trees were greener and more plentiful, the mountains were more interesting and the air felt more refreshing. i LOVE my home state.
(breaking bad… my meth education)
there is an app called hoteltonight and that’s how we found this wonderful old school hotel in downtown sacramento (the citizen) that was the same price as the crack den. there was a DELICIOUS mexican restaurant across the street (la cosecha) that had a big, safe garden. it was one of the best meals i’ve ever had (PERHAPS i was more enthusiastic because it was only my second restaurant visit in four months, but i don’t think so.)
(of course cosecho didn’t look like this when we went because we were almost the only ones in the restaurant, but it still felt festive)
(lu sipping on some kind of agua fresca)
in theory, it should only have taken us another hour and a half to get to berkeley, but while we were driving through davis there were these gorgeous acres of sunflowers and we pulled over for a spontaneous photo shoot. my kids LOVE when i capitalize on fun experiences like this. we marched them deep into the field and instructed them to hold hank up as well (this is no small feat as hank has also put on some corona stress pounds and he is not sticking to the “water diet” either.) when we got back to the car both kids were whining about the THICK layer of mud stuck to their shoes from the well watered ground. (fortunately, MY shoes were spotless because as the photographer i stayed out of the field to get a good angle.) while they were scraping their shoes with sticks and complaining, i looked at the photos and realized that theo hadn’t smiled in ANY of them AND he had “earled” in most of them. they were so RELIEVED that i caught this unlucky outcome and sung my praises as they skipped back into midst of the muddy sunflowers for a redo. we DID stop at the nearest in-and-out for milkshakes and cheeseburgers as a reward and a true welcome back to california.
(shoot #1… theo is DELIGHTED!)
(shoot #2… teeth on both of them, but i’m not sure about the sincerity of those smiles…)
(the in-and-out in pinole)
(hank was EXHAUSTED after our road trip and made a beeline for the sofa at the cottage!)
* for the watermelon water… just cut half a large watermelon into big chunks, add a cup or so of regular water and puree it in the vitamix. it is also REALLY good with some vodka thrown in, but probably not AS hydrating.