The Road to California (This Time)

I loved the three day drive from Albuquerque.  It reminded me a bit of when I took a Greyhound Bus from Boston to Los Angeles years ago. There is something about the combination of time, solitude, and constantly unfolding landscape that is a cornucopian ground for reflection. I had the benefit of seeing both the Northern and Southern routes cross country, on my trips West, then back East. I had my first unforgettable contact with New Mexico on the Westbound trip.

Back to the present: the drive between the San Francisco Bay Area and Albuquerque was also one I had taken before. Eastbound, chunks of the drive were in darkness. This time was all daylight. I got to traverse Havasu in blazing sunshine under a sky as blue as you can only see in the desert. The only other truly notable parts of the trip were heavy monsoons West of Flagstaff, and the San Luis Reservoir, which is like an alien landscape seen though a psychadelic filter. These trips join my rather substantial inventory of Southwestern road trips.

In certain ways, my return to the Bay Area is not a happy occurrence. It is my policy to not move away from a place with anything unresolved. However, when one experiences karmically weighty events in an area over the course of 25 years, residues are going to remain.

And yet, being reunited with this coastal land has brought nothing but joy. Yes, it is cold and foggy. But at the edge of the fog, the sun comes out. Bright sunshine lives alongside cool moisture. Specific hills and crags are like well-loved friends. Driving the nuances of the road between Pacifica and Half Moon Bay are like tracing a lover’s face, the turquoise ocean constantly at my side.

To be continued…