Travel log

July 6, 2011



TRAVEL LOG

Carrisa and Robert's wedding


Bakersfield to Seattle

Last minute packing. Always seems to be one more thing I want to put in my suitcase. Recalling from the many trips I have journeyed the corridor of highway 5 or on more leisurely trips highway 101, memories float unconnected through my mind keeping me from sleep. My grandmother made this trip many times in her life, some with my grandfather, other trips made as a widow, some
and in later years by jet airplanes or motorhome or by train in the accompaniment of my mom and step dad. An unusual accomplishment for a woman born in 1903 and never drove a car in her 92 years. She loved to travel. And at times she kept a journal. I have two of her travel logs. logging the mundane items of travel, what time they left, how many miles, what she and my grandfather ate, what city or town they paid for a motel to spend the night. Her notes show on one trip to Altadena from Cannon Beach, Oregon, fuel costs, with an oil change, $59.24; a hotel stay in Garberville was $8.00 plus $.25 for the jute box! I think they were enjoying themselves.

Never without words to describe the sites around the
country as she traveled or the people she met, I smile as I read her words.
So I am inspired to 'log' my travel...
With my mind restless and unable to quiet itself for sleep, I went to the kitchen for the token cup of hokt chocolate. Sitting in the dark sipping my sweet drink, finally sleep won over. A few hours of sleep before the alarm sounded at 4am. Road trip! The rewards for early morning travel.

Fields of sunflowers, no pictures taken because I am driving. Great white cranes flying in formation
The slight change in terrain, flat desert, to unending rolling hills only broken by olive gray oak trees. 
Shasta Lake is full from the heavy snow melt of spring and summer and majestic Mt Shasta, wearing its garment of snow.

Each town we speed through seems to have it's own charm and beckons the wanderer within me to stop and mosey around. Each draws my comment, 'I could live here.'

It is Roseberg, we decide, where we will spend the night. Utterly unbelievable as we travel d own the highway, I am able to search hotels in Roseberg and make a reservation for our night's stay, all without a phone call or having to pull off and find a pay phone, or even worse driving to a hotel to find a no vacancy. Twelve hours later we pull into the quaint town, nestled against the hills and check into our hotel room. We enjoyed dinner from a local bar and grill; mine, salmon with pomegranate glaze, rice pilaf, with dried cranberries, summer vegetables! Yum! Duane ordered filet with crab and asparagus spears and salad, with, 'to lick the container clean', gorgonzola dressing!
A glass of wine on the balcony overlooking the Umpqua river, and a swim in the pool to finish out the day!

I wonder if my grandparents even had air conditioning in their truck...I highly doubt it.