Humble Home?

We left the Holiday Inn hotel after the Freedom From Religion Foundation board meeting where Meg and I were both re elected for another two year term. She represents California at large and I represent Washington state. My car was parked at Meg's home in San Jose and I was able to enjoy the drive there through the big city as a front seat passenger.

My suitcases were ready and after a cranberry drink and tearful hugs, I left Meg and San Jose at 1430 hours on Sunday afternoon with clearly marked maps of one Interstate or another all the way home. At each town I looked toward the next just in case I decided to turn in for the night but at each rest area I stretched out on a picnic bench and relaxed my back and eyes. Later when it turned chilly I curled up on the front seat of my Hunny (2005 Hundai Accent) and snoozed for a short while - sometimes five minutes, once a half hour. I had lean roast beef for breakfast and nut bread with cream cheese so did not require much food as the day progressed. I munched on walnuts, carrots, licorice, raisins, and corn chips when I had the urge and always water and coffee, too. I think I lingered the longest at the Multnomah Falls rest area thirty miles west of Portland (this is Oregon state folks not the state of Maine). No other travelers came by, no headlights to disturb me. My eyes were very weary. I had come through Portland at 0530 hours ahead of the commuter traffic but there was noooo stopping anywhere along that part of that drive and when I could, I not only stopped and parked, I rested my entire body.

The sky was clear and the sun warm when I arrived in Richland at 1000 hours (Pacific Daylight Time). Oddly I did not feel the nostalgic rhapsody of an old song that goes “Be it ever so humble there is no place like home”. Am I perverse or what? This is a comfortable place but all I could think was that the place looked as it did when I left and maybe I had an unconscious smugness about that. My trip was a success, ending sooner than projected so I had at least half a day of complete isolation for unpacking, setting up my computer, and groaning at the pile of mail to sort.
Everything about the trip was a pleasure to tuck into my enless brain space – an overnight with my oldest and youngest sons, six days with a middle son and his wonderful family, three days with old friends, and hours and hours of reacquainting my memories of scenery long since traversed. Sunrise and sunsets when the moon insisted I recall many a trip under its full and eerie light. The moonset on Friday morning when I headed north from Los Angeles through the atmosphere of civilization was a similar red orb I observed of the sun at its rising a week previous. Honestly if I had been less cognizant of the time I would have said I was looking at a sunrise. Too much hurried traffic to philosophize at the time because that part of the trip was one I had not done before – driving from Los Angeles to San Jose. Those state roads bring forth a story of rolling pastoral hills with cattle and horses and occasional settlements for another article.
Gasoline in California as in most other states has to be transferred by the consumer to the vehicle which in my case is womanally not manually (I am not a man in any sense of the improper implications of our language roots), so it was an absolute treat to have gas pumped by an attendant when passing through Oregon. The last fill at a station in Arlington will take me many miles on my activities for the next few days of commitments to which I had to return. Home again, home again, jiggety jog.
Naomi Sherer