Christmas Travel (2)
Driving the length of The Golden State on the Friday before Christmas might be thought a serious mistake, especially with all the folks still scared out the skies since the terror attack last fall opting for the highways, but Linda’s schedule dictated the timing of our expedition, andsoitgoes. We spent our overnight at the Yosemite Lodge, dining at the Ahwahnee Hotel. If you haven’t been there, you are missing a delightful treat. The hotel was built in the late 1920's, and is of a unique style of rocks and huge trees; truly awesome, and the service and food are special, too.
Yosemite Valley is a natural wonder, with enormous granite walls rising thousands of feet above the floor, creating a sense of cathedral. Perhaps the horizontal gravitational effects make one feel lighter, more spirited. Though the skies were grey the next morning, and flurries filled in the still air, it was a truly delightful experience, to ply the icy paths up to Yosemite Falls, where torrents defied the laws of freezing temperatures to flow over, under, and around the out-croppings of rocks and ice and snow.
We might have walked for hours, but the call of the wild from the Southland plucked us from the idyll of the silent woods and peaceful river, for we had promises to keep and miles to go before we slept. As did apparently a whole slew of other folks, judging from the parking lot we otherwise refer to as Interstate Five. We were hundreds of miles from Los Angeles, and the traffic was stop and go. At the end of this post-wonderland leg, we traveled 430 miles in 8½ hours, which meant we’d averaged 50 miles per hour, but it was half at 20 and the other half at 80.
I suppose I hadn’t given a lotta thought to our prospects, or else I might have insisted on flying, because I’m fine driving when there’s no one else on the road, but don’t share well. My religion calls for interstate vistas to be wide open stretches of asphat; where you turn on the cruise control and the CD player, and send the mind off to reflection-imagination land. It doesn’t involve the kinda gear-changing I spent most of the day doing with the myriad co-travelers headin’ to LaLa.
It could have been worse, certainly, if those who left the day before hadn’t, and despite my negative observations of those who mistakenly thought it was all right for them to dawdle in the left lane, in fact I was quasi-relieved that we didn’t arrive hours later than we did and might have. There are a some options when you start down the funnel, but not at the bottom.
More firmly than ever, I believe that trucks — except those carrying perishables — should be barred from the highways except between the hours of ten at night and six in the morning, especially around the holidays. Also, they should not be allowed out of the right lane, ever, nor should motor homes, trailers, or buses. And those kamikaze drivers, as Linda refers to them, especially those who chase each other in and out of traffic at 90 miles an hour, should be summarily executed and hung at the side of the road where they are caught.
So we arrived, bleary-eyed and bush-tailed, ensconcing ourselves in a very comfortable and ridiculously-inexpensive motel, only blocks from The Daughter’s home. I don’t feel very Christmasy, but I haven’t for a long time. I think it’s my personal attitude toward Life and me finding alignment. Proof that this particular cross has my name on it alone is the fact this is Linda’s favorite time of year; she lights up like a Christmas tree. She gets to play and shop and bake, which she is wont to do, and I get to sit in the motel room, listening to classical music on the radio, keyboarding appropriate opprobrium at the worthy, and missing my dawg. Otherwise, my task is to wear a smiley face, which always lurks pretty close to the surface anyway, especially after a first blush of chardonnay — or Merlot or scotch or vodka — and inevitably, methinks, it will be a good time had by all.
As it should be, too, for you.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.
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