Lucky Lager

 Well it was good to start off a road trip on familiar ground. And 280 to North bound 101 is pretty familiar to me and to Ohms, except that Ohms got confused up near the City and wanted to veer off the freeway to who knows where.

The fog as usual was hanging over the coast making me glad that I had not put on my heaver sweatshirt, as being a little cold seemed like a better idea.

Through the City 19^th avenue was slow going, but a little lane splitting got us right out to the bridge and north bound 101. The traffic was actually heavier in the north bay, especially around Santa Rosa,

Everyone Going A Different Direction

where 101 is lots of lanes of traffic all moving the same way you are going, and some of them a lot faster than you are. Maybe it was the covid restrictions of staying a California Condors wingspan apart from each other that kept anyone from getting too close to me, but I was glad when we got farther north, and the traffic was gone.

North past Geyserville traffic was thinned out to just me. That gave me time to really just enjoy the ride. Listen to tunes I hadn’t listened to in a year. Time to enjoy the few twists of 101, and ok hold on Alaska 75-degree air. Ill say it again 75-degree air.

More Mercury Than I've Seen In Months

Then I saw a Costco off somewhere on the west side of the highway, and that made me think of that Lucky Lager sign.

When I was just a kid my family would go camping in the Redwoods. To do this trip I would spend the night with my cousins in Sunnyvale, and we would leave for the redwoods around 2:00 or 3:00 am.

You wanted to be one of the kids that could walk to the loaded down station wagon, and grab a seat, because the ones that were sleeping, got carried to the car, and were tossed in on one another.

Having a seat did not mean you got to keep it as the sleeping cousins woke up and rallied for position near the windows, and the aunt and uncle driver did not care who sat where first, just as long as they didn’t hear any kids complaining, cuz that wasn’t tolerated, and since they knew how to make kids, we were expendable.

Almost to our destination Humboldt Redwoods State Park way up on a cut bank above the south fork of the ell river and Southern Pacific Railroad tracks was a Lucky Lager sign. It was there for years, and when I saw it I knew that the torture of crammed in the car was almost over.

That sign is long gone. So is the railroad. The south fork of the Eel is almost sucked dry for agriculture and power generation. Most of the equipment on Ohms had not been invented when I was riding in that station wagon, and I ain’t sleeping  four inches from the planet in a tent tonight…

 

Thanks for reading