By May 10/ Richmond had fell...

Shot out of Toms River about 11:00 yesterday with Brian and Morgen, heading south to Mechanicsville, VA. After having planned to leave at about 04:00, and then that falling through, it was nice to get a full night's sleep before leaving for somewhere. I have a propensity to leave for places at what I like to call 0'Dark:30. Or what others call Stupid O'Clock. The trip was straightforward and easy until we hit traffic just north of Fredricksburg, where we got off of 95, skirted around through Nowhere, VA, and then got onto Route 1, which parallels 95. This gained us exactly no time, as when I got back on 95, I ended up behind the same car I was behind when I exited. Seriously. That happens. But the rest of the trip was easy and we wound up pulling in about five minutes before Eric did, which was kind of incredible timing, seeing as he was coming from Tennessee and we were not. The first thing we did was eat the berry pie that was so graciously sent along with us, and then go to the Barbecue Hole for dinner. It's good to be here.

From San Francisco...

In a word? Epic.

The past three days have been a whirlwind of experience I didn’t expect to have at this juncture of my life. Especially considering that before Monday, the farthest west I’d been was Ohio in 2003.

Aside from the first minute and a half and the last minute and a half of the flight from Philadelphia, which terrify me, traveling west was a nonfactor in the tale of the journey. Once the plane hit the tarmac inSan Francisco, very smoothly I might add, it became very clear to me just what type of ridiculous this trip was going to be.

Knowing that I wanted to be in Reno, NevAda (short A,please) by ten pm local time at the latest, I set off to do the touristy San Francisco things. I parked in a public lot and wandered around Fisherman’s Wharf for about an hour that included a trip back to the car to retrieve the camera that I’d foolishly left behind. Touristy would be the best word to describe the Wharf, full of brightly colored shops (one of which was loaded with Rainier Cherries which were delicious) and overpriced restaurants…but the sea lions were cool, as was the view of Alcatraz. And the college/pro shop that was there was clutch, because it was in the mid-fifties and lightly hydrodizing and I’d left my raincoat in New Jersey. So I acquired a gray 49ers long sleeved shirt to wear under my T shirt and carried on. Oh, and coffee. That’s going to be a theme.

My next stop was Lombard Street, with its well-manicured gardens and ridiculous curves and five miles per hour speed limit. After parking at the top, taking pictures, walking down to the bottom, taking pictures, and walking back up, I drove down in the Little Kia Rio I rented. Next, I headed across the Golden Gate Bridge and parked on the north side at a little vista that overlooked the bridge, the bay and the city and then drove to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. To get there, you have to drive through a one lane tunnel with a five minute long red light at each end, and then up a curvy mountain road. After driving in and out of a cloud I came upon great vantage points from which to see the bay, the bridge, the city and off in the distance the Pacific Ocean. On a clear day, the view would be breathtaking;on a rainy day, the view was still spectacular. In fact, while I was there, the mist lifted off the bridge for about a minute and a half of frantic picture taking, and then resettled and obscured most of the view.

To Reno...

From Golden Gate National Recreation Area, I drove north about fifteen minutes, up and down several winding roads, and into John MuirWoods. Why visit the west coast and not see the famed redwood trees? It was mind blowing. Coming from New Jersey, the Pine Barrens especially, I’m stuck with the notion that pines are scraggly, unattractive, gnarly things that only reach forty feet in height. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Pine Barrens and I love our Pitch Pines, but it is totally mind boggling to see a tree that tall, and that straight, and that big around…it’s kind of breathtaking. And on the way there, passing mountainsides covered in Lodge Pole Pine…even their little pine trees are huge. And straight. 

By now it was almost two o’clock in the afternoon Pacific Time and I’d been awake for fifteen hours, on the west coast for a scant five, and had lived the hours of 9-12 twice. That may not be exactly correct, but you get the idea. It was time to start heading east (strange since it was away from the ocean) to Reno, Nevada.

Before I left, my Dad told me that there was nothing in California that reminded him of the New Jersey. I agree totally with that. I headed east on I-80, across the Napa Valley (with a stop at an In-N-Out Burger that did not blow my mind) and into the Sierra Nevada mountains. I hadn’t considered that I’d have to traverse mountains when heading to Reno (mostly because I just didn’t think) and my Little Kia was up to the task. The mountains were covered in Lodge Pole Pines and, as I got higher in elevation, snow. In June. At one point just west of Donner Pass, I noticed that the temperature was 36 degrees. I had not been prepared to travel to this interview via the Oregon Trail…but I made it, nobody died of cholera, nobody had to shoot rabbits with square, 8-bit bullets, and I did not have to ford any rivers. Coming out of the snow covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains into the high desert, sage brush having, Nevada side was another shock. The ecosystems, and their abrupt change, were something I won’t forget. By the time I had eaten dinner, showered, and crawled into bed it was a 23 hour long day…and it was still only 11 pm, and I was able to get a full eight hours of sleep and still be up early.

And Back to San Francisco

My stay in Reno was uneventful, as it mostly consisted of me getting all worked up about the interview, going to the interview, and then coming back from the interview feeling really good about how it went. And I should have. I passed the first round of interviews and have been placed into a pool of eligible candidates for any K-6 job that comes open in Washoe County, Nevada. I’m hopeful.

On Wednesday, it was time to leave with the sunrise. I needed to be back in San Francisco for a 1:45 pm flight, and wanted to pass Lake Tahoe on the way. A quick 3,000 foot gain in elevation outside Reno put me at 8000 feet…much higher than the meager 7227 of Donner Summit two days earlier. The town of Tahoe was rather touristy, but to see the lake ringed by such high mountains was neat. I don’t want to say that I was desensitized to the beauty of it by the time I got there, but by that point Tahoe needed to blow my mind to be truly noteworthy on this extravaganza. It didn’t, but that might be because of some vistas of Lake Dunmore in Vermont. Other than Tahoe, there wasn’t much to see on the drive back across I-80, except where 80 ended, which was kind of cool because I can say I’ve been to both ends of that particular interstate highway. 

The final notable thing about this trip, including the drive home from Philadelphia International, was Thomas. I have no idea what this man’s real name was, but he struck me as the kind of guy who would not go by a shortened version of his name. If he was Thomas, he was never Tom. If he was Robert he was never Bob nor Rob. So I decided to call him Thomas, and Thomas talked literally from the time we got on the plane (and had probably been talking before that, but I can’t verify that) until the time we landed. I was afraid the oxygen masks would fall just because of all the air he was using. The only times he stopped were so the Dutch sounding woman he was talking to, who he was not with, could get a few words in edgewise, but I only noticed that happening maybe once an hour. At first I was aggravated, but then decided I wanted to shake his hand. For even I could not talk for five hours straight without breaking.