Up out of the fog

June apparently was an unusually cool month here in Southern California. After being away in 60 degree temperatures, and now sweating through the high 90’s, it’s hard to remember that.

Last summer, I took an online travel writing class. I enjoy starting online classes! It’s the finishing part that’s a bother. Since there was an actual certificate for completing this particular class and since this meant that there were required weekly tests, I actually stuck with the entire class. By the time I finished the class, we’d already done most of our travelling for the summer, and I was disappointed to have let it all slip by so quickly, so mindlessly.

One of the books that I discovered through the class was “The Way of the Traveler” by Joseph Dispenza. It’s helped me prepare for this summer’s travels and to really focus on documenting what’s going by on the side of the road and what’s going by inside my head. So, although I’m having a hard time remembering how cool it was just a month ago, I do have 16 pages of notes in a little Moleskine pocket sketchbook to remind me.

We left my meeting at school and drove off into the cool fog that hung late that afternoon and set off headed north. We eventually rose out of the fog just past Santa Clarita and enjoyed driving through hills bathed in the sensuous waning golden rays of a typical California sunset. We passed through fields and farm; the actual identity of the shadowy critters and crop unidentifiable in the dark.

We drove through Sacramento (one of several State capitols that we’d pass through in two weeks) and at almost 2 am called it a day and settled into a hotel in the next town north. It was the first of many long days; long in time and in distance.

Bleary-eyed, I noted with amusement that all the toiletries were packaged to be succinctly marked, yet still very refined. Containers marked:
Smooth (conditioner)
Cleanse (soap)

And even the pillows were embroidered along the hems of their cases: Firm, soft.

As my head hit my pillow (Firm), I thought, “If only the rest of life could be so well-defined.”