Road tripping to where I was born

Clear Lake with Mt. Konocti resting in the distance

There’s something bohemian about putting a few things in a bag, tossing it in the car and taking off.  Oh, we had a destination in mind, but no set agenda, which is easier to do during the off-season.  We have been known to arrive somewhere only to find the accommodation pickin’s mighty slim and even nonexistent.

Road trips used to be a vacationing necessity.  Travelling with small kids and a limited budget meant loading the car with the necessary survival paraphernalia – snacks, games, books, more snacks and games – it was before the life-saving invention of the DVD player.   Life changed, vacation meant destinations, airports and rental cars, tight schedules, heaps of sight-seeing and frayed nerves mixed with tremendous memories.

Maybe it’s a nostalgic thing, but road trips now seem much more appealing, so we hit the road last week to parts formerly known – Lakeport, California.  This small town of just over 5,000 residents sits on picturesque Clear Lake, which is the largest natural lake in California.  I had not been back since the age of 12.  We’ll not talk about how many years it had been.

Many things that I remembered as a 5 or 6 year old no longer existed; houses that family members lived in, some of the piers and the original brick school.  The smaller, added-on school building, most likely for younger kids, was still there.  It was designed as the typical undeveloped classrooms with concrete floors and banks of windows.  It’s fallen into disrepair; no longer in use, other than storing chairs and desks, miscellany.  Graffiti is scrawled across the side of the building.  My sketchy childhood memory did prove accurate, though, as the stand of oak trees still lines the street.

Walking the quintessential main street, appropriately named the same was a step back in the annals of my thoughts.  The venerable cedar tree that my cousin and I used as a makeshift rope swing stood undaunted by the passing of time.  Neglected remnants of the walnut grove where I helped my Granddaddy light smudge pots weathered on complete with the wooden-bridged ditch running through the orchard.  And of course, the lake; first swimming lessons where the water laps and splashes young faces.  Closing my eyes, I could recall fireworks echoing loudly in tender ears against the backdrop of Mt. Konocti, and running in unbalanced circles in the backyard when the fire siren sounded at precisely noon.

Two words were written in my journal:  lost and discovered.  The lost items were merely edifices, while the discovered bits and pieces were dear reflections of my childhood.  As the sun sparkled brilliantly, our car pointed west toward salt-water drenched shores and more road tripping…

Where plans end and road trips begin,

Missy

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