I Wonder as I Wander…

The first week of December found us heading back to California—this time to the center of the state. We flew in to Sacramento and then drove over to the Napa Valley the first evening. That is such a beautiful area—we drove back and forth between Napa and Fairfield several times—and it’s a beautiful drive—the road goes through some mountains. The only problem was is that it was a two lane road and bumper-to-bumper traffic. That isn’t any fun!

We visited a couple chapters in that area and then moved to the Oakland area where I visited some more colleges and then chartered a chapter at Heald College that was right in downtown San Francisco. The advisor there was quite an interesting fellow. He was the Director of the Learning Resource Center and was interrupted about every five minutes. It was hard having a conversation with him, because he was constantly talking to someone else and me at the same time. He had a student approach him and start talking in Spanish—and he answered back in Spanish. Then another student started talking to him—and this time he answered in Mandarin! He said he is fluent in six languages (he was originally from Uganda). And his first love is theatre—he’s been in several Bay area productions, done voice-overs, and a few small parts in TV and movies.

The next day we drove back to the Sacramento area and stayed in Yuba City. The last 50 miles or so, it was so foggy that we had no idea where we were. We tried programming the Fairfield Inn (our hotel) into Gertie, but it didn’t recognize the street that hotel was on—it said the closest one was in Sacramento. So we ended up calling the hotel. They told us that it was brand new and even on a new street—so the GPS didn’t have it yet. They also told us that there was fog like that just about every night—although that was the earliest (3 pm) that it had moved in.

The next morning, we got up fairly early and headed to Quincy (which is right on the Nevada border). Again, it was really foggy, so we were going pretty slow—then suddenly after we had gone about 30 miles—the fog suddenly lifted and it was clear! We also discovered that we were climbing into the mountains, so it was great that Bob wasn’t trying to drive those winding roads when it was foggy. The scenery was outstanding as well; although we did see where the fires had gone through the area last year. The road followed a river and had lots of bridges back and forth over the water. There were also several tunnels along the way. Those are our favorite kinds of roads!

One time when there was a passing lane, a car went around us and we noticed the license plate said “POETRY”. I joking said “maybe that’s Roger—since he’s an English professor”. Sure enough, when we saw him later—he confessed that was his car and he passes a lot of people—he said that he’s “POETRY in motion!”

I participated in the Leadership Summit at Feather River Community College in Quincy. It’s a beautiful campus—right on the edge of the woods, with mountains all around. They even had some snow on the ground and a small herd of deer grazing in the open area.

On the way home, we had NPR on our Satellite radio—so we could hear some of Prairie Home Companion, but we would lose it when we went though the tunnels or if we got into a valley with steep cliffs on one side of us. We again enjoyed the scenery, but were glad to get off the mountain before dark (and the fog rolled in again that evening).

We flew home on Sunday evening and had enough time in the cities that we could meet up with Ross and Richard for supper (and to celebrate Ross’ birthday). When we got home, we had about 6 inches of snow on our car that we had to clean off before we could drive home. It was funny, because that week, Jackson, MS got 5 inches of snow and closed everything down!