Our luggage…finally…came in to Davis today.
Picking up our luggage gave me an opportunity to scout out some of the city they call “Davis”. Yes, the same city that spent well over fifty thousand dollars building a tunnel just for frogs [apparantly so they could cross the street with ease…]. I’ll give Davis this: It’s extremely green and the people are very laid back. I wouldn’t mind going to college there at all. Davis is like the Utopia of California.
Can you believe me? This coming from the guy who looked at the houses with in-ground swimming pools and was sick to his stomach just by the site in Bakersfield? I’m actually starting to see the positives of the Golden State. Hopefully, it won’t jade my images of the Sun City…I still love El Paso in my heart, and I still can’t wait to get back there.
And we still don’t have Cable TV here.
My grandma missed the Interstate 80 offramp that would have taken my great-grandma home to North Highlands [near Sacramento]. So, instead of taking the easy way to her house, we ended up in Downtown Sacramento…at three in the afternoon, which is the start of rush hour in Northern California. Waiting in a sea of cars and commuters gave me time to reflect on certain parts of life [for instance, why do they call it “rush hour” when cars stand still? Who is rushing?].
Driving down the street my great-grandma lives on, I noticed a lot of things had changed. I can recall being three years old and walking down that street…Marashe’s Restaurant was on the corner, their sign had a lighted martini that seemed to be on a timer, and there was a traffic light in the middle of the intersection that only turned red when someone needed to cross the street.
Today, I noticed that Marashe’s Restaurant is now a Chinese Noodle Palace, the martini sign is gone, as is the traffic light [which has been replaced with a low-tech four-way stop sign]. The huge tree in my great-grandma’s backyard is also gone…supposedly, it was diseased. That thing had been there for years, and it showed just by it’s height. Instead, it’s been replaced by eighty small trees surrounding the perimeter of the property.
Yes, eighty, I counted.
Hey Matthew. You seem to be having a rather good trip, I hope that it stays that way. 80 trees, yeah that’s a lot. I’m glad that you get to see something completely different from the way things are here in the desert town. Take care. I’ll talk to you later. I miss you SO much!
Love you,
-Kara
Comment by Kara — 10 June, 2005 @ 7:30 pm