June 20, 2003 2:35 P.M.

House at Mt. Shasta, CA, taken by Marcia

Wooden Homes and Winding Roads

This morning when I turned my computer on, this was the Webshots photo that had rotated to my monitor�s wallpaper. Actually it is one which I took, and had placed in my desktop Webshots album. But it startled me, because I couldn�t recall where I had taken it. I thought�Corvallis, OR?�no, - Cottage Grove?�no. Upon a closer examination, I remembered. I took this photo across the parking lot from the motel room where I spent the night.

I just sat there absorbed for a while, and let the ambiance pull me into its setting. Sort of like Alice stepping through the looking glass.

There is some mechanism triggered inside of me which produces a sense of wonder and wanderlust, when I see a street of homes with history, or a road laying down a path through the countryside leading to who knows where, beckoning me to follow.

Ohio Road

This road could be curving through almost any state east of the Red and Missouri Rivers. But if you REALLY want to explore outside the �gate of here and now�, follow this cart path.

A friend of mine has a web journal which she used to title �Dirt Road Rambling�. That title drew me like a huge web magnet, to enter on bare feet to discover what lay beyond its dusty entrance. And it was well worth entering. What lay beyond, were not only homespun words, but rich friendships and a whole community of caring people.

Before my vision went south on me, I used to just take off and drive through the countryside close to my home. I live right on the edge of one of the largest metropolitan areas in America�but it IS on the edge. So I could be traversing roads between ranches and through valleys�in only minutes. One day I remember turning down one side road, new to me, and consciously thinking, �I don�t have a clue where this goes, but it is in California, so it will come out somewhere�and I can always turn around and come back.�

I took off on one of those adventuresome drives one day in the mountains above Santa Cruz. I was �killing time� while a friend was attending meetings in Scott�s Valley, CA. So I just �went for a drive�. I guess I should have had a little anxiety about such trips, but�I was well protected. After all, I had my miniature dachshund with me!

I drove up the hillside through a residential community, and followed the road through the surrounding forest as the homes became fewer, and I was directly above Big Basin State Park. The road continued climbing, and I began at last, to consider turning around. I seldom met or passed any other vehicles, and my rule of thumb was, when there was no longer a yellow line down the center of the road, I would be ill advised to go much further.

At this point, the two lane road had a hill sloping up on the left, and after a wide dirt area on the right, the ground sloped down and away. There was plenty of room, and no traffic, so I proceeded to make a �three point turnaround�.

What I had neglected to notice was, that on the �down-side�, there was a dirt berm edging the pavement. It was just high enough, that when I backed my car into the third turnaround position, I bumped over the berm, and �guess what�became �high-centered�.

Needless to say, I began to do a little praying, AND not a little repenting for my stupidity. I had a cell phone with me, but I didn�t seem to be immediately successful in contacting help.

In a few minutes, I heard the humming sound of a motor approaching from around a bend in the road, uphill. I was not in danger of blocking, the car, because I was basically off-road. I flagged the car down, and it was someone driving home from work.

Driving home from work? Where did they work�I asked.

�Rocketdyne�. It seemed that at the end of this road, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, was an installation of �Rocketdyne�.

Let me bring this story to a swift conclusion. The driver contacted the guard gate uphill, which in the end provided a tow truck to pull my car off the berm and send me on my way.

Well�what is life without a little adventure. I will drive down one of those winding roads to find it�any day!

Happy trails and adventures�and thanks for reading.

Text � copyright 2003 - 2008 The Homespun Philosopher

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