The Road Less Traveled

(From "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost.) 

Some time back, I mentioned how my family would go for Sunday drives when I was a kid, driving aimlessly around Southern California, always on the back roads to nowhere.  It was fun then and it's fun now.

One time, Steve remembered such a drive when he was a boy and he'd seen a covered bridge somewhere around Auburn and he wanted to show it to me.  We took off in the morning on a lovely day and headed up Hwy. 80 into the hills.  There was just one problem...Steve couldn't remember where the bridge was.  From Auburn, we started taking roads to the north, a lot of roads.  No bridge.  We ended up back in Auburn so many times I was on a first-name basis with the iconic statue of the goldminer in town.  It became not so much of a pleasure drive as a quest.  Asking for directions was out of the question.  He would find that bridge!  We drove all day long, even stopping for more gas.  Finally (finally!) in late afternoon, we came across a little, ramshackle covered bridge across a small creek.  It wasn't as Steve remembered it, but it was a covered bridge, and our drive for the day was done.

When we moved up here, it was a split-second decision and neither of us knew the area.  Steve continued to work in the valley and got lost coming home a number of times.  In order to familiarize ourselves, we started going for drives, taking roads like Slug Gulch, Boondock Trail, Anthill Road, Gopher Gulch, and, my favorite, Mini Bar Trail, a little road off of Bucks Bar.

Later, when my friend Doris and I were going shopping down in Cameron Park, she would often say, "I've never been on that road," and off we'd go exploring, never knowing where it would lead.  It was fun.

I'm pretty much a Point A to Point B gal these days, but I have good memories.

Blogger has changed to a "new and improved" format.  Aarrgh!  Nothing is the same or where it was, so if the blog gets screwed up sometimes, bear with me.  I'm on a road not traveled.

Stay safe.  Be well.