Road trip!<\/p>\n
You might recall that I like road trips. I like the long drives, the varying scenery (even in the desert on the way to Vegas) and especially the new experiences that travel precipitates.<\/p>\n
I am writing this in a motel room in West Yellowstone, Montana. There\u2019s an elk horn on one wall, a dream catcher on another. We spent the day in the very first National Park in the country, and plan to go back tomorrow.<\/p>\n
I just went out and checked the car\u2019s trip odometer \u2013 1,896 miles so far. We left Long Beach Saturday morning and it\u2019s Wednesday evening. You do the math.<\/p>\n
People of my generation will recall that a week-long road trip to Yellowstone or a similar destination was a common summer vacation for the family. My dad had a Studebaker station wagon specifically for such trips.<\/p>\n
We lived in Colorado, but the only visit to Yellowstone I can remember was with my grandparents. I think I was 11 years old. My biggest memory was eating a rainbow trout for dinner at the Old Faithful Lodge.<\/p>\n
I was a chubby kid.<\/p>\n
I think it took us two days to get from Denver to Yellowstone. This was the early 1960s \u2013 cars were slow, speed limits were low and I did say I was traveling with my grandparents, right?<\/p>\n
This trip, I made it from Denver to Cody, Wyo., in just under 10 hours. The speed limit on Wyoming freeways is 80 mph, and you are a road hazard if you\u2019re going that slow.<\/p>\n
Once you get past Cheyenne, Wyoming freeways and highways are ideal for cruise control \u2013 no cars for miles, and you can see forever. Even the two-lane highways just beg you to go a little bit faster. (I thought I had forgotten how to pass on two-lane highways, but it came back like riding a bike.)<\/p>\n
I dearly wish I had the talent to write like John Steinbeck in \u201cTravels With Charlie\u201d or even Jack Kerouac in \u201cOn the Road.\u201d Then I could justify a long, long road trip. Maybe I could call it \u201cRiding With the Lovely Maria!\u201d<\/p>\n
But these days, road trips typically require a reason, at least to get the car started. This particular trip had a pretty good purpose, so I\u2019d like to share.<\/p>\n
We were going to Colorado; Eaton, Colo., to be specific, to place a headstone on the grave of Virgil Hoover, the Lovely Maria\u2019s father. He died on July 30, 1974, and the family didn\u2019t have the wherewithal to pay for a headstone at the time.<\/p>\n
Maria had talked about a headstone for years. When I finally said I\u2019d look into it, she jumped at the chance. She enlisted the help of her older sister, Dorothy, and I reached out to a monument firm in nearby Greeley.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll spare you the details, but it took almost nine months to get the headstone ready for placement. We found a date to rendezvous and watch the stone get placed. No ceremony, just the end of a long journey.<\/p>\n
Maria and Dorothy were joined by a third sister, Betty, and several of the grandkids. It took a total of 45 minutes, but it will be an important memory for a lifetime.<\/p>\n
I had one more chore in Eaton. No snide remarks, now.<\/p>\n
Maria wants her ashes to be buried with her father \u2013 not for a long time, I hope! When Dorothy heard about it, she thought it would be a fine idea for her too.<\/p>\n
But that takes approvals, and in the small town of Eaton, the city handles all the cemetery business. So I went to City Hall, ready for either a fight or a run-around.<\/p>\n
I wish I had been wearing a body camera. It would have made a great training video.<\/p>\n
The town clerk and her assistants were incredible. They pulled out a dusty cemetery plot deed book, explained how up to three cremains could be placed on the same plot, dug out the necessary form (so the whole family agrees about what can happen with the grave), and promised to watch the mail for the returned form.<\/p>\n
All of this took 20 minutes. There were smiles all around.<\/p>\n
Did I mention they were dealing with a constituent who didn\u2019t believe his utility bill was delinquent at the same time?<\/p>\n
That experience alone would have made the road trip worthwhile.<\/p>\n
But so far today, we\u2019ve seen two Grizzly Bears (through binoculars), a coyote, a huge lake, a very old Faithful geyser, two amazing waterfalls and a river that was steaming as it ran downhill. And we\u2019ve got another day in the park!<\/p>\n
Then I \u2013 yes \u2013 hit the road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Road trip! You might recall that I like road trips. I like the long drives, the varying scenery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,8462,8461,131,133,132,137,3738],"class_list":["post-417941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-grunion-opinion","tag-grunion-pinch-of-salt","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-the-grunion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}