Home again 10 June 2024

Home again jigetty jig

We drove home Sunday, choosing highway 253 through Boonville over our usual Comptche road . . . so we could lunch at Pennyroyal. 

Says here, a good trip should “enhance our experience of our home place” and that happened this time, in spades. To make the story short, I think we're really done with long travels now, for many reasons. 

Not least because, curmudgeonly as we've become, we could not like the changes taking place “out there.” Increasingly, natural beauty is overwhelmed by human greed and carelessness. Small towns look more and more alike due to the prevalence of national brands and franchises. People, especially when insulated by their vehicles, are increasingly hostile and impatient, .

Of course there's the countervaling force: individuals are, one-on-one, friendly and caring, and pleased to be helpful, particularly those in people-facing businesses. And Nature bats last: no matter how badly abused, burned over, or raped, She restores herself persistently, and nowhere more enthusiatically than in the temperate, rainy northwest.

The quote opposite came to me from my friend Tony Bennett, and served as a theme for this trip.

Never mind all that. Sunday's travel continued.

Over the Coast Range on twisty highway 253 and a strong sense of returning to home territory.

On the downslope into the Anderson Valley, a familiar site this trip also returns:

Lunch at Pennyroyal Farm: a delicious cheese board featuring their products, and a glass or rosé of pinot noir.

Then back through the Redwoods to the foggy coast and home . . .

Our stupid little Versa rental did okay, 47.6mpg for the 558 miles from Bend to Caspar. Finding our destinations without GPS navigation was a hardship; we had to learn to use our “smart” phone. 

To be continued: we need to return to Silverton and retrieve our lovely Prius Prime and bring her home.