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Blogs by Paul Cuenco
Going Home 12/22/2011 11:16:05 PM
I’m going home tomorrow. Tomorrow night I’ll be arriving in Vallejo, preparing my bed and talking with mom, sis and Taylor. I will be laying my clothes out for the next day’s festivities – it’s the family Christmas party – and later in the night, watching the ol’ TV. (The TV is always on when I go to sleep) I’m excited, you know, even though I have not prepared anything yet for the trip.
Going home should be flown. After all, that is over 600 miles away. Pia, my cousin, told me to do so. I was also looking forward to flying, but my two roundtrip tickets expired last June and there is no way to reinstate them. So, having limited funds, I opted to drive the car. Pia said that I was being cheap. Hahaha. In fact, she scheduled the event to be on the 17th. But I cannot make it then. I requested my vacation to be around the 24th or the 25th. So, she then rescheduled it the 24th since they have another family party they have to host the next day. Pia said that I was selfish! Of course she said this with amore propio (with love and care.)
Not that driving the car is tedious or boring. It is not! It gives me pleasure to see the panorama passing me by. The first exciting part is the Siskiyou by Canyonville. It rises to 2,000 feet above sea level. And there are four passes to it. I know this because it has been the road I have taken for years when I visited Portland from the Bay Area. This time, it is driving to the Bay Area from Portland. Then the land levels off after Grants Pass until such time as Ashland is within sight. The mountain highway rises to about 4,300 feet above sea level. It is a glorious rise because right down from it, you could see a giant lake. I always wonder what lake it is but it’s huge. Again, it levels off to 3,000 feet above sea level. And the third one is Mt. Shasta. Mt. Shasta is over 14,000 feet above sea level but there is a mountain beside it. It is called Shastina. It is a small volcano wherein the highway skirts its side. The road from Ashland to the end of the Mt. Shasta Park is 2 hours. By the time, one hits the end of the road, its Redding and about 3 hours to Vallejo. If I would drive this long stretch of highway, straight, it would take me 10 hours. But I always give it about 12 hours because of the stop over.
It is more melodramatic when I wrote this piece in one of my books, “A Cottage in Another Country”. I wrote it because I have been trekking this highway for many, many times. I told the story from my own perspective where art meld with reality; and that the reader can have a feel of what I feel when I drive this highway.
It is indeed exciting to pack up and go. It’s been about 6 months now since I have seen my family and I truly miss them. So tonight, I shall finish my laundry and tomorrow, I shall shed things I use to carry in my car and replace them with the rocking chair, the loaf of bread I shopped for but did not finish, Nutella, clothes and the like. Oh boy, bread and clothes doesn’t seem to go hand in hand; just to show, how frazzled I am.
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