So the husband and I are currently driving down I-5. We are somewhere past Harris Ranch. I always have this feeling of nostalgia when I drive on this freeway. The summer after our junior year of high school Bethany and I, along with our friend Martha, took a road trip from San Francisco to Lovely Downey, California. We stayed with Martha’s family down there for about a week, and then Bethany and I drove back up on our own. Bethany and I invented most of our personal vernacular on that trip and I think the trip comes up just about every time we see each other, either directly or indirectly.

I have been thinking about that drive a bit tonight, but also about my previous I-5 adventures. BTW, it isn’t “The Five” until one crosses The Grapevine, and we are not crossing The Grapevine, so I will not call it, or think of it, that way. We drove down to LA multiple times when I was a kid, the most memorable time was when we did it with me and my cousin and some other kid in the back of my aunt and uncle’s pickup. Shit like that simply doesn’t happen these days. That was back in 1988, a lawless time on the highways of America. We left before the break of dawn (Why did all road trips start in the dark when I was a kid? They NEVER do now, except when we went to Oregon last year.), stopped at a McDonald’s for breakfast as the sun was coming up, and got to LA in plenty of time to go to Disneyland that day. And we went to a Raiders game back when they were the Los Angeles Raiders. They were playing the 49ers, which is why we went. We are very definitely not Raiders fans.

How is this drive down 5 different? Well, once it got dark I picked up my phone and started sending emails, texts, checking Facebook, playing Bookworm, and essentially ignoring my poor husband who I’m making drive so I can take care of some important stuff. Like writing this post. And texting my friend Letti about kittens. There is nothing more important than kittens. I am grateful to modern technology for allowing me to put off a bunch of somewhat boring tasks until I had nothing better to do tonight, though I used to enjoy looking at the sky on 5, which I haven’t done much of this trip…..

Now I’ve gotta play copilot a little better than I have been for the last two hundred or so miles. I’ll see everyone on Tuesday, when I will have finished Life After Life. It got dark when I had about fifty pages to go tonight.