San Rafael, California - October 18, 2001
I spent some time at home in Michigan, and getting my car ready for the trip. How'd I get a car, you ask? Well, believe it or not, I've had a car sitting at my parent's house for nearly five years, and almost completely untouched. It actually had four flat tires, and the brakes didn't work very well when I pulled it out of a back shed that it was being stored in. Fortunately, my parents had a similar car, almost same mileage (well over 150,000), and nearly the same year (late 1980s). They were planning to 'trade-in' their car for a slightly newer one, so we made the 'switch' as they weren't going to get more than a few hundred for their car either. So their car became my car, and my car became their trade-in for a slightly newer car.
Anyhow, I drove three straight days from Michigan all the way to California. The roads were the busiest in California itself and also around the Chicago region. Everywhere imbetween was quite desolate roads. Actually, this is my 3rd or 4th time on this major highway going through Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. I've been across almost every east-west American highway a few times with one exception - the one that hugs the Mexican border way down south. Maybe someday I can drive that one too. Most of this country-crossing has been because I've worked in both the Grand Canyon in Arizona and Yellowstone in Wyoming, as well as a year living in Portland, Oregon. So many times I've crossed from east to west making the move from east coast to west coast in my pre-asian and pre-south american days.
Well, now I'm in San Rafael, California staying at my friend Derrick's house. If you want to see what he looks like, just go to my South Korean photo page and you'll see that he was my roommate when I worked in Pusan in 1996 (the last picture on the page). So now I find myself on Derrick's couch, talking about traveling and the Pusan days and all about Korea and the old freinds I'd met who we both knew in 1996 and are still lingering around that country of Korea. He lives with an old Pennsylania high school friend and a 3rd roommate (who is moving out soon), in a cottage-like house in Marin County, north of San Francisco. The back part of the house overlooks part of the Bay.
In California:
October 27, 2001
You can email me at:
Wintermoon2@yahoo.com