TRAVEL MEMOIRS

Memories and Street Art in California

Mission Hotel felt like ‘Hotel California’

Outside fountain on patio at Mission Inn in Riverside, CA — photo by author

At 65, I reminisce about backpacking around Southeast Asia and think, “Maybe next year — or maybe not.” Rough travel can be exhausting. Now I’m interested in more comfortable get-aways. That’s why I’m falling in love with California again — home of my family road trips and a boatload of nostalgia.

California was Dad’s home state. My first time there, I was nine. Squeezed into the family car — an old aqua Buick with a hole in the floor— we traveled for six hours at a time, a family road trip. Every few hours, Mom turned around to say, “Keep your fingers out of that hole!”

Mostly we fought in the backseat, arguing who saw the license plate from Arkansas first. Singing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and driving our parents crazy. Miming putting our fingers down the hole onto the asphalt zipping by.

In California, Dad pulled over on an empty stretch of road.

He got out and picked a few leaves from a huge, tall tree with silvery-green leaves, rolling them in his hands. Holding his palms to his face, he inhaled deeply and held his breath. He smiled. Dad was home. When he walked back to the car, the smell of Eucalyptus flooded over me.