Memory Highway

I'm sorry most of the posts of late have been the Plant Alphabet, it has been a busy few weeks. And even though it is an amazing collection of plants, I feel I should probably insert a little variety.

So my most recent busyness was a trip down to the Central Valley for my Grandfather's Big Birthday Party. We took Highway 99. For those unfamiliar with Eastern California, 99 runs to the East of the Central Valley where 5 runs to the West.  It is dry and oppressively hot in the Summer, chilly and blindingly foggy in the Winter. It is also a very familiar drive to me from my childhood. Before the advent of TVs and DVDs in cars (not that my mother would have allowed this anyway) and because I had no siblings to annoy, I would stare out the window for hours on car trips. To this day, I am content to sit as a passenger and watch the landscapes fly by.

The Landscape of Highway 99 is familiar to those who have travelled it and to those who have read Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Initially a small country road, it was promoted to the status of Federal Interstate before losing the distinction as the main North-South thoroughfare to I-5 in the 1950s. Today it is still busy, predominantly with Agricultural traffic. Local industry is obvious as one drives by vineyards and orchards, parched lands and remnants of rivers long dried.  The plant community, composed of Grasses, Valley Oak (Quercus lobata), Oleander (Nerium oleander) and Eucalyptus, is both native and naturalized. These are not lush plants, quite the opposite, there is a harshness to their colors and form, exacerbated by the intensity of heat and light. With this written, I must say I love this landscape. Those colors are soothing: a rich golden brown, dark muted greens, the bright blue sky all accented by many a magenta flower. 

The quaintness of the journey has diminished of late with the development of the suburbs but if you keep your eyes on the road (and if you're driving, you should be doing this anyway) you get a sense of a romanticized nostalgia for what was a slower time.