I often forget how much I love to drive. When there's no schedule, and I have music (my early birthday present: a 60g Zen Vision M mp3 player!), I can pretty much go for hours and hours.

Today was a perfect day for going up Hway 101: clear, sunny, not hot, with a very sweet cool sea breeze pretty much the whole way up. Once I hit the grade past Pismo that moves inland, though, the heat and the winds kicked up. Easy to see why this is considered the driest CA summer since temps have been recorded, back in 1888. Still, the drive was nice, until I hit the Monterey offramp--the traffic came to a near standstill and stayed that way for probably ten miles. Yuck.
Nevertheless, I arrived at my aunt Marilynn's doorstep at 4:55pm, five minutes earlier than estimated. Even with the traffic tie-up, not bad! We had a great Indian dinner, we drove past Steve Jobs' house (quaint) and chatted the evening away.

 

Marilynn and I went exploring cemeteries in the Bay Area today. After checking out her husband (my uncle) Bill's plot, we drove into the South San Francisco aree of Colma where my grandfather Thomas Austin Moody is buried. Nothing special about it, seeing as he died fairly drunk and penniless.

However, it was an interesting leadup to our next stop: Mountain View cemetery in Oakland. I wanted to track down the graves of my Great grandafther, John Lewis Moody, and his dad, Robert Austin Moody, the "patriarch" of the California branch of the Moody tree. Well, come to find that although the front office did have records athat the two men were indeed burierd there, they had no idea where; it seems that both men also died drunk and penniless, and were therefore buried in the "unendowed" section of the cemetery: unmown grass, untended, broken and unintelligible headstones, and lots and lots of dirt. There was no way to determine where in this area the Moody men were buried. Although this discovery was depressing, I took some comfort in the sweet irony that the area where they are buried has a view that would render the land under it as MILLION DOLLAR REAL ESTATE! A sweeping vista of the SF Bay, including the Golden Gate bridge. Too bad the guys are probably still too drunk to appreciate it!

 

I was hoping to head up to the Napa/Sonoma area today to meet up with some second cousins I've only just met on the phone...but right now I couldn't raise  them on the phone, so I figured they just weren't as interested in the family tree as I am. hey, yua can't please everybody!

So, I headed up toward the Gold Country. Stopped in Milton, the ghost town where my dad is buried and took some pictures...I landed in San Andreas and wanted to stay at the Black Bart Inn, near where my dad lived and across the street from the bar that was his fave haunt. However, after figuring out that the TV didn't work, and there was neither hot water nor Internet access, I vowed to find another place to stay in the morning. Family ties ain't that strong!

 

I spent the day driving around while the locals were prepping for a fireworks show that would end up getting cancelled due to the insanely high fire danger in the region. Oh well! I drove up to the tiny quiet little burg of Sheep Ranch, where one of the areas richest gold mines very likely employed my GG GF Bob Moody, since CA census records show him working as a miner there in 1880. Mostly I just wanted to drink in the atmosphere of the place, and was not disappointed.  Afterwords I negotiated the rather trecherously winding roads down to the thriving tourist trap of Murphys-- a very nice little town anyway--and headed back to my new (and infinitely better) motel room in Angels Camp.

 
Day Five-- July 5, 2007

The temperatures are starting to get rediculously high now--nearing 100. Don't know how much I can stand of it.

Today, after visiting the local archive office for some copies of some photos, I went to see my dad's cousin, Pat Moody, a nice and quite loquacious lady living in nearby Mokelumne Hill, to have lunch and talk over her side of the family. We drove to a local casino (my first time in one up there!) for lunch. When we left, I was determined to hit the road to head somewhere cooler. I headed out of the hills westward, thinking maybe I'll stop when I hit water...

 

...which I did. Stopped and drove around Monterey, where I spent a year back in 1979-1980 going to Language School for the US Air Force. I found the astounding growth of the place since then truly depressing, and thought I'd start heading southbound until I tired of driving. Got tired by San Luis Obispo.

When I pulled into my motel room there (wow--pricy!) I was in a serious mood to find some local music. I found out that a band from the LA area was playing in nearby Morro Bay, and headed out just in time to enjoy a great show by the Sligo Rags--Irish-inflected bluegrass with attitude and insanely terrific musicianship. Great way to spend my last night before heading home!

 

Took the drive south slow and easy, even stopping to explore some of the backroads of Ventura. Once I got home, I was surprised to find myself not tired!  I guess a non-pressure roadtrip can be a great vacation!

 

It was the first trip I'd taken alone since Deb and I have been together (I've gone other places without her--but not alone alone) and I have to say that just knowing that I am in a relationship that can allow such things--well, I thank my lucky stars pretty much every day.