The GPS lady seems to be the only person on the planet who does not know the way to San Jose.  As I left San Francisco this afternoon, she routed me to a closed street twice before I began ignoring her.  I followed the detour signs to Highway 101 South; she declared a truce and took my lead.  Smooth sailing got me from San Fran to San Jose in under an hour, at rush hour but against the worst flow.

My extraordinary trip to California found me on a double-decker tour bus with my cousin-in-law Renee, wind whipping through our hair, doubtless with goofy grins on our faces.  We played the tourist, gawking at old Victorians, Alcatraz, and ships at sea.  I closed my eyes and filled my lungs with Eucalyptus in Golden Gate Park and the smell of the 60s in Haight Ashbury.

Every step of the way, I experienced an irresistible pull to California life.  The people stride with a confidence that I can’t recall from Kansas City pedestrians.  They wrap their scarves the way I do; the traffic jams seem easy to navigate.  I can’t explain it.  From the boardwalk at the Pacific Ocean to the construction zone adjacent to Union Square, I felt at home.

I’m not leaving my heart in San Fransisco, though my heart strings do seem to be tugging me westerly.  I feel peaceful here.  But more and more, as I place my crippled feet on the path rising in front of me, I carry my peace with me.  That path winds; it climbs uneven ground; it speeds through tunnels and into the wind.  I am not complaining.  The rushing air feels good against the fragile skin that stretches across my tired bones; it ruffles these tangled curls, and takes my breath away.  I am left radiant and refreshed.

The morning visit to the Infectious Disease Department at Stanford went so well that I decided to take the rental car to Los Altos to Know Knew Books.  Unsurprising that I would want to find a used bookstore, I’m sure.  My route took me through foothills, winding alongside neighborhoods with towering palm trees and strange vegetation; and people on bicycles everywhere I went.  The road ended in a public parking garage at the back of a humongous Safeway like none I’ve seen in the tame Midwest.

At the bookstore, I found a volume on screenwriting which I snagged for my son and several intriguing old mysteries, including  a John Dickson Carr which, unbelievably, I had not read.  After making my purchases, I asked the cashier about somewhere that I might have lunch.  She and the manager abandoned their distractions — working a puzzle for her, flirting with customers for him — and wracked their brains.  They suggested the Mexican place across the street, the salad bar at the pizza joint, or the deli at Safeway.  “Or you could walk over to Main Street,” they added, looking doubtful.

I headed in the direction of Main Street but halfway there, saw a sign that said “Coffee, Breakfast, Lunch”.  That seemed promising, so I hauled my books, my computer, and my sorry little butt into a storefront small enough to have its own sitcom.  A broadly smiling woman named Julie told me to sit anywhere and by the way, did I want to try her home-made split pea soup?

You bet I did.

Julie laughed as she told me she just made it this morning at 5:30 a.m. right here in this kitchen, with a broad wave towards a window from which a man nodded, confirming.  “Vegetarian,” she insisted.  “Organic peas, local.”  I placed her accent, black hair, diminutive frame, and almond eyes as Chinese but did not ask.  I  ordered the soup, bottomless Peet’s coffee, and a grilled cheese, gluten be damned.

Ten minutes into the most delicious pea soup I’ve ever had, a woman in her sixties with short, thinning hair dyed black entered the restaurant.  She slid into a chair a the counter and ordered the soup.  She and Julie talked about hairdressers for a few minutes, then she asked, “Where are they?” Julie shrugged.  “Late, late.  But they will be here.”  I continued eating my soup, having no wi-fi to provide a distraction.  A few minutes later, Julie’s face beamed towards the window.  “Here they come!” she announced, and turned to take two mugs off a back ledge and place them on the counter, with fresh cups of ice water, silverware, and napkins.

I looked at the sign on my table which admonished me to ask for water if I wanted it.  “We conserve water to benefit our community,” the sign announced.  Whoever approached the place must be special indeed, since Julie, our hostess and the long-time owner of the Village Pantry, did not wait for their request.

She saw me noticing what she was doing and told me, “These two are very special customers. They are in their 70s but they are newlyweds.”  She gestured.  “They have their own cups.”  Indeed, the mugs at their places sported pictures of an older couple, radiant, happy.

The couple which entered can only be described as adorable:  Miriam and John, who told me that they had been married for six years.  His wife died; then her husband.  Julie had told John, “I know a woman who lost her mate, you would like her.”  She introduced the two of them over breakfast, and they realized that John had gone to high school with Miriam’s late husband.  They fell in love and married on Valentine’s day in 2009.  I stood at the counter talking with them, feeling the bond between them.  They let me take their picture, shrugging slightly as though to say, “We don’t know why you would want to, but you certainly may.”

After lunch I found the Neuro-Science Clinic behind the massive construction of its replacement, opening November 2015.  I navigated the barricade to the make-shift entrance.  At the concierge desk sat the same young man who set up Uber on my phone in December.  He shocked me by breaking out in a radiant grin before I could even speak.  “You’re back!” he exclaimed.  “Did you Uber here?  Was your son impressed that you learned how to Uber?”

I sank into a guest chair in front of him.  I read his name tag:  Joseph Newton.  “I can’t believe you remember me,” I replied.  He shook his head.  “You made an impression on us, ma’am.”  I could have sat in that chair all afternoon, talking to this young man, finding out how he came to be so generous of spirit.  Must have had a wonderful mother.

I told him I had a rental car this time and that I’d gone to the coast to see the ocean.  I shook his hand and gave him one of my pens.  “If you ever need a friend in Kansas City, you’ve got one,” I told him, and he gestured with my pen, smiling, telling me he would not forget.  He shook my hand again and I felt a little bit of California magic linger behind as I turned the corner to the elevators.

Then I went up to the Neuro-Science Clinic, where a doctor looked over all the notes about me, asked a million questions, and repeatedly shook his head, as though the answers did not make sense.  I spent an hour with him, working through the realities of my life.  Together, we formulated a plan so that I could live to be 103, just as I promised my son I would do, all those many years ago, when we were both young.

John and Miriam

There’s a mountain road between Fayetteville, Arkansas and Little Rock which natives call the Pig Trail.  I crossed the mountains many times by that short cut, with its winding roads, its hairpin curves, and its sudden switchbacks.  I don’t know why it’s called the Pig Trail but I always suspected it had something to do with the Arkansas razorback.

I decided to rent a car for my time in San Jose this week after  Katherine Kenyon told me about Pigeon Point Hostel and Lighthouse.  I tried to book a room for one of my extra nights in California, flanking my day of check-ups at Stanford Medical Center.  The place had no vacancies. I’d have to make a daytrip.

I studied Google-map and found two routes.  One went north, over to the coast, then back south. The other went through La Honda.  I pulled a closer view using my touch screen and began to smile:  I knew I would be taking the pig trail to Pigeon Point.

Five miles into an eighteen mile stretch on Sand Hill Road, an ambulance passed on the wrong side of the two-lane blacktop at break-neck speed, silent but with lights flashing.  A half-mile later, traffic stopped.  My rental car pointed uphill.  I turned the engine off, silencing Neko Case.  I waited, cars accumulating behind me, the occasional biker venturing beyond the impasse before turning around to cruise down hill.

After fifteen minutes, a sheriff’s car zipped by on my left.  Five minutes later, a fire truck, a cruiser, and a patrol car came down, slowly.  Then the ambulance loomed into view, coming down the mountain,  silently, with no sign of urgency.

Traffic resumed at a crawl.  We had gone  a few feet when we stopped again, as the deputies routed the two directions of traffic around the accident.  Only one wrecked car remained, assuming there had been others.  It had flipped, crushing the doors and popping the glass from the windows.  It appeared to be unoccupied.

No sound broke the air as the procession slowly skirted the scene.

Forty minutes later, deep into my second playing of the Neko Case CD, I turned onto HIghway 1 and the sight of the ocean broke through the slight haze surrounding me.  I headed south, and came to Pigeon Point, where I stood on the edge of the nation and said two prayers:  One for myself, in gratitude; and one for the poor soul who missed a sharp unexpected turn, on a softly lit winter afternoon west of San Jose.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

I frequently credit my father with teaching me about duct tape, zip ties, and pry bars.

The truth is that my first husband, Chester, convinced me of the value of duct tape.  He called it “200 MPH tape” and spoke with a gleam in his eye of slapping lengths of silver on hot cars in the pit stop of race tracks.  My second husband, Dennis, introduced me to the versatility of zip ties.  He used them to corral computer cords, secure luggage tags, and bag trash.  If you opened my junk drawer today, you’d see an assortment pack of 100 zip ties and a fat roll of duct tape.

But my father did teach me how to use a good little pry bar.  I have his, which I wrestled from my sister’s hands when we divided his tools.  I often use it.  Just yesterday, I pried open a closet door, the handle of which had fallen to the floor for the hundredth time.  It’s about a foot long, made of iron, and has paint spatters the color of the first bedroom that I had to myself at home.  It lies in the junk drawer, next to my Phillips screwdrivers, two pairs of pliers, a hammer that might belong to somebody else, and a couple of wire cutters.

My father did teach me a few lessons besides how to wield a pry bar.  Never draw to an inside straight, don’t sit with your back to the door, always play the house odds — unless you’ve violated the first rule and Lady Luck rewarded you.  He also taught me the value of silence between spaces and of reading the newspaper every day.

I only got a few things from my father.  His love of wood; last name; his poet’s eyes; his fragile skin; his pry bar.  It’s not much.  But it’s what he had to give.