Yesterday I drove up to the Bay Area, with a twofold purpose: To see Teresa, and to visit the places where I grew up.
I left at 7am and drove up Highway 1 to Carmel. 1 is a beautiful road, and I have a great time every time I drive it. I love driving on scenic winding roads; the more scenic and windier, the better. The road is so much better than my car: it’s a road worthy of a Lotus or Porsche or Ferrari. (Some day.) I made excellent time - an hour and forty minutes from the stoplight in Cambria to the stoplight in Carmel. Another hour and twenty put me at De Anza & Stevens Creek.
Louise Van Meter Elementary School is different; they’ve added a new driveway down what used to be the side of the field. The playground structures are all metal and plastic; back in my day we had wood and we got splinters, dammit! The field is so small. It’s about the size of Shamel Park, more squared-off. As a kid it seemed to take forever to run across it when that bell rang at the end of lunch.
Raymond J. Fisher Middle School is completely different; they’ve built a new administration building, with a gaudy facade of dark blue concrete and gleaming metal trim. Thanks, Dot-Com Bubble.
Los Gatos High still looks the same—big imposing quasi-Greek building with a big lawn. I’ve still never been inside.
What used to be Los Gatos Ferrari is now a Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin, and Lotus dealership. They have a Veyron on order for December. On Santa Cruz Rd there’s a Lamborghini dealership. Thanks again, Dot-Com Bubble.
I drove up Tourney Road, to the old house. The road was grippingly familiar; I even remember the way the rain runoff flowed down the roadside and pooled up at certain spots. There’s a new baby-blue monstrosity of a house along the road that was simply not there when we left. I’m surprised there was actually space for another lot; things are very close-quarters along that road. The old house itself looks about the same. It’s had a paint job (it’s a much warmer, less neutral grey), and there are more plants around the decks. I was surprised at its sheer size; it was a big house. I didn’t go in, just paused for a moment and let my mind run through it, evoking every memory of my childhood in a huge flood.
On the way back down, I caught a glimpse through the trees of the view. The old house’s biggest selling point was its panoramic vista of the whole South Bay, from the Saratoga hills across to the Coast Range. In the rain, like yesterday, it’s not so impressive, but on a clear day you can see all the way up the bay, and in the afternoon sometimes you can make out the gold sun reflecting on the office buildings in San Francisco and Oakland. Million dollar view.
I miss the freeways in the bay area. At night, they’re so much darker than those of SoCal, and there’s nothing on either side but soundwall.
Northern California rain is different, too. A million tiny misty drops, the whole windshield is soaked, a certain cadence to the rain as it strikes, washing up the windshield from the wind, wipers only slightly helpful.
It’s only been eight years since I lived in the Bay Area, but it feels like a completely different lifetime. I was a different person then. I lived in Los Gatos for the first thirteen years of my life, but I grew up in Cambria, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.