Trip to the Past...

This past weekend I rented a car and visited my best friend up in Sonora County in California. I felt like I fell asleep along the way (stay quiet all those who know my driving habits) and ended up in Skagway, Alaska. It was a beautiful day to drive on Saturday as I travelled through vineyards and orange groves. All still dry from winter and ready to bloom for spring, but still fascinating. And YES, I made it BY MYSELF. I had my weak moments since it was a moving vehicle and all, but I kept myself alert with voice practice, music, fresh air, and LOTS of Coca Cola. Once I got up to Fresno it was nothing but lush green rolling hills filled with tons and tons of cows. The landscape was practically cows. I remember a commercial for dairy products saying that California cows are happy cows. This said commerical references California due to its weather no doubt, but as I was travelling in that area it was a mere 50 degrees in the sun and it was just snowing the previous week. Hmm. Not as bad as Wisconsin, but still cold. Anyway, I was chugging along fine admiring the scenery. However the drive was taking longer than expected and I was winding and turning through the mountains of California when I should stumble upon an old mining town called Coulterville. Whoa!!! I thought. "Wha-happoned?" as my friends from the Zaandam would say. The sidewalks were made of wood and the facades from all the buildings were in that key western look. I stopped in an old hotel where the mistress of the house reassured me that I was indeed lost, but not by much. I learned later by my friend that I was pretty close to Yosemite. I do wish I had time to explore that area. In the future I will. I made it back on the right track only to discover I had no cell service. Whoa!! Talk about being secluded. Luckily I was only a half hour off track and she was waiting for me at the theatre. It was good to see her again and we had a lovely dinner together to catch up. We reminisced and traded DVDs of shows we've done since working together in the past that night. I saw her show the next day at the Sierra Repertory Theatre. Beauty and the Beast was defiinitely an ambitious show for the small stage and limited group that could feasibly perform on that stage. They all did very well and she shined of course. Before her show that day we had a lovely breakfast at Perko's which I'm convinced is in the family of Perkin's, but maybe not. We travelled into Columbia to visit the historic little mining town. I even got to see a family of deer in her host family's backyard. They live on a mountainside so the mountain extends upward from the house where they were just wandering about. After the show I was on the road again. Although this time it wasn't so pretty. It was a little rainy (some of the storm we're getting now in L.A.) and dark. I'm still here though and the car was returned in perfect condition. I wasn't in Skagway, but between the show and the town I felt like I visited the 1800s and the mining era.