Because the Final Round ended with a clear-cut winner I was able to leave on Monday the 21st and start for home. Destination: Reno, making the drive the next day only 8.5 hours instead of over 12. However, I decided to make a little detour on my out of the Bay Area.
I got up early and was checked out and on the road by 0730; sadly right in the middle of rush hour, both for San Jose and for Oakland. But there weren't any wrecks (that I know of) and I was able to join with I-80 coming from San Francisco across the Bay Bridge. But instead of heading for Vallejo I hung a left and headed for the San Rafael-Richmond Bridge and Marin County. There in San Rafael I picked up 101 again and headed north, past the old stake center, past Marinwood where I worked one summer at a gas station, past Novato and the pizza stops coming home from church dances and finally into Sonoma County.
The first city north of Marin County on US 101 is Petaluma, the place that I still claim as my home town, even though I haven't lived there since 1979. But I spent half of my youth in that city, including 3 years of elementary school and all of junior high and high school. That's 1967 to 1979 (except for '70 to '72 when we were in New Jersey) and then my parents moved to Orem, Utah.
Arriving in Petaluma I took the Boulevard exit and turned left on I Street. I took a quick detour onto 7th street to see the house where we lived for a few years at the end before heading back up I Street to Sunnyslope Avenue and number 621. A gorgeous old two-story square farm house; my favorite house of all time. I parked the car in front of McNear Elementary (just 2 doors down) and walked around the neighborhood and the school. Looked at Cordon's old house across the street and the little and big fields where we used to play, and wandered through the school to McNear park and the playground and baseball fields.
Everything looked different but it felt like home; even the smells at the park were familiar. I then drove to the high school and wandered; an old alumni who graduated 3 years before I did (so we were there at the same time) let me in and I wandered the halls as well. Familiar again but changed. Lots of memories. From there I drove by the junior high and then by the chapel and soaked up memories.
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