Army Escort

Three of our closest friends, Hugo, Christen and their white, toy poodle, Monty, met me at Cummins, California, both of the humans, Melissa and I are proud to say, having served active duty tours in Kuwait.

After such a long haul across this great country, I was both relieved and ecstatic to see my friends and it meant a lot to me that they'd driven so far north to escort me home on Hugo's red CVO Street Glide, a tricked-out, fully optioned, lowered, chrome bolt-on, ultra-loud piped, added speakers blasting at eleven and LED light show we affectionately termed the "Gay Disco", much to Hugo's dismay.

Monty rode on the bike, as per usual, in his carrier strapped to the back of the bike, dressed in a black Harley Davidson leather vest, white head imperiously jutting into the stiff California wind towards the forward progress of the bike.

It was great comfort to be on my way home with my friends, my Army escort.

Unlike the rest of the country, which had complained about the cold, wet winter, California suffers through one of the worst droughts in recorded history and earlier, when I had ridden through the Mount Shasta National Park, driven by Shasta Lake, I was saddened and a bit frightened at just how low the lake's level was.

Northern California, in fact, looked as though the whole state could catch on fire, a conflagration of Biblical proportions, the wrath of a mighty god thrust upon the heathens from upon high. Or a single cigarette.

The unirrigated fluara looked wilted, the grass white and tan, like uncut hay, not unusual for Northern California, really, but certainly much earlier and certainly drier than normal. Time to cut the entire state's sullen grass and weeds and turn it into hay bails, start over, sod the entire place.

My escort and I rolled down I-5 and took the 505 exit towards Vacaville. As we crushed through the stiff winds, I couldn't smell the citrus of the orange groves (too early?), but I did smell the sweet scent of hay, and Hugo's body wash, Axe.

We pulled off for lunch, pizza at Mary's Pizza Shack in Fairfield, discussed the trip. Christen wanted to know if the journey would've been better if I'd gone with a group or with Melissa or in a car.

Introducing any of those elements would've changed the dynamic, of course. But better? A group would've meant more camaraderie, possibly, and probably bickering, and the travel slower, maybe even defeating. If I'd finished the rest of the way with Melissa, it would've been amazing in that my best friend and I would have that shared memory together, the downside being that we'd create our own cocoon from the world. Being alone forced me to engage with people. If I'd been with her, we'd probably have opted for hotels instead of the AirBnBs, perhaps the greatest source of local lore I acquired. And certainly with Melissa, it would've cost more - a lot more - in time and financially. I say this in love, of course, and reality. Driving a car would've numbed the experience that I might as well have bought a load of oxycodone and alcohol and staggered through the month at home, incoherently blathering Where am I? There's a reason children hate long car rides with the family: mind numbingly dull, disengaging time, meant to remove one so far from the experience there's no wonder that minivans and SUVs now come entertainment systems in the back of the front seats' headrests. Are you going across country in a car? Bring your DVDs. You're missing everything good about it because you just aren't in it.

I returned home, a complete 360 degrees around the contiguous United States, at roughly 3 P.M., Melissa believing I'd be gone another day.

When Melissa walked through our condo door at 4:20 P.M., it took a moment to register that it was I sitting on the couch with Zoey, our pet dachshund. Melissa screamed, began crying and threw herself on me, laughing and kissing me.

My word, these Spanish women... and the best gift I could receive.