Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“Yes. And I would like french fries with it.” “You want french fries with it?”
“Yes. And I would like a salad with Thousand Island dressing.”
“You want a salad with Thousand Island dressing “Yes, and a Coke to drink.”
“You want a Coke to drink?”
“Excuse me, miss, but I've had a bad day and if you don't stop repeating everything I say,
I'm going to take this ketchup bottle and squirt it all down the front of your blouse.”
“You're going to take that ketchup bottle and squirt it all down the front of my blouse?”
I didn't really threaten her with ketchup-she might have had a large boyfriend who would
come and pummel me; also, I once knew a waitress who told me that whenever a customer
wasrudetohershewentouttothekitchenandspatinhisfood,andsincethenIhavenever
spoken sharply to a waitress or sent undercooked food back to the kitchen (because then
the cook spits in it, you see)-but I was in such a disagreeable mood that I put my chewing
gum straight into the ashtray without wrapping it in a piece of tissue first, as my mother
always taught me to do, and pressed it down with my thumb so that it wouldn't fall out
when the ashtray was turned over, but would have to be prised out with a fork. And what's
more-God help me-it gave me a tingle of satisfaction.
In the morning I drove north from Sonora along Highway 49, wondering what the day
would bring. I wanted to head east over the Sierra Nevadas, but many of the passes were
stillclosed.Highway4q,asitturnedout,tookmeonanagreeablywindingjourneythrough
hilly country. Groves of trees and horse pastures overlooked the road, and occasionally I
passed an old farmhouse, but there was little sign that the land was used for anything pro-
ductive. The towns I passed through-Tuttletown, Melones, Angels Camp-were the places
where the California Gold Rush took place. In 1848, a man named James Marshall found
a lump of gold at Sutter Creek, just up the road, and people went crazy. Almost overnight,
40,000 prospectors poured into the state and in a little over a decade, between 1847 and
1860,California'spopulationwentfrom15,000tonearly400,000.Someofthetownshave
been preserved as they were at the time-Sonora is not too bad in this regard-but mostly
there's not much to show that this was once the scene of the greatest gold rush in history.
I suppose this is largely because most of the people lived in tents and when the gold ran
out so did they. Now most of the little towns offered the customary stretch of gas stations,
motels and hamburger emporia. It was Anywhere, USA.
