7 a.m. and a foggy coastal Saturday morning. With the Solstice top down, sunblock applied, ear plugs in, and the radio blasting, I tore off down the highway with wind in my hair.
The car was loud, there was no place to put my phone or iPod other than the passenger seat, and it was nearly impossible to reach my arm back to hit the window down switch, but I was having fun.
Still, I wanted more power…lots more power. The drive would be the 10 to the 405 to the 5 to the 580 to the 101. I wasn’t going straight to Santa Rosa though. I had promised Kelly a picture of the Solstice in front of the Golden Gate Bridge as thanks for the car. Before I reached that spot, I passed the lush central valley farmland, cattle ranches, cruised over the San Rafael/Richmond Bridge, and stopped outside San Quentin Prison, right by the bay that doubles as a windsurfing spot. When I pulled up in the Solstice, it got the attention of all the athletes in the parking lot, and they gave it a thorough inspection, then cleared cars out of my camera’s frame so I could take this picture.
Later that night I showed this picture of the car in front of the prison to Matt (in the striped shirt),
and he immediately said, "Man, Pontiac Solstice, a reason to stay free." I put the car in gear, loud engine revving, and headed toward the 101, toward the Marin Headlands with wind whipping past my ears.
Hundreds of cyclists filled the lower Golden Gate Bridge parking lot in the crisp fresh air that I was more that happy to breathe in.
You know that nostalgic feeling you get when you return somewhere you haven’t been in a long time, and it looks and smells and feels exactly how you remember it, and memories just flood back into your psyche? I was having that moment, and I smiled. Specifically, it reminded me of my dad, and how he used to haul my family past this spot for baseball games at Candlestick Park, or to Santa Cruz for a weekend, which was his best attempt at a vacation since he simply worked too much and too hard. Once a fireman, he had turned his passion for antique restoration into a full time job as a painting contractor who specializes in old structure restoration. My mom told me recently, the first day he got sick, had a fever from this West Nile business, he still insisted and then did go look at a house someone wanted painted. He was in demand. Now, it was his structure that needed some restoration.
Continued in Part 3/4
Josh Kameyer, Broadband Video Production
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