Little Cat Feet

It was Carl Sandburg who said that fog creeps in on little cat feet and that kitten has been marching up and down the streets for a couple of days now. I got up at 6 a.m., before the sun came up, to take this photo for Instagram yesterday morning.

 Then as it got lighter, I could get a better view of how the fog engulfed the street.

I had a therapist appointment in Vacaville (~20 miles) at 9 a.m., which meant I would be on the freeway before the fog started to burn off.  As I headed toward the freeway on ramp, I stopped to take a photo of what I was about to head into.

I have become a nervous freeway driver under the best of conditions over the past few years anyway, but to get on the road where in spots the fog was so thick that you could barely make out the off ramp was really scary.  Especially since getting from here to Vacaville, you have to merge left three times, not just stay in the comfortable safe right lane (which disappears), and merging in the traffic in the fog made this old lady very uncomfortable.

As you drive down the freeway, you pass bare almond trees on the right and I was sorry I was on a time schedule because I would love to have gotten off to take pictures of the fog covered orchard, with even thicker fog circling the base of each tree.  It was pretty amazing.

When I drive to Vacaville, I know when I have reached my off ramp because I can see Kaiser off in the distance, but Kaiser completely disappeared and I had to trust that I was getting off at the right place. I'd only gotten off here twice before and wasn't sure the name of the off ramp--since I am so familiar with all of the names of the exits along the freeway.

But it's amazing about fog.  It does burn off as the sun gets higher.  When I got to Debbie's office, we sat there with the fog so thick you could barely see the next building, and by the end of the hour, it was clear as a bell, the sun was shining brightly, the sky was a beautiful blue and you'd hardly know there had been any fog at all.

(Well, until I got closer to Davis, where there are open fields, which are great creators of fog.)

By the time Walt left to go to the symphony in San Francisco in the afternoon, the fog was a distant memory, but I did not envy him the drive home, if it was going to start rolling in again.

Debbie tells me she drives in from the Berkeley area, so she really got the fog in spades and she said that going over the Carquinez Bridge was just awful because the fog, if possible, was even thicker.

Every time we went to London, I always thought I would experience the real thick fog that you always see in movies, but we never did.  Whoda thunk I'd find it literally right in my own back yard!

Foggy, Foggy Dew

The older I get the less I enjoy auto trips. I tend to get very nervous when someone else is driving (unless I am either asleep, reading, or have my eyes closed--Kathy thinks that I take cat naps when we're driving to and from Cousins Day. She doesn't know that I just keep my eyes closed so I don't get nervous!). I guess it's OK if I feel I'm in control, but I'm discovering that the older I get the more afraid I become on the freeway period. If I'm driving by myself, I often take frontage roads rather than the freeway, when they are available, or if there is an alternate route, I'll take that. I've come to enjoy those little side trips and unless I am on a deadline (very rarely), the extra time it takes to go "the long way" is no problem. Even if I am on a deadline, I can plan ahead and leave half an hour early to allow for the frontage roads.

Things on my right side bother me, especially as a passenger, because my peripheral vision is so bad on that side. If I'm a passenger and I see a big truck coming up on the right, I just close my eyes until we've passed it (I'm getting good at hearing us passing a truck). It's better if I'm driving because I"m farther away from the truck (the whole width of the car).

Yesterday, returning from Alameda I had to drive on one of the stretches of freeway that I hate most at any time of day, but it's even worse at night. I finally got off and drove all through downtown Oakland just because I hated that freeway so much.

This morning we had another interview scheduled at 11 a.m. in San Francisco. I was meeting Alison at the BART station (and thank goodness for my journal, where I said I was meeting her at the Richmond BART station because I really meant the El Cerrito BART station and if she hadn't written to clarify that, we were about to have yet another BART mis-adventure!

I left the house in time to stop at Jack in the Box in Dixon for breakfast (and to fill the gas tank). As I got on the freeway, I could see that the fog was very thick.

I was nervous about heading into that thick mess, but pressed on. At one point I pulled off on the frontage road which would take me to the road to the Jack in the Box. It also routed me past the old Milk Farm sign that I had used as my Facebook Photo-a-Day picture in October.

I took a picture of some of the cows and horses in the field. Sort of.

When I got to the Jack in the Box, there was a gas station right across the street, but as I sat there eating my sausage biscuit and looked across the street, I couldn't even see it, the fog was so thick.

My nerves were getting more and more twisted, but I filled the gas tank and got back on the freeway. By the next off ramp I knew that there was no way I could drive to the Bay Area. Even if the road was safe, I wasn't safe to drive it. I got off and managed to catch Alison before she left her house, and called our interviewees and told them I'd reschedule. Then I turned around and headed back home. I had only driven about ten miles, but it was a very harrowing drive back. When I got off the freeway, I couldn't see as far as the road I would be connecting to. When I crossed over the freeway, all I saw was white under the overpass--I couldn't see the cars. I knew I had made the right decision.

I was also sleepy, since I hadn't had much sleep the night before, so I took a 2 hour nap. When I woke up the fog was completely gone, the sun was out, and the air was clear. Too bad we hadn't scheduled an afternoon interview!