On the road again!!!

I’m FINALLY ready to hit the road, jack, after my last minute stop at the Berkeley Bowl to pick up their large 3lb bag of organic salad for $5.99! That should hold me for awhile.

I intend to head to the Tar Sands protests after dropping off my passenger, then to my volunteer job with the Bankhead National Forest as a campground host! From there I will go to the SOA (school of americas) protest and the detention center protest mid November.

3:00 and I’m picking up my passenger Jess in Hayward at her Grandmother’s. She is waiting impatiently out front & springs up when she sees my truck heading for her. She motions me into the driveway, where her things are piled up at the back door.

Meeting her grandmother, my thought that she is a womon of color is confirmed: her grandmother is Hispanic and looks indigenous too. Jess looks a lot like her – except of course she has black hair, black eyes, and is much taller – and later she will confess to me that she is Mexican-American – about third generation, but people in Houston consider her white, so she passes for white.

I reassure her that I didn't think she was white when we met.

We put her stuff in the back and then take off. We get caught in rush-hour traffic on 580 in Livermore – but I don’t mind, as it gives people a chance to read the back of my truck.

We get several positive horn honks and more people waving or giving the peace symbol. Before long, we are heading down the boring I5 and I’m going to try to make it to the other side of Palm Springs, if I can drive that far.

My sweet truck has been overheating a little when it is hot and we’re going up hill, so I’m grateful to hit the Grapevine just as the sun in saying her glorious “good nite” and we head over the mountains greeting the cool nite air.