The Road Not Taken
Chapter 3 Continued…
Cargo hopped out of the car and taking a cue from Donna, found a bush. Glancing at the scenery, for whatever reason, I suddenly felt uncomfortable. For just a second, I even entertained the idea of going home. Cargo had found a stick for me to throw, which he dropped at my feet. Instead of throwing the stick, I opened the back door for Cargo, then I climbed back in the front seat of the car and buckled up. Donna stood there in the middle of the dusty road, enjoying the view and pointing out the brilliantly colored wild flowers. I couldn’t help but notice how peaceful and happy she seemed.
Chapter 4
An hour and half in to our road trip, all was well. Cargo was stretched out on the back seat taking a nap. Donna and I had dug in to the snack bag and were munching on potato chips. At this point of the journey, we always felt tired. We were both looking forward to reaching Bend and getting out of the car.
“Do you want to see a movie in Bend?” Donna inquired
“Sure, that would be fun, as long as there is something good to see. The movie selection has been awful lately”, I replied. “I don’t want to waste money on a movie if it’s lousy, or violent. Why don’t they make happy movies anymore?” I asked.
It’s possible I never outgrew Walt Disney. I missed the movies that starred Doris Day and Rock Hudson. In Don’t Bring Me Flowers, Tony Randall was hysterically funny. There were no drug deals, prostitution or gun fights. Even the martial arguments were light hearted and entertaining. Not brutally honest as they are today. If I wanted to experience real life, I’d just stay home.
“Maybe there will be something at the mall theater”, Donna said. “Or we can skip the movie and walk a few of the trails at the park. I should have brought my tennis shoes. Why didn‘t I think about that?”
“You know, I’d rather walk the trails then see a movie”, I replied. “It’s so nice out. We really need to exercise more” as I dipped my hand back in to the potato chip bag on my lap.
Donna and I would go through spurts. We would walk religiously for months, only to get side tracked by other things. Like long drives in the car, sales at the mall or trying out new restaurants. Our dedication to fitness went through cycles. And speaking of cycles, we had thought about renting bicycles and biking the trails around Bend, which today would have been the perfect day to do just that.
“Why don’t we check out the bicycle trails while we are here?“ I asked. ” Wouldn’t that be fun? Maybe we’ll find a neat place to stay and bike next time we visit Bend” I stated with enthusiasm. We were always enthusiastic to participate in sports, we just didn’t seem to do it very often.
“Let’s do that”, Donna happily agreed. “We can even price bikes while we’re shopping”.
This was the best idea as far as I was concerned. Having gained weight over the past couple of years, Donna and I kept trying to come up with clever and entertaining ways to loose weight. Or to at least stay dedicated to our current weight loss and exercise program for 6 months. The thought of biking mountain trails, all the while enjoying the great outdoors, sounded ideal for us.
“Are you loosing weight with your diet? I‘m not loosing at all.” Donna stated with total bewilderment.
Stopping midway to my mouth with a hand full of potato chips, I just looked at Donna. Donna with an equally large handful of potato chips on her lap, caught the irony of her question and turned away.
“Oh…”, Donna remarked. “Okay – we’ll walk at the park and not do a movie”. As if that would make up for our 2 hour snack fest. At this point, we needed to climb Mt Everest, not enjoy a leisurely walk through the park. But the great thing about dieting is this – you can always start again tomorrow. Which was what we normally did. We’d diet, suffer a total melt down, then start again. The roar of two semi-trucks traveling together at a fast clip, distracted our conversation. To our amazement, they were passing us at the same time, which seemed dangerous to do. Donna slowed down and pulled over to the right hand edge of the road, allowing the trucks to pass us as quickly.
The highway had hidden dips which would surprise a passing vehicle with no notice. A car rising out of the sunken pavement would leave no time for correction. Donna lowered our speed, keeping a safe distance from the semi-trucks. After all, we were in no hurry to reach our destination. We were perfectly contented being nothing more then a distant image in the trucks rear view mirrors.
Chapter 5
Thirty minutes to Bend and we were tired from traveling and full from our snacking. We had longed since turned off the radio, as the noise had become an irritant. The weather had warmed, so we rolled up the widows and turned on the air conditioning. Cargo was once again at his post, staring out the side window.
I was wiping the crumbs off my lap and trying to get situated. I remember wishing I had worn different slacks. The slacks I had on were wrinkling from sitting in them for so long. Had I worn my black pants, they’d still look nice.
Donna had turned the air conditioner directly on her. Her long, blonde hair was blowing in the air stream. She had taken her cardigan off, to reveal a sleeveless blouse. The blouse was cream colored with a light tan and black pattern. I remember thinking how pretty it looked on her. She was wearing Khaki colored pants that had also wrinkled. Neither one of us had made a decent choice for slacks.
