Many years ago my little brother and I took a road trip to visit our colleges ,which we had both dropped out of, UCSC and Humboldt State university. We took the old RX3 mazda station wagon with the Rotary engine designed by some guy named Wankel.
Anyway I had forgotten how fun that trip was, we camped in Yosemite where the raccoons stole his shoes with his glasses in them(we bought new shoes but he had a much nicer view of the trip after that. We stopped in Santa Cruz and all my city friends were enamored of the baby poop brown car that had to be push started at every stop. I don't know why....
Anyway we hit Humboldt where Beautiful Sue Johnson fed us like kings then up to Portland to visit my high school crush. We had heard of this bookstore that took up a whole city block.
We headed home and ended up in Salt Lake City with no money and 400 pounds of books in the back! We did scrounge under the seats and found a few dollars in change and made it home.
Ben decided that we would do no tv week. Soren Freaked out so I said we could go to collected works and get them each a Brainquest workbook as compensation.
The whole way to the store they kept reminding me how the bookstore was sooo much better than the library because you get to KEEP the books! $81 later we got work books dinosaur sticker books and dinosaur history books.
Somehow those darn books always get me!
Anyway I had forgotten how fun that trip was, we camped in Yosemite where the raccoons stole his shoes with his glasses in them(we bought new shoes but he had a much nicer view of the trip after that. We stopped in Santa Cruz and all my city friends were enamored of the baby poop brown car that had to be push started at every stop. I don't know why....
Anyway we hit Humboldt where Beautiful Sue Johnson fed us like kings then up to Portland to visit my high school crush. We had heard of this bookstore that took up a whole city block.
We headed home and ended up in Salt Lake City with no money and 400 pounds of books in the back! We did scrounge under the seats and found a few dollars in change and made it home.
Ben decided that we would do no tv week. Soren Freaked out so I said we could go to collected works and get them each a Brainquest workbook as compensation.
The whole way to the store they kept reminding me how the bookstore was sooo much better than the library because you get to KEEP the books! $81 later we got work books dinosaur sticker books and dinosaur history books.
Somehow those darn books always get me!
My freshman year of college, the same year you took your in-dorm-sabbatical, during the second semester, I lived in a n apartment a little ways off campus at Harvey Mudd College. Problem: The apartment was less than a block from a decent used book store. Problem compounded: The owner and his son learned and accommodated my reading tastes.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the semester, I shipped home a steamer trunk full of used SF paperbacks--mostly out of print. I took it down to Grayhound, but they wouldn't take it because it weighed more than 200 lbs. I had to ship it home by rail.
When I grow up, I'd love to run a small used book store with coffee and a conference room in back where I can teach an SF writing workshop. Maybe not realistic, but hey, it's a dream.
I loved that baby-poop brown Mazda rotary wagon. That was the first car I ever drove over 100mph (down Airport Road--we got airborne for what felt like several seconds when we hit the cattle guard). Whatever happened to it? Is it still decaying in the field by the horses out on Aqua Fria?
ReplyDeleteSadly it was hauled off to an ignomious death
ReplyDelete