On the trip, I read, or re-read, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy since the movies were starting to come out about then. And I was moved to write my travelogue in Tolkien style. This was it, written during my December 2001 travel to and from California. The title is repeated as the title of this blog post.
*****
The Hobb-Whit
or, California and Back Again
Yuletide was approaching, and Diane was desirous of an adventure. For Diane was a Whitmore, and Whitmores are not like Hobbits. Hobbits are an unobtrusive people who love peace and quiet and good tilled earth, with large hair-covered leather-soled feet, of height between two and four feet of our measure. Whitmores, however, are tall and robust, intense and passionate, and endowed with prodigious intellectual capabilities. So when Richard, a Whitmore dwelling in the Land of California, inquired, "Want to come for Christmas?", and Billy, a Whitmore dwelling in the Land of Maine, shire of Falmouth, added his approbation, and Jack, the sire of these three Whitmores, responded with equal enthusiasm as well as provisions for making the journey, plans began to be made. And thus, four days before Yuletide, Diane, along with two backpacks, one red and one blue, clothing, fruit, water, a cellular telephone (a communication tool unknown to hobbits), and a notebook, mounted the silver steed Amtrak and set forth from the shire of Portland.
Almost immediately Diane realized how much more pleasurable travel on the steed Amtrak was compared to mounting the backs of the great silver birds known in the Common Tongue as "airplanes." Amtrak did not necessitate the use of fabric restraining devices locked about the waist. Amtrak's seats were much larger and more widely spaced than that of the airlane, reclined fully, and were set next to large windows. Amtrak was equipped with a "dining car" which offered continuous food and drink which was tasty, if a bit highly priced. And, most pleasurable to Diane, being a Whitmore and thus possessed of prodigious intellectual capabilities, among which a desire to experience new things and see new places, the landscape outside the large window constantly changed.
Early in the voyage, the attendants to the steed Amtrak, known as "conductors" in the Common Tongue, advised Diane that, as the steed Amtrak had first set hoof to ground in the Land of Maine just one week prior, she was in all probability the first person in the history of the great steed Amtrak to journey from the Land of Maine to the Land of California. Diane was pleased but not surprised at this revelation, for Whitmores are accustomed to achieving noteworthy accomplishments.
The first dark cloud on the trip passed over at the approach to the shire of New York. As the city skyline came into view, an abrupt quiet descended in the train. All heads turned toward the southernmost point of the shire, where, on the eleventh day of September past, in shire reckoning, two silver birds had flown into the Two Towers. The now-Towerless silhouette looked strange and otherworldly. No one spoke, but all all were nevertheless united in common thoughts of sadness and grief. The eyes of a few, Diane included, bore tears. Several minutes passed in wordless emotion.
At sunset that night, which was a pinkish-orange over purple mountains, Diane realized that she had passed into the Land of West Virginia, and enjoyed deep contentment at the realization that she had now spent time in every Land which lay to the East of the great river Mississippi.
Next of interest, at the next midday, was the great lake Michigan, which was in fact so great that the other shore could not be seen. Were it not for the absence of a seabreeze, seagulls, and seaweed, one might have thought oneself in fact seaside. But it was nothing of the sea that bordered Lake Michigan, but rather the great shire of Chicago, with its vast Sears Tower, tallest on Earth or Middle-earth.
The steed Amtrak was known by many different names in different lands. Particularly appealing to Diane was his name between the shire of Chicago and the Land of California, the "California Zephyr." As a student of the classics, Diane appreciated that name and thought it a poetic one in the context of a cross-country journey, for Whitmores, like hobbits, are fond of storytelling.
After Chicago, darkness came quickly. She expected sleep to come quickly as well, but instead something most unexpected happened, as at the dinner hour Diane beheld an acquaintance from Maine, whom she had known while employed at the Sign of the Great Boot. They talked until the wee hours, through the Land of Iowa into the Land of Nebraska, when her acquaintance disembarked to join family for the Yuletide holidays. For the rest of the trip, Diane marveled greatly at the coincidence of encountering a Maine acquaintance on a train in the Midwest. Both Earth and Middle-earth are small worlds.
Diane awoke to an utterly different Nebraska landscape, of great brown flatness punctuated very rarely by single farmhouses. This was yet another Land which she beheld for the first time. A short time later she beheld, again for the first time, the Land of Colorado and the magnificent snow-capped Rocky Mountains. Diane had seen the Mountains a few times from the back of a great silver bird, but had never passed through. The steed Amtrak wended its way through mountains and valleys in a serpentine manner. The sharp peaks and dizzying steep drops were marvelously unlike the rounder hills in the Land of Maine. Likewise the creatures she saw from the window, known as "bald eagle," "elk," and "silver fox" in the Coloradan tongue.
As sleep came again, Amtrak passed out of the Land of Colorado to the Land of Utah, of which Diane beheld none except the shire of Salt Lake City with a magnificent white-lit palace of six towers, which her traveling papers identified as the Mormon Temple. She had known of the Mormon influence in the Land of Utah but had not realized that its architecture also dominated, knowing little about Utah and its people, except that they probably were little like either Whitmores or hobbits.
When morning came, Diane awakened on Christmas morning in the desertous Land of Nevada. Amtrak at that point was populated by a mere thirty-six passengers, plus crew, whereas Amtrak was equipped for 289. It was a unique experience, surreal but pleasing, to be wishing Merry Christmas to people who two days prior had been total strangers but were now familiar faces. And by midday again, Amtrak strode into the Land of California, well into the mountains, which, Diane was startled to see, bore several feet more snow than did the Land of Maine.
By eventide, Amtrak had reached journey's end in the Land of the Bay Area of California. Richard of the clan of Whitmores awaited, and soon Diane was in the company of a gathering of Whitmores, dominated by several little hobbit-sized Whitmores who were noisily occupied with piles of new toys under a brightly lit indoor evergreen tree. And that night as she lay in bed, she noticed that for the first time all week, the bed wasn't moving.
Her days in the Land of California were marked by much time among all the Whitmores, both hobbit-sized and full-grown, including a trip to see the shire of San Francisco with its cable cars and Pacific Oceanside atmosphere. It was a most unusual Christmas week, with the hobbit-sized Whitmores playing outside in shorts and the people of the shire mowing their lawns. On her last day, she boarded a silver bird back, which, to her contentment, presented a smooth trip. At her arrival in the shire of Portland, Billy of the Maine Whitmores awaited her return. She boarded his vehicle in pleasure, and, in relief that the journey by silver bird had proceeded uneventfully, said, "Well, I'm back."
I see why our boys love you so much! You are so awesome!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely comment! Thank you so much!
Delete