This isn’t the road trip story I was planning on telling you. But it is what’s most on my mind today. It all starts on a bright July Sunday morning when I leave Lake County to visit my daughter, who lives in Sonora, California. First stop, Frog Legs.
Okay, okay, okay; it may not be the name of the restaurant, but it’s what I call this biker bar and restaurant because it is the only place I know of that has frog legs on its menu, so it seems a fitting spot to meet my daughter for lunch on my way to her home in Sonora, California–gateway to Yosemite National Park and epic skiing. It is the perfect resting spot for such adventuring. But even as we begin the visit, I am already mentally writing an article to tell you about how charming Sonora is, with a story of its historic downtown and a living, breathing state park/Wild West town.
But first, lunch! If you leave Clearlake Oaks, oh, about 9 am, you will reach Lagorio’s Grill & Bar just outside Stockton on Highway 4 at noon, with a rest stop included. And if you don’t stop, it will still make you turn your head with its bright red paint, motorcycles parked out front, and door plastered with stickers. It’s iconic, tempting, and an itch you just have to scratch if you drive by it enough times. Today’s the day; I smile when I pull off the road and score a parking spot directly outside the bar. Emma, my oldest, has just arrived as well, and it is a happy reunion when we finally greet and open the doors to our destination.
It’s a local’s bar for sure; you can tell. But I also get the feeling it’s everyone’s bar when we step inside, and a friendly face greets us and tells us to seat ourselves. The building feels like it must be 110 years old, but one can’t tell for sure, because every square inch of the walls, pillars, tables, bar, and even ceiling is covered in $1 bills, almost all decorated with initials, weird art, and messages to be remembered. It’s a little overwhelming, like trying to appreciate too many tattoos on someone’s arm without looking like you are staring.
“What can I get for you?” the waitress smiles as she nears our table.
“We’ll have your frog legs and grilled oysters,” I confidently reply.
“Really? Frog legs? You really want frog legs?” Surprise–almost like, I didn’t think you were the type to order frog legs–is printed on her face.
I smiled reassuringly, “I’ve never had frog legs, and it’s one of the reasons we are here!”
“Okay,” she shrugs, taking our order to the kitchen.
I hand my daughter a dollar bill to draw on while we chat about our summer, the things we’ve done and didn’t do, and what we will do together on this road trip. It’s the happy feeling that the best is yet to come when the frog legs and grilled oysters arrive.
I have never had grilled oysters before. I guess in the recent amount of time that I’ve actually eaten oysters, I went hardcore and have always had them raw. Now, without a lot of experience to compare them to, I have to say, whatever Lagorio’s does, it seems exceptional. They are grilled to perfection, still soft, full of flavor, and just the right firmness. The housemade hot sauce is the frosting on the cake and, quite frankly, the only way to eat them. Not at all spicy, but bursting with flavor, it brightens the earthiness of the oysters. In seconds, they are slurped up and gone, leaving only what must remain.
Now for the frog legs. Will they be stringy or chewy? Will they taste swampy or fresh? While looking on at two humble frog legs resting in their cardboard boat bowl, I wonder. Hmmm. First bite tastes exactly like chicken. Second bite tastes exactly like chicken. My goodness, I was hoping to tell a better story than this. So much for the lore! In the end, the real reason for my inevitable future return will be to enjoy the grilled oysters.
Sonora is still an hour drive, so we make our way back to our cars. A few more agricultural fields wave their goodbye and are replaced by rolling grasslands and cattle pastures. I grip the wheel with both hands, remembering this stretch of the drive is where others on the road often forget they are no longer on the freeway and get impatient with the frequent slow drivers and the all-too-common farm truck belching exhaust, driving with three bald tires and one spare. I understand their impatience. If I were to critique my own driving, I would call myself confident, not reckless, but deserving more speeding tickets on my driving record than it shows. However, I do honor the double yellow lines and quietly nod at the CHP sign on the side of the highway that reads, “Slow Down. Arrive Alive.” I quite agree and settle in, taking in the view of the nearing Sierras, and happily arrive in Sonora in one piece.
My daughter and I are well settled at her dining room table in Sonora, planning in more detail what we will do over the next two days, when her phone gets an alert. She glances at it and says, laughingly, “Oh, there’s a fire right at the exit we just took. Good thing we got here when we did!”
More alerts come in with road closures and the inevitable handful of mandatory evacuations near the epicenter, when I mention it’s probably time I check into my hotel room. I step outside and see a billowing gray cloud emerging from the ground to greet me; only a small hill is between where I stand and the obvious growing fire. The daylight glows golden orange and reflects on my own bare arm, telling of foreboding danger while sirens blare from first responders’ vehicles coming into town. Hurried travelers are leaving while pedestrians scurry to safety. I pause, looking into the sky, seeing planes circling above me in formation.
I turn around and head back into my daughter’s house. “Hey, Emma, I think I’m going to hang out with you for a while. That fire is much closer than I thought and a whole lot bigger, too.” She peeks out the door and agrees with my assessment. Now we are both on our phones as we watch the number of acres burning go from forty to sixty and still growing. More mandatory evacuations are underway, and notifications come in like spam from an unwanted friend’s texts.
“Hey, Emma, how ready are you for an evacuation?” I probe.
“Oh, my car is already packed for fire season with all my essentials.”
I am pleased to know she is as ready as we had taught her to be. “Yeah, that’s good, but what other things do you think you might want to have with you just in case?” I calmly ask.
She takes a minute to rummage through the house before there is a knock on the door. There are times when you want to see the sheriff, and there are times you really don’t want to see the sheriff. This is one of those times we did not want to see the sheriff, as he tells us, “You have to leave now. Right now.” As a way to emphasize his words, the power goes off. Needless to say, he did not have to ask us twice. I grab her garbage to throw out, she grabs a few more essentials, and just like that, our plans have changed for the day and foreseeable future. We’re heading home to Lake County until this passes.
Leaving an evacuation zone is not really much fun at all. For one thing, every driver around you is stressed and not always driving their best. Slow is the name of the game, I tell myself. And with all the road closures, the escape route can change over and over again. Three attempted routes later, we are on our way out of town when I see a Suburban pulled over on the far side of the road. It catches my eye because at first glance, it looks like a tacky paint job until I see the Pepto-Bismol pink “paint” covering all of its windows and being wiped away from its front windshield with its wipers. I realize it was just plastered with fire retardant. Talk about a close call for whoever is driving that vehicle!
The further out of town we get, the calmer the driving gets and the less erratic it feels. And in time, we are back on Highway 4, the same Highway we were on only a few hours ago when leaving the frog leg restaurant and bar. Once we hit I-5, all of this will be well behind us. I sigh and feel myself start to let down. And then the least expected thing happens.
To be continued . . . .
