You Can’t Get There From Here

Route 166, Maricopa, California. As you head back the way you came, having realized Ojai’s the other way, you pass by a field of pump jacks and the Shell station again. Stop in quick for a bathroom break. God knows where the next bathroom is. An abandoned burger joint, a fruit cart. Heat rising excessively off the cracked central California pavement. Romeo and Juliet on the playlist. “You and me, babe. How ‘bout it?” Past the Bitter Creek turnoff, where you mistakenly turned right instead of left, thinking the Old Maricopa Highway was down the hill. No reception up here, no way to check your work. But now you’re back on track, bee lining for Highway 33 into Ojai. There’s a more or less permanent sign pitched by the side of the road. Road closed 20 miles ahead. We keep going for another couple of miles, hoping for humans to confirm or deny this unexpected roadblock. “How soon is now?” There are no humans in these parts, only us, driving. I pull over and bring up Maps, punching in Ojai as destination. Two and a half hours this way, two and a half hours that. Neither is the way we take for granted, the straight route down Hwy 33. I pull a U and head back the other direction, to the abandoned burger joint, the pump jacks, and the Shell. 5 South this way, 5 North that. When it’s this hot and the road’s washed out, make a 180 and change your plan.