Driving California’s Twisty Highway 36: When the Road Takes Over
Driving California’s Twisty Highway 36: When the Road Takes Over
By: By a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
Dear Henry,
A few years ago, to mark the end of his U.S. Army service, two deployments to Afghanistan behind him, my oldest son decided he wanted to do something simple and enormous at the same time.
He wanted to drive across the country.
Fish began the journey on his motorcycle, riding from Denver to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. From there, he and my eldest son rode their bikes south to Savannah to visit our middle son, who was stationed at Fort Stewart at the time. Then they turned west, carrying themselves and their stories all the way to Denver, Colorado.
A few months later, I joined him to finish the journey by car, driving from Denver to Redwood National Park in California.
It was a strange trip for me. My health had just forced me into retirement, and I was still learning what my body could and could not do. For the first time, I wasn’t the capable adult in the room. I was the fragile one. The one who needed rest. The one who needed help.
The route itself did not offer mercy. Two particularly brutal stretches came back-to-back: Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway and California Highway 36. Long, isolated miles. Sparse radio. No cell service. Roads that demand attention and stamina, with no easy way out once you commit to them.
Highway 36 is where everything finally caught up with me.
The road is narrow and relentlessly twisty, and somewhere along the way, my body gave up entirely. I became violently carsick—gratefully in a rental—and my son took over without hesitation. He drove those miles while I did my best to survive them. When we finally reached camp, he pitched the tent, cooked dinner, and made sure I was settled, all while pretending this was no big deal at all.
That was the moment the roles truly shifted.
I thought of a line from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry:
Receiving help from my son was harder than any road we traveled. But it was also one of the most important lessons of the trip. Letting go of the idea that strength always looks like independence. Learning that sometimes love shows up as quiet competence, offered without drama.
That journey, across deserts, mountains, nausea, and humility, is one we will talk about forever.
Unfortunately, we seem to talk about vomiting more than about Yosemite or the redwoods.
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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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