It was 1968 or 1969 and we still had the red Dodge Coronet. Mom's brother Dean had passed away and she needed to go to Washington state and settle some things. That part I don't remember too much since I wasn't directly involved. The trip was fun for me since it was just Mom and myself. I'm sure she was feeling a bit different but she didn't show it.
We drove through what was then the highest highway pass in the lower 48. Maybe it still is I'm not sure. Wolf Creek Pass in Colorado was over 10000 feet high. A small two lane highway then. Now they have cut through the mountain and I think it is lower in elevation. But that night we had to pass a section about 100 feet or so long that was a single lane. The outside lane was gone. Washed away in a recent storm. It was kind of scary since it was at night and you could not see just how far down the slope was and if part could go away what was stopping the other half from giving out. But we made it through when it was our turn and continued to Kennewick, Washington.
The other memory of this trip happened at her brother's home. I had discovered a jar of canned cherries. Homemade canned and really tasty. I ate the entire quart jar when Mom happened to notice there were no seeds left over.
"Where are the seeds?" she asked me.
What seeds. I replied looking kind of surprised at such a ridiculous question.
"The seeds from the cherries, where have you left them?"
It was at that point I realized I had been swallowing them whole. Seeds and all. They were so sweet and delicious I never stopped to even think of a seed. Oh I paid for it the next morning in the form of some stomach pain. But I still think even after 42 years have passed, those were the sweetest, most delicious cherries I have ever had.
Ask me anything else about that trip and I won't remember anything else but I do remember these moments. They have managed to freeze a small bit of the part of my brain containing memories and they are still as sweet as they were in 1968.
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