Over the next month, Maite confirmed with the group at Berkeley the logistics for her interview. The interview was scheduled for the beginning of the trip so that Maite didn’t have that hanging over her the rest of their vacation.
“What do you think?” Kepa asked after taking a sip of his coffee. They sat tucked in the back corner of a tavern in Bilbao, Kepa having come out to talk about their trip during one of Maite’s breaks from class. A map of California was splayed across the table and Kepa’s got a pen in hand. “We can start in Berkeley, swing out to San Francisco for a few days…”
“See Alcatraz!” interjected Maite.
Kepa nods, a big smile on his face as his pen circles San Francisco. “See Alcatraz and then drive along the ocean south towards Los Angeles. My cousin lives in Santa Barbara, so we could spend a couple of days there and check out the area.”
Buber’s Basque Story is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!
Maite nodded. “Then on to Los Angeles for a few days…”
“I wonder if we will see any movie stars?” asked Kepa.
“Oh, I’m sure,” replied Maite. “I think Brad Pitt and Scarlett Johansson are always just walking down Sunset Boulevard, ready to get their picture taken with every tourist that comes along.”
“I know they don’t do that! But, maybe someone like Jon Hamm or January Jones…”
“Are you still obsessed with Mad Men?” asked Maite.
“It gets boring in that baserri. It’s better than ama’s telenovelas!”
Maite just shook her head, suppressing a smile as she looked at the map. “From there, we could swing over to Las Vegas and then to the Grand Canyon. What do you think? Or should we go there first and end in Los Angeles so we can fly home from there?”
“Good question,” replied Kepa as he pulled out his phone. After a few moments, he passed it to Maite. “There are no direct flights from either Los Angeles or Phoenix, so I’m not sure it matters much, but there are fewer stops if we fly out of Los Angeles.”
“If we do any real hiking around the Grand Canyon…” started Maite.
“It’s going to be bloody hot!” interrupts Kepa. “Not sure how much hiking we will want to do.”
“We can’t go and not hike at all!”
“Fair enough. But, then it makes sense to fly out of Los Angeles so we have a little time to rest and recover from hiking before getting on a plane.”
“Deal,” said Kepa, as they continued to examine the map and discuss other places they might see.
