The first time I visited Lodi was out of curiosity. The second time, though, was for better reasons, for old vines and wine.
When I find myself in California, maybe every two or three years or so, I like to ramble. That first time was a healing journey after my little sister died in a car crash. My cousin, a fellow Georgia girl who was a traveling nurse, at the time lived in Sacramento, so off I went clear across the country to spend time with her. She always made me laugh, and laughter was definitely what I needed.
Deloras and I struck out of Sacramento along Highway 99 to Lodi, about a half-hour’s drive south from California’s capital. It was spring, and the one memory from that trip that rises above others is the untold numbers of fruit and nut trees in bloom, a riot of pastel blossoms in bursts of soft pink, light lavender and pure white. Lodi’s elevation is only 50 feet, and orchards line the nearly flat two-lane country roads like sentries, rows and rows of peaches and plums and cherries and apricots. Until then, I had never seen an almond tree, its gnarled limbs reminding me of our plum trees back in Georgia.
