Chapter 15

the sound: America – Ventura Highway, Barbara Streisand – The Way We Were, ABBA – Waterloo, Three Degrees – When Will I See You Again, Grand Funk Railroad – Heartbreaker, Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody, Chicago – Just You n Me, Argent – Hold Your Head Up, Rory Gallagher – Messing With the Kid, Loggins and Messina – House at Pooh Corner, Jim Croce – Operator

Conversation and laughter comes to a stand still as we drive along the side of the house and round to the back past the old white wooden 3 car garage with it’s almost French style doors. Sun flits through the leaves in the trees and I feel like I’m in a movie…a “B” flick.

As we pass the garage I begin to wonder again just where the hell we are going. We pass a huge garden, rows and rows of vegetables and flowers and I have a quick thought….“how civilized”.

Once we are completely past the garden we come to a large double wide, white, wooden gate between two very old stone palisades. Boomer hops out of the car to walk once again and walks ahead, pulling out a key ring and unlocking the padlock to open the gates.

We drive through the gates and Boomer closes and locks them behind us. He jumps back into the car and we descend down a long winding, rutted, dirt and grass road into a small valley. I turn around and look behind us and I can no longer see the house for the trees and the hillside and I begin to get that feeling in the pit of my stomach again.

“We must be getting somewhere”, I think, as I begin to hear the strains of music. We continue forward and the music gets louder and louder. It has to be loud to be heard over the roar of engines.

Lots and lots of engines and music getting louder and louder.

We break through the trees at the end of the dirt road and I am at once assaulted with sights and sounds.