BAKERSFIELD, Calif. _ In May 1968, I took a road trip with my father to see Cesar E. Chavez and Bobby Kennedy speak in the Central Valley farm town of Delano. Chavez was fighting for civil rights for farmworkers. Kennedy was campaigning for president. Both were eloquent and moving.
On the drive back, my father detoured into Bakersfield. He had heard about a Basque restaurant that, like the country inns we loved in our home state of North Carolina, served family-style dinners.
It was not oversold. We had one of the best meals of our lives.
Chavez, Kennedy and my father are gone, but the Basque restaurants remain. This spring, I took another road trip _ solo, this time _ to find the place where we had eaten in 1968 and to check out other Basque restaurants.
I left Los Angeles midmorning on a Tuesday, hoping to meet two friends for the first Basque meal of the day. I had a little trepidation. To make the road trip more interesting, I borrowed from Toyota the hydrogen fuel cell Mirai, which was sleek, silent, powerful and had a range of 310 miles per tank.
As I left a hydrogen filling station in Hollywood, the gauge indicated the range as 238 miles. That was enough to get me to Bakersfield and back but barely, because there are no hydrogen stations there or on the route up or back. The Toyota folks insisted the car was good for 310 miles and said I shouldn't worry, so off I went.
I had driven an earlier model Mirai and found this newer version even quieter and more powerful. It drove and handled just like any midsize sedan. But for the pleasant silence, I soon forgot I was driving such a technologically advanced vehicle that was also filled with hydrogen fuel.
