My son once opined that explorers should always travel with a ship’s poet, the better to name the newly discovered.
Great Pond. Black Mountain. Rio Grande. No poet named those.
* * * * *
Planning a road trip into the Rockies had dragged my map mouse across several northern California highways unknown to me. Whim uppermost, I fixed on Route 36, a skipper above Lake Almanor, until three names bade me stop: Boiling Springs Lake, Drakesbad, and Dream Lake. The first brought me sulfurous thoughts; with the second, I heard oom-pah tubas; the last was reverie.
All three of these place names Continue reading “Boiling Springs Lake”