"Moving Van" and "Otto Parts" - Part One of Two

In 1989, oh so long ago, I went on a road trip with a friend Van. I knew him from a Church singles group, he is now married and has four kids. Our first Stop was Crater Lake, Oregon.

Then Reno .

Then around Lake Tahoe.

We saw the Ghost town of Bodie, CA.

On the Fourth of July we ended up in the little town of Lee Vining (population 488). This town is sandwiched between Mono Lake and the east entrance to Yosemite National Park (see map above). This town has only two roads, Highway 395 and a parallel, two block long, residential street.

On the fifth of July we would be going through Yosemite and then on to my relatives in San Jose, while Van visited a friend of ours that worked at Mt Hermon Christian Conference Center near Santa Cruz, CA.

The whole reason I am telling you this travel log is this holiday afternoon we had time to kill. We decided to throw a Frisbee to each other on this small towns residential street.

We were throwing it back and forth to each other, neither of us knew how to do fancy throws or catches. and having an OK time. It was kind of hard for I thought, "everyone else back home is celebrating this holiday with picnics while we were filling our time throwing a Frisbee in a rural town in east central California.

Four small local boys, aged 5, 4, 3 & 2, were watching what were doing and somehow what we were doing appeared to be more interesting than what they were doing. Finally the five year old, Jose, asked if we would throw it to them.

None of them had ever thrown a Frisbee before and we began attempting to teach them. We would say "Jose throw it to Roberto", or "Julian throw it to Juan", etc.

They had a lot of trouble with this new toy, their past ball throwing motions made this disc throwing action difficult. Actually the two year old, Juan, was the best thrower.

We threw the Frisbee around with them for a about a half hour when Jose asked us what our names were. I responded, "This is Van and my name is Otto". They started laughing so hard that they couldn't remain standing. They rolled around in the street laughing so hard that they couldn't control their tears. They decided to call us Moving Van and Otto Parts.

We finally got back to throwing the Frisbee and they had the greatest time saying, "Roberto, throw it to Moving Van", "Otto Parts throw it to Julian", "Moving Van throw it to Juan" or "Jose throw it to Otto Parts". They would all laugh every time they tossed the Frisbee.

Our hands were getting worn out from this throwing motion, our fingers were red, puffy and sore. We didn't care for it was so amazing for us to interact with these kids that couldn't stop laughing and giggling. Both Van and I had smiles on our faces as we threw the Frisbee around.

All good things must come to an end and finally their parents came out and told them they were going to be going into the big city of Bridgeport to watch the fireworks that evening. As they drove off they yelled out the windows, "Good bye Moving Van and Otto Parts".

We were disappointed that the boys had to leave, it was no longer fun just throwing between the two of us. We soon ended our game.

We had a wonderful trip but what we most remember was the Frisbee tosses with the four kids in Lee Vining that called us "Moving Van" and "Otto Parts".