Hwy 23

Grimes Canyon Rd, just south of Fillmore CA.

Seems a might bit specific I’m sure. But there’s no exact address because the area is full of citrus trees. Acres upon acres of citrus trees. Between February and April the tangerine trees bloom. The scent was intoxicating and I could have spent hours parked alongside the road. I chased that scent for decades. My favorite cologne was/is 4711 by Muelhens. And even though most of my scent memory has faded, the smell of orange blossoms has not been forgotten. I would drive along that road every year during spring break. It was the shortest route from where I grew up in Thousand Oaks to Valencia and Magic Mountain Amusement Park.

The scent it beckons still.

Filling my memory with the heavy, soft, dense blanket of fragrant flowers in bloom.

We rolled down the car windows and caught a taste of air too sweet to exist along that black ribbon of road.

Time stopped just for a moment under those towering Eucalyptus trees.

Leathery leaves rattled.

The morning fog was blowing away, as the rising sun’s warmth raised a breeze.

A few last drops of dew sparkled on waxy white petals alongside sticky beads of nectar.

The warming air rose towards the sun, lifting the perfume away from the trees, a most unsubtle come hither for the first morning bees.

The road called me back again each year. If only to visit and hold the scent in my heart for another year.

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