Chapter 15

Apparently the middle two years of high school were for exploration. Danielle found that out when her class was told it was time for a field trip.

"What is this?" she asked her cousin when she got home.

"Oh, that. I'm surprised you haven't had one yet. The school takes you on a field trip and you get to see some of the things you could do after school."

"Oh. Like college?"

"Not so much that. College means a lot more studying. No, this takes you to places outside of the immediate area." She took the paper and studied it. "Ah, you're going to Westport."

"Westport? Where's that?"

"On the west coast way up north of here. We went there a couple of months ago. There's a lot of stuff to see, and if you get at all interested in doing stuff with the sea, that's where you'd go."

"What about if I don't want to?"

"Oh, you're supposed to go, it's just a day out of regular classes, that's all. The school sort of has a policy of showing you these things, but you don't have to go any farther than that. Leading a horse to water and all that."

Danielle mulled that over in silence. "Where else do you go?"

"Well, last week we went to Center, that was fun. They showed us the legislature, and the police, and a couple of other things. We drove past the University, but that was all. Next week we're going to some place over the mountains. I don't know what's there, but it should be interesting."

Danielle could sort of see the logic in all of it. And if nothing else, they got out of a day of regular class.

"I'm surprised they can get it all done in one day." She remembered a trip to Sacramento that had taken two days.

"They use the gates, so you get there in a heartbeat. Have fun. I know I'll never do anything at sea, but it was interesting to see. It's very likely you'll never get back to some of these places, so you should keep that in mind, too."

Put that way, she began to look forward to the trip. And that meant dressing warmly on the actual day.

Fiona, of course, didn't want to dress warmly. She thought she was over-dressed anyway, but Danielle put her foot down.

"I know what it's like to be some place cold. Look, you don't have to wear them, but bring along some tights, and you'll probably need a jacket and a sweater."

"I don't have a sweater or tights."

Danielle smiled. "Shopping trip!"

"Do we have to?"

"Do you want to freeze?"

"It can't be that bad."

"It probably isn't, but why take the chance. The teacher's been there, and she says dress warmly. I'd believe her if I were you."

Taking Fiona shopping for clothes was like walking through mud: one painful step at a time. The girl had no sense of style or fit, and Danielle found herself giving her friend a crash course in the subject in the middle of the store.

"Look, Fi, I know this. You're good at math, way better than me. I'm way more experienced at this sort of thing than you are, and besides, I find it fun."

"You should probably go into clothes design or something," Fiona muttered.

"Maybe I will. In the meantime, you'll need at least two pairs of tights."

"Why do they call it a pair if there's only one garment?"

"Tradition. Now what were you planning on wearing tomorrow?"

"Whatever is at the front of my closet."

"Oh-kay. Look, wear your red dress. It's about the shade of these tights. Now you could also do white, that goes with most anything, and there's also black, though I think white is more universal..."

The sweater was even harder. Fiona still didn't like wearing a bra, and that meant she really didn't display many curves, at least when she was dressed. Fortunately a sweater was forgiving. Danielle decided dressing her friend in a tight sweater would totally escape the whole point of showing off. Instead she went for bulky and warm.

"Does it have to be so big?" Fiona asked.

"What, you want something that flatters your figure?"

"Of course not. But this seems awfully big."

"let me explain the theory here," Danielle said. "All of this bulk traps air next to your skin. That keeps it the same temperature as your body. That keeps you warmer."

"Oh. I didn't realize that."

"See, some clothes are worn because there's a purpose behind it other than simply covering you."

Fiona nodded, her eyes wide. "I should probably get more than one in case one gets dirty."

"Good idea," Danielle said, nodding.

Fiona went through the racks of sweaters carefully, and actually paid some attention to fit and color. In the end she got three sweaters, one red, one white, and one green. All three went well with her hair and complexion, and all three fit pretty well.

"Congratulations," Danielle said as they walked home. "You have just successfully gone clothes shopping."

"They make sense in some cases," Fiona admitted. "It's not like I'll wear them very often, but it's nice to have them just in case."

Danielle smiled. She felt it was a victory, and decided not to spoil it with even the tiniest hint of a gloat.

"Tell you what. We should do some shoe shopping. I don't know about you, but my feet can get so cold, and if the shoes don't fit my feet are in agony."

"Yeah, sandals don't strike me as very comfortable if it's cold out."

In the end they needed the extra layers. It was a blustery day in Westport. Danielle had thought it would be where San Francisco was on the other side of the gates, and there was a town there, but Westport was farther south, about where Ventura was. She'd found it on the map, and asked about Los Angeles and San Diego.

"The northern one, what you call Los Angeles, doesn't have a harbor. That other place does, but it isn't very big. Westport has a river right there, and ships can anchor there out of the bulk of the weather.

"What about farther north?" She put her finger on where San Francisco Bay was. "That looks good.

"They get ice choked from time to time, and the weather sweeps down that valley and makes a mess of things. You don't want to be that close to the ice sheet."

She'd never thought of the Central Valley of California as being effected by the ice sheet, but when she looked at a second map, it was. She'd thought the glaciers had stopped well to the north, but apparently not.

"It doesn't look like there are too many glaciers in the area."

"There aren't, but there's a lot of volcanic activity. That keeps the glaciers at bay. But an independent glacier grew down the valley there. That makes a mess of things."

Danielle remembered something about Mt. Lassen, but other volcanoes? She sort of remembered Mt. St. Helens, and weren't there supposed to be other volcanoes in the area? She couldn't remember; she'd never paid that much attention to geography.

Westport was in a big open area with some hills to the north and east. The town itself was tucked up against those hills, right where the river cut a channel, and stretched for several miles. From what she'd read, the area grew a lot of crops, but mostly grazed horses. Apparently there weren't that many crops that did so well in a very changeable climate. There were some islands to the south, what she'd seen on a map as the Channel Islands. They protected against a lot of the weather, and helped make this a pretty good anchorage for shpping.