from him : stories of the road trip ( the cities getting smaller as the spaces between them got bigger ; the cheap motels and fast food restaurants ; the endless cornfields and far-flung skies ; him and his dad and the ribbon of highway and a good song on the radio ) , and of tahoe ( the blue lake and the ring of mountains ; the tiny apartment and the restaurant below ; the luckless job search ; the short and unremarkable stint at a school there ) ; and , finally , of san francisco ( where things might be different ) .