"Which hotel are we headed for? I'm not all that familiar with San Francisco," confessed Monty as they rolled out the parking lot gate onto the street.
"I'm staying at the Marriott, because that's where the training class is being held, and it's right downtown," replied Laura.
"That one I do know. It's quite a landmark with that great Art Deco design. Is that place as impressive inside as it is outside?" asked Monty.
"Well, it certainly is a rather fancy hotel, but my room is quiet and comfortable, which is what I mainly look for when I'm traveling on business," replied Laura. She couldn't help a slight flush rising to her cheeks when the mention of her room brought a sudden thought of its queen-sized bed, and this very attractive man sitting beside her on the pickup's bench seat. Fortunately for her, Monty was too busy coping with the night's traffic on the Bayshore freeway to notice.
While Monty was more used to driving on roads with two narrow lanes than on freeways with four or five lanes in each direction, he was having no problems coping with the traffic. In fact, Laura thought she had never driven with such a good driver. He had always loved driving since he started operating a tractor on the ranch when he was 10 years old, and considered it a skill to be executed using all his knowledge, abilities, and all his attention. For one who was used to scanning several hundred head of moving cattle, and maneuvering among and around them on his horse, it was familiar work dealing with the flow of hundreds of vehicles. And his modified Chevy was as responsive as his horse Buck, as Laura noticed when he tapped the accelerator. She was a good driver herself, and she noticed how he anticipated situations and either courteously gave another driver a break, or used the truck's power to quickly move to a better spot in the flow of traffic. Her appreciation of this man was growing as the miles passed.
Monty concentrated on his driving, which kept him from enjoying the view in his passenger seat, much as he would have preferred to be looking at her instead of the traffic. Their conversation on the 20-minute trip was confined to comments about some of the more memorable events they'd seen at the Grand National, and exclamations over the beautiful nighttime scenes which unfolded as they drove north. First was the vista to the East, with the string of lights from the cities along the eastern coast of the broad expanse of dark San Francisco Bay. When they rounded the bend at Hospital Curve and the magnificent display of the downtown high-rise skyline, the Bay Bridge, Oakland and the East Bay cities, was laid out before them, Laura gasped in astonishment. She had only seen the city from the air when she arrived, and the taxi to the Cow Palace had taken a different route out of the city, so this was her first view of this spectacular night scene.