Cruisin'

Inyo County, California, has a handful of highways; 6, 168, 136, 190, and the main road of 395. Highway 395 through Inyo County is a scenic route, skirting along the east side of the Sierra Nevadas, through high desert, rolling hills, grassy fields, and sleepy small towns, and it's easy to stare out into the scenery and take it all in. Traffic isn't heavy on any of the roads in the county most of the time, and there are occasions where even the busiest of the roads have no cars driving on it for hours at a time. Growing up in the town of Independence meant watching cars lazily drive through the lazy small towns, and learning to drive meant braving the tamest roads in the thinnest traffic imaginable.

Fast forward to last weekend. It'd been awhile since I'd been in Los Angeles traffic, but I remembered what kind of a challenge trudging through that maze can be. The entirety of Southern California is a jumbled web of major freeways and perpetual road construction, and anyone that has to navigate it can tell you it's a pain in the ass the majority of the time. I drove 640 miles collectively last weekend, a fair chunk of it through Los Angeles and San Diego, and while zipping by concrete dividing walls, road debris, and people who suddenly decided they didn't know how to drive, all while trying to find the right exits to take and lanes to be in on a part of the map I'd never been on before, I was tense. Anxious. Feeling alive.

I really enjoy driving.

Freeways, dark desert highways, and back roads appeal to me because they can take me places. Even if where I end up isn't the most ideal (like the time I ended up lost and in a rough neighborhood in Oakland on accident) I occasionally find myself surprised and pleased with what I see (like the time I ended up lost and found myself in Santa Cruz on Highway 1 the day after I ended up in Oakland). Watching the scenery change, the miles roll on, and finding myself somewhere else is like hiking-- but quicker, over greater distances, and with a better stereo system. It's not a means of reconnecting with nature and the world like hiking is, sure, but there is a connection with something within the self that comes from driving solo for hundreds of miles.

Combine long solo road trips with long solo hikes and I flip out with happiness.

However, the weekend trip I took was just driving, but it did take me to a lot of places. I started out in my quiet town, then through the desert, then through mountains into the Los Angeles basin, then through rolling hills and to the coast. I woke up in my modest apartment in a small town, and spent the evening out on the town in downtown San Diego. By the next evening I was back in my modest apartment after going a different route than I'd originally taken. I spent a bit over 11 hours behind the wheel, keeping myself company, watching the lines on the highway roll on by and the traffic thicken and thin.

It had been awhile since I'd last driven somewhere I'd never been before. I'm glad I did.

I want to do it again soon.