February 22, 2013
To Sylmar
The morning finds me turning left and right and left and right as the interstate snakes up the side of a mountain and then back down. The hills look soft from their blanket of trees and patches of snow run along their upper ridges. Farther on the hills slope gently down toward red-brown shores that dive beneath the surface of the green-tinted waters of Lake Shasta.
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Within an hour the mountains give way to rolling hills dotted with wiry, leafless trees and cattle in a dozen shades of brown. Soon the features of the landscape drop away altogether and leave me to look out at the unending flat of California's Central Valley. I look for something — anything — to break up the monotony of driving hour after hour after hour. The best I can do are the signs for the exit to Balls Ferry Road, the old guy in the late model sedan who wears black leather driving gloves without irony, and the Tower Mart in Lathrop that has a crashed UFO sticking out of its roof. I also try to figure out how much you have to lie, how many people you have to screw over, and how many dishonorable things you have to do in order to have a bridge or an overpass or a section of freeway named after you.
I end up in a cheap motel at the northern end of the San Fernando Valley, not far from Los Angeles. I crash right away. I'm tired — tired of driving, tired of motels, tired of feeling tired all day long. And I still have the nagging feeling that the trip I'm about to start won't be as fun or interesting or memorable as the one I took two years ago. Then I realize that I have to wake up in six hours and drive some more. I click off the light and let the dull moan of the adjacent freeway guide me to sleep.
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