Tracey says “So, what’s the highlight of today?”

20 MPH is the answer. As we drive along the secondary roads with not an interstate in sight, I am reminded of what 55mph feels like. It feels like looking around, it feels like exploring, it feels like you can relax, it removes some of the pressure of being so ‘on your toes’, it feels like traveling should.

We tend to approach a road trip with a ‘need to get somewhere’ attitude. The Ural removes that need. We zip off to a side road just because it looks groovy. We stop in small towns and interact with the locals. We never feel pressured by the traffic around us. We don’t feel  the superslab  forcing us to continue.

Although we have traveled to the Los Angeles area many times by road before, somehow this is dramatically different – we are seeing something. Our journey takes us through the ‘going to the sun’ highway then Lolo pass in Southern Montana. A full day is spent going through Oregon and northern California on a great road through a river valley – no tunnels, no bridges, no huge excavations to make the road easier. We are seeing something.

From Reno we  head into the high desert and the eastern Sierras – climbing to a little over 8000 feet before plunging back down, only to do it all over again. We are seeing something. We climb into a high meadow to a village called Johannesburg – joking all the while that it must be a an alien processing site, it is a bizarre place with a bizarre collection of bizarre people and their bizarre things.

Boron, California houses an incredible solar power project, with thousands of mirrors reflecting the sun to a central tower. It is a dramatic contrast to the scrub-land around it. We are seeing something.

The difference 20 mph makes?  We are seeing something.

Get out and pootle – you won’t be disappointed.

Cheers,

Miles