Saturday, 22 May 2010

On the road again

We’ve hit San Francisco now, having spent much of the last three days on the road. Since leaving LA, M & I have gone up Highway 1 up to Monterey, crossed the state to Yosemite and rolled into SF. We dropped the car off today with 1280 miles on the clock for six days, and I didn’t even crash once.

The places we managed to get to on the road have been the highlight of the trip so far: Highway 1 itself, especially around Big Sur, was beautiful; Hearst castle barking, yet brilliant; and getting to Yosemite, though a brutal drive on the way, was worth every minute (hour). We've also eaten well on the way. The food and wine in Cambria and Groveland (outside Yosemite) was exceptional, especially Cambria. 

For me, it's the first time I've really done a driving holiday; rare are the occasions that we venture out of the confines of cities and public transport normally (this is why I haven't read much this time, in contrast to my normal demolition of a book every few days, this time, I'm only on book two). But it makes sense in America, and it has helped me makes sense of the country as well. Firstly, it's so big. I feel like we drove for ages, but we never really got very far from a small number of centres. Secondly, transport is a major deal. We went to the Wells Fargo museum in LA, where the centrality of the railroad in the development of their fortune and American prosperity is rammed home to you. These have both contributed to a decentralised and local approach that is is marked contrast to the European. There are lots of reasons for this, but I think I needed to go see the other bits of America to get a sense of this, and it helped by listening to all their election broadcasts on the radio.

They were odd, but I loved the country and want to spend more time around it; for the first time, I can look back and say I wish we'd spent more time driving, more time in the country, and cut the cities a bit.

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