FROM UTAH TO CALIFORNIA We start early on a Sunday morning to catch up with Matthew, who is doing a precollege course at Stanford. My better half is at the wheel. I play the vital role of trip navigator. This role is not too taxing: the interstate from Salt Lake to San Francisco is straightaway all the way. One can only get lost by veering off onto the shoulder. Two hundred years ago, this area was marked on maps as The Great American Desert. The Bonneville Flats benefit from the light rainfall, but we see almost no farming before California. The Donner Party died in the pass that bears their name, perishing on their way to the paradise which would be California. In Utah and Nevada, there is mostly brush; just before California, we start seeing stands of conifers climbing up the slopes. The interstate was laid down in the ‘50s, before people knew about highway hypnosis. It is mostly straight away. To keep awake, I buy one of the audiobooks on sale at the truck stops. It is Jack Schaefer’s ‘Company of Cowards,’ a fine Civil War novel set in the Southwest. There are few billboards before California, and the trucks outnumber the passenger cars. The speed limits are honored more in the breach than in the observance. We see no accidents, just a few tire tracks lying on the shoulder, probably from recapped tires. Wishing to avoid Reno, we stop at a Best Western just short of town. Remarkably, we flip on the TV to Donizetti’s ‘Maria Stuarda.’ Stranger things have happened. The next morning, we stop for fast food, and find ourselves surrounded by one armed bandits. I ask the proprietor if there is any place in Nevada without gambling. ‘Walmart,’ he says laconically. It seems that Walmart management is not keen on gambling. Before California, we are driving on four lanes of divided highway. Between Sacramento and San Francisco, it is up to 12 lanes divided. California has 38 million people, and growing. You don’t have to be an IT specialist, a Scientologist, or a Mexican to get to California. In fact, the whole world seems to be moving there. Governor Brown, high in his ratings and heading for re-election, is the unlikely mediator among the dozens of contending factions. It’s as if we crossed an international border between Nevada and California. From one of the nation’s most sparsely populated states (34 people per square kilometer) to the nation’s most populous. All those facilities, 100 channels of cable, no quiet. Should we go back?
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 16:25:11 +0000
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