I Believe in California
Fly Eagle Fly by the Marshall Tucker Band began playing on bluetooth speaker while I was doing the dishes. I was brought back to that mini SUV somewhere west past the Mississippi.
In April of 2021, my friends, Tom, Pat, and John, and I, drove from central Illinois to San Francisco, California. I don't remember whose idea the trip originally was but I remember they were all of the Yes Men to be found. We left campus for a week during the backend of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I remember seeing mountains for the first time halfway through Colorado. I was 20 years old and had never seen mountains before. I remember the feeling when we began to drive through them, in awe of their size, looking down at the valley rivers from the road, seeing the truck turnouts, and thinking about boulders rolling down from above. I have seen mountains far mightier since, but no feeling compares to that first time. It's like watching an incredible film and never getting that first watch feeling again.
Not long after crossing the California border from Nevada, I remember rolling green hills. There were cobblestone walls to keep cows from wandering into the road. The cows were grazing underneath apple trees.
Later, we stopped at a gas station. I remember the doors to the doors were open and Mexican men were chatting inside. I stood alone by the car while it was filling up. Behind me were houses in what I would call the 1970s West Coast Americana style. Across from me was the highway, and beyond the highway were vast fields of berry bushes. Taller bushes you couldn't necessarily see over, but they ran as far left and right as you could possibly see from that spot in the gas station.
Many of the things in California I had only seen in movies before.
Our own personal Kerouacian Fear and Loathing style fuckaround.
- great diner in Utah