I traveled to Yosemite to backpack with a few buddies.
We left from St. Louis August 15ish, 2017, and returned August 22ish, 2017. We drove 30 hours from STL to LA and back, taking the Southern route along Highway 44 at first, and returning on the northern route, Highway 80.
It’s hard to comprehend how boring and flat that 30 hours of driving was. The first day was roughly 15-ish hours past Tulsa, OK, Lubbock, TX, and into New Mexico. It was flat, open, hot. The second day was 15-ish hours across the deserts of New Mexico, past a fun stop at the Grand Canyon, onwards through Death Valley (heat over 120 deg, crazy shit), and into California.
Texas started getting real flat, real fast. And hot. It was the middle of August. We had all four windows down in the little faded gold sedan that was currently hurtling down the highway doing well over 90.
Three shirtless dirty-blonde haired boy-men shat shirtless, sweat soaking into tan cloth seats. The overwhelming noise of the wind was drowned out by miraculously powerful speakers blasting Rainbow Kitten Surpise and three off-key baritones belting passionately.
We kept flying.
Darkness crept in unoticed. Conversations started drifting to sleep, so we searched for a campsite. Unpacked, setup, middle of nowhere New Mexico.
It rained that night, but we debated well enough and flied down properly.
Onwards towards Arizona, desert growing and growing, flatness as far as the eye can see. Even I pushed a century with that gas-sipping four-pot and standard transmission.
LA started about 2 hours out, when I saw the first skyscraper in San Bernadino. The roads grew into 6 and 8 lane highways with overpasses scaling mountains. It was hard to believe.