You never know what you’ll see

9/19/2006

“I'd like to dream my troubles all away on a bed of California stars; jump up from my starbed, make another day, underneath my California stars.”


— “California Stars” words by Woody Guthrie


You never know what you might see on a good road trip. Travel far enough, and look long enough, and you just might see some things you never imagined—and that is precisely what makes a good road trip so good, and well worth the effort.


In the past month, the road took me across Canada, down through California, and back home across the United States. Three weeks and more than 11,000 kilometres later, I managed to see a whole new batch of interesting things, and meet a whole new batch of interesting people.


On a lake north of Thunder Bay, I watched a float plane touch down in the shallows not far from camp. Having a friend stop by for a beer is nothing new. Having that friend stop over in his airplane, have a drink, and then take off again, certainly is.


Across an all-night stretch of Saskatchewan prairie, I watched the Northern Lights glow an eerie green over the wheat fields. Anyone who has pulled straw bales off a dry field can imagine the prairies at harvest, except the field goes on for 16 hours.


In Calgary, I found a city that shines like a new dime, with buildings springing up in all directions, seemingly overnight. The west is booming, and the locals are proud. Cowtown loves its growth spurt, so long as you don’t notice the high cost of living.


Outside Revelstoke, B.C., I watched a forest fire rage behind a massive statue of Smokey the Bear, as if Ol’ Smokey had turned his back on the very duties he was entrusted to uphold all these years.


In California’s central valley, the crop of the day appears to be plywood. As the Golden State’s population continues to explode, new homes are springing up like weeds. California’s finest farmland is being bought up and fenced up, forever transforming town after town, from Chico to Chowchilla.


After driving all night through the Nevada desert, it wasn’t hard to see why they tested atomic bombs there. There isn’t much filling the Great Basin, and the nuclear fallout didn’t create too many mutations, unless you count all the casinos.


Breakfast in the Rainbow casino in Wendover consisted of four double screwdrivers. It was breakfast after all, and I needed the orange juice. The Rainbow is a full-out assault on the senses at any time, but nothing three 7 a.m. sevens can’t fix.


At a gas station in Salt Lake City, I asked if folks from California are Californians, then what are people from Utah called? “Uh, Mormons,” he said.


The conversation was just as sparkling through Iowa, Wyoming and Nebraska; but you won’t hear me complain. I love the road—and the road home.