[city] tenuous, at best
Jul. 6th, 2009 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sixquartersToday, I drove down the coast to Santa Cruz and back again. It's not the longest I've ever driven, or the longest I've ever driven on my own, or the longest I've ever driven on my own in this car -- but it might be the longest I've ever gone just for sheer pleasure. I spent most of my adolescence avoiding driving school with every hemp fiber of my earth-loving body. San Francisco has an excellent public transit system, I pointed out, accurately (although one which, due to its frequent bankruptcy, has just made my blog name obsolete by hiking the price to eight quarters.) It's cheaper, it's easier, it gives you a better sense of self-righteousness, and who wants to visit the boonies anyway?
Well, me, it turns out.
I tell you now, those faint of heart and fond of buses, they're not kidding, driving is a joy. Particularly with the right soundtrack. "O Valencia!" has gotten me in more near-crashes than the dark and my cell phone put together because when it comes on I always end up doing ninety, whichever lane I happen to be in. My car, which has steadily been collecting dents, rust, dirt, and coffee cups, puts up with all of this with good grace. I suppose I should clean it out or at least clean it off, but I'm holding out the hope that one day it'll molt and suddenly I'll have a Maserati.
I've driven up to Oregon before and I'll be driving down to Los Angeles at the end of the summer, which may go some way to scratching the itch that comes over me whenever I see signs for 80 to take it straight through to Chicago at least. California is weird. I mean, besides the fact that our state government appears to be held together with spit and denial and besides the fact that we contain both the Bay Area and Los Angeles, not to mention San Diego and Yosemite; I drove for an hour and a half today and saw nothing but California nor any sign of anything but California. You can't drive five minutes in Chicago without seeing a sign for Iowa, and it's not like Illinois is a little state. The effect produced is that of a massive island, kind of like the early maps, though on most islands you don't pass through three different climates in an hour and a half.
I think I would probably like New Zealand.
Well, me, it turns out.
I tell you now, those faint of heart and fond of buses, they're not kidding, driving is a joy. Particularly with the right soundtrack. "O Valencia!" has gotten me in more near-crashes than the dark and my cell phone put together because when it comes on I always end up doing ninety, whichever lane I happen to be in. My car, which has steadily been collecting dents, rust, dirt, and coffee cups, puts up with all of this with good grace. I suppose I should clean it out or at least clean it off, but I'm holding out the hope that one day it'll molt and suddenly I'll have a Maserati.
I've driven up to Oregon before and I'll be driving down to Los Angeles at the end of the summer, which may go some way to scratching the itch that comes over me whenever I see signs for 80 to take it straight through to Chicago at least. California is weird. I mean, besides the fact that our state government appears to be held together with spit and denial and besides the fact that we contain both the Bay Area and Los Angeles, not to mention San Diego and Yosemite; I drove for an hour and a half today and saw nothing but California nor any sign of anything but California. You can't drive five minutes in Chicago without seeing a sign for Iowa, and it's not like Illinois is a little state. The effect produced is that of a massive island, kind of like the early maps, though on most islands you don't pass through three different climates in an hour and a half.
I think I would probably like New Zealand.
TRUE.
Anyway, yes, California is weird. I do like shocking my European relatives with the size of our fair state though. I tell my German relatives that it takes like six hours to drive up to my university from So Cal, and they look all stunned and say, "We'd be in, like, SPAIN, by then." Okay, so Spain is an exaggeration, but you could go through a fair number of tiny European countries in the same amount of time.
StrangeMaps put up this wonderful map of distances from London by time, not length, and it's just wild to me. Everything in Europe is just a short hop away.
I am equally bewildered when I encounter signs directing me to "New York" when already in New York. I mean, they must mean New York City (which still isn't very specific; there are five counties in New York City) and directionally that's right, but ... I am in New York. I know that. New York is in all directions! Including up!
Also that half of the country over there that is full of BIG SPACES. It's completely pointless to play the out-of-state license plate game on the East Coast.
... You're right. Do kids on the East play it? Is it a lot more fun getting punched, like, every five minutes?
Heh, that's a funny story. I got to college, right, and I'm strolling down the street with my new friends, and I see a plate that's, oh, Pennsylvania, Maine, something that is not directly touching Massachusetts. I thwack the nearest friend on the arm, saying 'OUT OF STATE LICENSE PLATE!!' as you do, and all of them> stared at me like I'd grown another head. I think the majority of Northeasterners have never heard of it.
Further research tells me that in the somewhat larger states to the south, they have heard of this license-plate-spotting game, but are confused at the mere suggestion of bringing physical violence into it.
I play that game!!! I think it's because my parents took me on cross-country trips for ... most of my life, though, and so they taught it to me, but with the caveats that while still in our home state, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Vermont didn't count.